News of the Day

Wisconsin Republicans Votes to Scrap Governor’s Budget Proposals

Posted on May 10, 2019 by

The Republican-controlled Wisconsin budget committee voted along party lines Thursday to remove many of Gov. Tony Evers’ most significant proposals from his state budget. Removal kills them for now, but they could be added back later or passed as separate legislation.

Here’s what the proposals deleted from the budget would do:

— Expand Medicaid to cover an estimated 82,000 more poor people as part of a plan that would leverage additional federal money to spend an additional $1.6 billion on health care in Wisconsin.

— Legalize medical marijuana and de-criminalize the possession, manufacture and distribution of up to 25 grams of pot.

— Cap enrollment in private voucher schools starting in 2021.

— Increase the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.50 by 2023 and tie increases after that point to inflation.

— All-but eliminate a tax credit for manufacturers, which would save the state an estimated $516.6 million but which Republicans paint as a proposed tax increase on job creators.

— Repeal the state’s minimum markup on gasoline, which inflates the cost of gas to deter unfair competition. The committee was not striking Evers’ proposed 8-cent gas tax increase that’s part of his transportation-funding plan, but changes to that were expected to be made later.

— Make driver’s licenses available and grant in-state tuition to immigrants who are in the country illegally.

— Create automatic voter registration.

— Borrow up to $40 million to help cover the cost of replacing lead pipes, primarily in Milwaukee.

— Repeal the “right to work” law passed under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker. That law prohibits requirements for workers to pay fees covering a share of the costs of union representation.

— End a tax deduction for private school tuition.

— Close the so-called “dark stores loophole,” which allows big box retailers to save millions in property taxes by assessing the value of their active stores as if they were vacant.

— Restore powers that Republicans stripped from Evers and Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul during a lame-duck session in December.

— End a freeze on property tax levies for counties and municipalities, allowing them to increase their levies by 2%.

— Treat 17-year-olds as juveniles for most crimes, rather than as adults, as they are currently.

White House Files Notice to Raise Tariffs on China

Posted on May 9, 2019 by

The White House on Wednesday filed formal notice of President Trump’s increase to tariffs on Chinese imports amid a breakdown in trade negotiations.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) submitted an order raising tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports after Trump announced the increase Sunday morning.

Trump said in a pair of tweets Sunday that he would raise tariffs on a wide variety of Chinese imports from 10 percent to 25 percent. USTR’s notice to formalize those increases will be published in the Federal Register on Thursday and take effect Friday morning at 12:01 a.m.

The filing comes after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer confirmed the pending tariff increase Monday, blaming China for backing away from previous agreements with the administration.

China’s Commerce Ministry reportedly said Wednesday that it will respond “in kind” if Trump follows through on the tariff hikes.

 

Gas Tax Still a Part of Wisconsin’s Budget Conversation

Posted on May 8, 2019 by

Republicans at the Wisconsin Capitol are promising to gut Gov. Tony Evers’ spending budget proposal. But Republicans are leaving the governor’s proposed gas tax increase largely as is.

“I would be open to an increase in the gas tax with a sunset,” state Rep. Mike Rohrkaste, R-Neenah told News Talk 1130 WISN Friday morning. “Meaning that that gas tax could come off in two, three, four, fives years.”

Rohrkaste said a gas tax increase could be a temporary solution to the state’s transportation needs. The emphasis is on “temporary.”

“In the long run, the gas tax is not sustainable with increasing fuel efficiency, hybrid, and electric [cars],” Rohrkaste  said. “Over time, our transportation funding source will decline at a faster pace than the needs of our weather and our economy.”

Rohrkaste said Wisconsin’s economic boom is built largely on manufacturing and farming, and both industries put a lot of pressure on roads across the state.

Wisconsin’s Tourism Economy Continues to Hum

Posted on May 7, 2019 by

Direct tourism spending in 2018 increased 4.86% to $13.3 billion with an overall economic impact of $21.5 billion, an increase of 4.68%, according to a report released Monday by the state Department of Tourism.

The state’s tourism industry accounted for 199,073 jobs, an increase of 1.67%, that paid out $5.5 billion in wages, an increase of 2.43%, while tourism also contributed $1.5 billion in state and local taxes, an increase of 2.6 percent over 2017.

But for data-driven Sara Meaney, the state’s Tourism Secretary designee, one of the growth categories she is trumpeting this week as she tours the state to tout the tourism numbers is the 4.9% increase in spending per visitor to $118. The number of visitors in 2018 grew by 2 million people over 2017 to 112.1 million.

Statewide, lodging and food and beverage purchases accounted for about $7 billion or about 53% of tourism spending. Shopping contributed $2.6 billion, and $1.8 billion was spent on transportation. Recreational spending on activities like boating, fishing, biking and camping experienced the largest growth by sector with an increase of 8% to $1.9 billion.

U.S. Job Growth Surges; Unemployment Rate Falls to 3.6%

Posted on May 6, 2019 by

U.S. job growth surged in April and the unemployment rate dropped to a more than 49-year low of 3.6 percent, pointing to solid economic growth.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 263,000 jobs last month, amid gains in hiring nearly across all sectors. Data for February and March was revised up to show 16,000 more jobs created than previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast nonfarm payrolls rising by 185,000 jobs last month.

The two-tenths of a percentage point decline in the unemployment rate from 3.8 percent in March was because 490,000 people left the labour force in April. The jobless rate is now below the 3.7 percent that Fed officials project it will be by the end of the year.

The labour force participation rate, or the proportion of working-age Americans who have a job or are looking for one, fell to 62.8 percent in April from 63.0 percent in March. The participation rate hit a more than five-year high of 63.2 percent in January. The low participation rate suggests some slack still remains in the labour market.

GOP Lawmakers to strip Pillars of Governor Evers’ Budget

Posted on May 2, 2019 by

Republican legislative leaders say their first action next week on Gov. Tony Evers’ budget plan will be to scrap several of its key pillars, including its expansion of Medicaid, overhaul of marijuana laws and tax hikes on big manufacturers and high earners.

Among the items being removed by Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee are Evers’ plans to:

  • Legalize medical marijuana and de-penalize possession of small amounts of the drug.
  • Cap enrollment in the state’s private-school voucher program.
  • Increase the state’s minimum wage from $7.25 to to $10.50 by 2023, then link future increases to inflation.
  • End a freeze on property tax levies for counties and municipalities, allowing them to increase their levies by 2%.
  • Permit Wisconsin residents who are immigrants living in the U.S. illegally to get driver’s licenses or state ID cards, which would specify they could not be used as IDs to vote.
  • Grant in-state tuition to Wisconsin high school graduates who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
  • Repeal the state’s minimum markup requirement for fuel sales.
  • Repeal the “right-to-work” law enacted in 2015 that bars requirements for workers to pay fees covering a share of the costs of union representation.

The changes were announced in a memo, released late Wednesday, from the leaders of the Legislature’s budget-writing committee, Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, and Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, to committee members. It says the committee will begin work on the budget May 9, and that its first action will be to take up a motion to remove a list of items proposed by Evers.

A related statement from Nygren and Darling called Evers’ budget “unsustainable” and “irresponsible,” noting it would create a $2 billion structural deficit in two years.

According to the statement, the finance committee will remove 70 non-fiscal items from the budget, as it did two years ago with former Gov. Scott Walker’s budget. The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau on Wednesday released a list of non-fiscal items in Evers’ budget. It was second-most in a governor’s budget proposal since 2001, topped only by the Walker budget in 2017.

Report: Increasing the Minimum Wage to $15 would Imperil 350,000 Wisconsin Jobs

Posted on April 30, 2019 by

Roughly 350,000 Wisconsin workers would be at risk of losing their jobs as a result of increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour, according to a new policy brief published by the Badger Institute.

“The High Cost of Increasing the Minimum Wage in Wisconsin to $15,” authored by economists and Badger Institute Visiting Fellows Ike Brannon and Andrew Hanson, examines the economic impact in Wisconsin if lawmakers were to mandate a 107% increase in the minimum wage as Gov. Tony Evers and others have recommended.

The 350,000 workers who would lose their jobs represent nearly one-third of all workers currently earning a wage below the proposed new minimum. Half of the job loss would come from the bottom 10% of the income distribution, and 90% would come from the bottom quartile of the income distribution.

“Using a blunt instrument like the minimum wage to reduce poverty is both penny foolish and pound foolish,” said Brannon. “Greatly increasing the minimum wage could end up costing a couple hundred thousand workers their jobs, most of whom would be young and have relatively little experience in the workforce. If we want to help the working poor without reducing their employment, improving the Earned Income Tax Credit makes much more sense.”

“We estimate that up to half of all workers in food preparation and service currently earning below $15 an hour could potentially lose their jobs,” Hanson said. “But there are a wide variety of other occupations in the state that the data tell us would see a dramatic decline in employment, including maintenance, personal care and service, building and grounds maintenance, office and administrative support, sales, production, and transportation and material-moving industries.”

The authors conclude that a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour would also lead to cutbacks in hours, reduced benefits and more difficulty in securing employment for workers who are younger, possess lower skills or have blemishes on their records.

Speaker Vos Supports Increasing Gas Tax, but says that’s not the Entire Answer

Posted on April 29, 2019 by

While he believes it should be the only part of the solution, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, says he is in favor of increasing the gas tax to pay for road improvements.

“I will say, for our roads, I support raising the gas tax,” Vos said at a budget listening session in Union Grove on Thursday. “I think we need to raise revenue. I support tolling; I support any revenue option that says we’re going to pay cash instead of borrowing.”

You are not going to save your way out of it; you are not going to be able to borrow your way out,” Vos said. “The only way that we can (pay for roads) is to figure out how do we continue to find efficiencies, and the (Department of Transportation) has done an excellent job of finding efficiencies.”

“I think (the gas tax) has to be part of the equation, but I’m just not so sure it’s the entire answer,” Vos said. “But for the short term we’ve got to have some way to do it until we could do, perhaps, tolling, or determine some kind of a way to charge electric vehicles more, because they’re not paying anything for the roads.”

While the use of electric vehicles continues to increase, Vos said the state needs to consider fees for electric vehicles that don’t pay at the pump. Vos said some estimates claim as many as a third of cars on the road in 2030 will be electric.

“If one-third of the cars pay nothing toward for the maintenance of those roads, we’re going to have a huge crisis that we can’t pay for,” Vos said. “Because you can’t just pay a gas tax.”

U.S. Economy Grows by 3.2% in 1st Quarter, Topping Expectations

Posted on April 26, 2019 by

The U.S. economy grew at a faster pace than expected in the first quarter and posted its best growth to start a year in six years.

First-quarter GDP expanded by 3.2% in the first quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said in its initial read of the economy for that period. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected the U.S. economy increased by 2.5% in the first quarter. It was the first time since 2013 that first-quarter GDP topped 3%.

Exports rose 3.7% in the first quarter, while imports decreased by 3.7%. Economic growth also got a lift from strong investments in intellectual property products. Those investments expanded by 8.6%.

Disposable personal income increased by 3%, while prices increased by 1.3% when excluding food and energy. Overall prices climbed by 0.8% in the first quarter.

Friday’s data was the first look at how the economy fared during the longest government shutdown in history. The federal government ceased operations for 35 days between late December and Jan. 25 amid a standoff between the Trump administration and congressional leaders over funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Investors were closely watching out for the report as they looked for more confirmation that a recession may not be in the cards over the short term.

The report “helps offset fears of slowing global growth,” said Alec Young, managing director of global market research at FTSE Russell. “At a time of lingering U.S.-Chinese trade uncertainty and weak economic data everywhere from Germany to Korea to Japan, strong U.S. data acts as an insurance policy against further global economic weakness. And with inflation still subdued, it’s too early to start worrying about Fed rate hikes again.”

Elections Commission Certifies Hagedorn’s Supreme Court Victory

Posted on April 25, 2019 by

The state Elections Commission is certifying Brian Hagedorn’s victory over Lisa Neubauer in the race for an open state Supreme Court seat.

Unofficial returns from the April 2 election showed Hagedorn ahead of Neubauer by 5,962 votes. Neubauer had mulled a recount but ultimately decided against it and conceded defeat April 10.

The commission released a final tally Wednesday that shows Hagedorn beat her by 5,981 votes.

Hagedorn and Neubauer were vying to replace retiring liberal Justice Shirley Abrahamson, who is battling cancer.

Hagedorn will serve a 10-year term. His win means the court’s conservative majority will grow from 4-3 to 5-2 when he takes the seat in August.