Saturday, June 25, 2016

ALEC report rates Walker's Wisconsin high on ideology, bad to worse on Real World Results.

It’s now clear Republicans know their voters, because they know they can count on them never connecting the dots between real world facts and their bubble world lives in the echo chamber.

The American Legislative Exchange Council is all about "limited government, free markets and supply-side economics," and they love Scott Walker. 

Wisconsin business columnist and conservative Tom Still took a look at ALEC's new state by state report "The 2016 ALEC-Laffer State Competiveness Index, named in part for supply-side economist Arthur Laffer," and courageously told the truth; the more we're like ALEC, the worse our state output becomes. 
The results of a 50-state index ... put Wisconsin in a positive light for selected economic inputs. The economic output picture painted by ALEC, however, was a bit more restrained.
The positive economic input simply means the adoption of ALEC's pure ideological, supply side, free market political policy in the state. Before we get to that, ALEC first rated us by how much we bought into their mumbo jumbo:
ALEC ranked Wisconsin No. 9 among the 50 states based on 15 factors that included personal income, corporate, inheritance and sales taxes and debt service as a share of tax revenue ... conservative agenda items such public employees per 10,000 population; an overview of the state liability system; the state minimum wage; average workers’ compensation costs; “right to work” laws and tax expenditure limits baked into state law or the constitution.
ALEC then graded Walker's Wisconsin based on how well he adopted ALEC's agenda, described here as the input. You have to ask yourself, did Republicans ever have and original idea? 
The index ranked Wisconsin among the top 12 states for passing a right-to-work law, for keeping its minimum wage low, for not levying an inheritance tax, for passing tax expenditure limits and (perhaps surprising to some in-state critics) its low ratio of public employees per capita. While it wasn’t directly measured, ALEC spokesmen also praised Gov. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Legislature for passage of the 2011 Act 10 legislation that crippled many public employee unions.
ALEC's Miserable OUTPUT - Cause and Effect: Proof is in the ALEC report, as Tom Still explains:
When it came to measuring economic performance, however, ALEC looked at “outputs” that placed Wisconsin where other rankings often do – toward the bottom of the 50-state class.

Wisconsin’s overall economic performance rank of 41st included a ranking of 35th for growth in state domestic product for the 10 years ending in 2014; 40th for non-farm payroll employment during the same cycle; and 38th in absolute domestic migration ... (which) measures how many people are leaving or entering the state, the so-called “brain drain” phenomenon. It showed a net loss of nearly 67,000 people over 10 years, with the peak coming in the recession year of 2010.

Economists on the political right and left ... generally believe there is a correlation between migration and economic prosperity. When people “vote with their feet,” it’s a sign they are not finding the jobs, wages and opportunities they want. Too many of the people who are being lost to Wisconsin are college-educated and earning higher incomes, which hurts the state’s ability to retain talented workers and to reinvest in itself.
Maybe that's why Republicans want to keep our kids out of college, because they quickly want to leave.

All of this must have pained Tom Still something awful, so to make up for it, he offered the typical Republican solution; tell "stories" "celebrating what's right about the state." You know, Scott Walker's one and only bragging point - the unemployment numbers - and good old American exceptionalism:
How can Wisconsin make itself more attractive to outsiders and natives alike? By building on existing assets; telling a compelling story about its people, companies and culture; and celebrating what’s right about the state – not fixating on partisan divides and what’s wrong.

2 comments:

  1. In other words, we followed there agenda to a T, but the end results are a horrible economy. Man are these people morons.

    Here would be there logic if they took over the Packers:
    1. Hire a new general manager. Someone who has never been involved in football and is a business idiot.
    2. Hire a new coach. Someone who has done everything they can to ban football.
    3. Make conditions so crappy that any good players get out and no one wants to come to GB. Part of this is to make all contracts null and void.
    4. Sell Lambeau to a crony who will not allow football games on the field.
    Upon evaluation they would find that they get an A plus for following the agenda, but they can't figure out why the team is 1-15. I put a 1 in the win column because they might beat a team that followed the same agenda. Man are these people morons.

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