The Liberty Tree Lantern

Those who do cling to the absurd belief that, absent exponential productivity gains, the economy can expand while workers are being laid off will undergo a massive test of their convictions now that it’s clear the employment picture is bleak. Today’s weaker-than-expected report on non-farm payrolls revealed that employers shed 263,000 jobs in September. The losses propelled the headline unemployment rate to a 26-year high of 9.8%. U6, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ most complete measure of unemployment, has risen to a dismal 17%. This figure includes those people who want to work full time, but have simply given up looking, or who have accepted part-time work in the interim. As it is similar to the methodology used during the Great Depression, U6 offers better historical perspective on the severity of our current crisis.

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Forbes Magazine ranks Wisconsin 3rd worst in the country for best states to do business. Wisconsin fell from the 8th worst on the list last year. Forbes uses employer costs, labor supply, regulatory environment, economic climate, growth prospects, and quality of life in its ranking. Only Michigan and Rhode Island were below Wisconsin on the list.

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Wisconsin is in a competition with 49 other states for job creation and retention. Based on the performance of our leadership this year we are losing that competition. There are jobs moving and being created during this recession in the United States. They are just in other states like Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Alabama. Unfortunately, some of those jobs moved and were lost from right here in Wisconsin.

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From the left, the Center on Wisconsin Strategy published its annual report in late 2008 with this unhappy summary:
“The national economy has grown more rapidly than Wisconsin’s, leaving the state’s per capita income more than $2,500 behind the national [average].”
From the center, the non-partisan Competitive Wisconsin group reached a similar conclusion in its 2008 benchmark report: “Wisconsin has moved further away from the national average in per capita income, number of new jobs created and number of new private businesses.”

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Yesterday, the Senate passed a budget that was approved by a Conference Committee on a 17 to 15 vote with your senator, Dave Hansen voting in favor. A Conference Committee is a panel of legislators formed to iron out differences between the Senate and Assembly when they pass different budgets. The budget that came out of that committee raises taxes over $2 billion, property taxes an additional $1.5 billion, and increases government spending by nearly 7 percent. As well, there are non-fiscal policy provisions that changed in this budget compared to the Senate and Assembly versions, including those dealing with automobile insurance. This change is very important for Northeast Wisconsin drivers who, if it is enacted into law, will be paying higher insurance rates to subsidize high risk drivers in areas like Milwaukee.

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House Democrats narrowly won a key test vote Friday on sweeping legislation to combat global warming and usher in a new era of cleaner energy. Republicans said the bill included “the largest tax increase in American history.”

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The U.S. House of Representatives may vote this Friday on the “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009” (the Waxman-Markey bill). We need the many voices of the Partnership for America’s Energy Security to write and call your legislators, urging them to oppose this harmful and misguided legislation.

Addressing climate change is an important issue, and the U.S. oil and natural gas industry has made substantial commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The industry supports balanced legislation to reduce greenhouse gases and replace the patchwork of state and federal regulatory programs, but the Waxman-Markey bill is not the answer. This hastily drafted legislation would:

Significantly increase consumer and business costs for gasoline and other fuels;

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A question we need to ask anybody who says; “This is recall Doyle campaign is stupid and a waste of time and money. Wait for the election, it’s only a year + away.” It has to be getting obvious for anybody who has any minimal electrical current traveling through their synopsis that HOW THE HELL CAN WE wait for a year? Look at the financial devastation to our ENTIRE STATE of Wisconsin! Now even Mercury Marine is considering leaving from Fond du Lac, WI ! ! How many more companies have to go before the idiots in the media cease the INSANE blackout of our RECALL of DOYLE? Don’t they care about the people of Wisconsin at all? Don’t they think that the people ought to have the right to know that we can do something about DOYLE NOW?

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The $70.00/barrel crude price is now GREATLY impacting our economy, businesses, jobs and general cost of living for every single family in America. It is also impacting the stock market which would be another 500 – 1000 points higher in the DOW if it wasn’t for the oppressive impact of our unnecessarily high energy costs destroying our lives right now. If people had any idea what Obama and his Secretary of The Interior Salzar was doing to each one of us “personally”, as a result of not simply selling the oil exploration leases, we would all be rising up in the streets, right now; Tea Party fashion but by the hundreds of thousands like Iran.

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Why is this budget fatally flawed? There are numerous reasons and many of them are very complex. Too complex to explain in a few paragraphs. In no particular order, these are just a few of the problems I have with this budget and how it hammers the middle class – the very segment of the population the Democrat majority purports to protect.

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