One Wisconsin Now

John McCain has been little more than a rubber stamp for the failing George W. Bush economy. Perhaps this is the reason that he has such a hard time bringing himself to admit that this economy has been very hard on the average American. June was the latest time where John McCain claimed that, “the fundamentals of the economy are very strong. Very strong.” Who exactly was he trying to convince with that statement, himself or the many working families that know different? In June this “very strong” economy lost another 62,000 jobs, making it the sixth straight month of negative job growth.

The Bush economy has been a boon for the wealthiest in our nation. John McCain is one of the richest members of the U.S. Senate, but could he really be so out of touch with the average person? Since when is massive job loss a sign of a “strong economy?” It looks like John McCain was right, he really does need more education on the economy.

Last week it was reported that a Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) staffer condescendingly referred to the Epic Systems founder and well-respected progressive business leader as “that computer lady.” As a result the Institute for One Wisconsin launched an education effort this week questioning WMC’s attitude toward women and their history of opposing legislation that would have been helpful to both women and their families.

The online campaign includes a WMC Watch News Alert available at WMCWatch.org and a letter to the editor writing tool. Individuals can write a letter to the editor of their local papers expressing their outrage at both the dismissive WMC comments and their legislative positions that have been bad for Wisconsin women.

The federal government will expand its sanction of Milwaukee schools this year, according to a report published in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 38 schools currently receiving federal government aid for low income students will be hit with cuts to that aid. The Department of Education calls these schools "identified for improvement" and refers to the slashing of budgets as the result of "escalating academic standards". Worded in this fashion, it is possible to think that the cuts are suitable measures to take in the face of poor performance. After all, the government set standards and the schools failed to comply, isn't some punishment in order?

In a word, no. These schools faced an arbitrary increase in standards, a reduction in funding and a failing plan for urban centers across this country. The failing grade goes to the Bush Administration, so why are Wisconsin citizens coming home with the bad report card?

Over the last few days Republican Congressman Paul Ryan has been getting more underserved love from the media. They called him everything from a “rising star” in the Wisconsin State Journal to a “medicine man” in a Washington Post column by the infamous right winger Robert Novak. In both stories there seems to be an attempt to hold Paul Ryan up as some sort of last hope for the withering conservative movement. The big problem is that Ryan doesn’t stand for anything new at all. He has been one of the most reliable rubber stamps for the Bush Administration and most of its failed policies. Yes, many of the same policies that have brought us to a place of near economic disaster.

During his first eight years in Congress, Ryan voted in favor of every single budget – joining the then-Republican majority in increasing the federal budget by more than $1 trillion. Ryan has been a loyal foot soldier for the Bush Administration on issue after issue. He provided the deciding vote for the middle-of-the-night passage of the disastrous Medicare Part D Prescription Drug plan. This from a guy that is now calling for a leaner government?

Ryan talks ad nauseam about fiscal responsibility but this is a guy that has fully supported the Bush disaster in Iraq costing taxpayers some $1.7 trillion dollars. This is money that we simply don’t have. At the same time, he has been a big cheerleader for irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthiest, even if we have to charge it all to the taxpayer credit card. In whose world is any of this sound economic policy? How is this record any different than the Bush Administration and their failed policies? Exactly how can Paul Ryan be perceived to be above the Bush disaster when he has been shoulder to shoulder with him for the entire time?

Today Paid Sick Days Milwaukee, a coalition of labor, educational and community organizations, delivered over 42,000 signatures to the Milwaukee Common Council. The effort was lead by 9 to 5, National Association of Working Women. They are asking the council to pass a requirement that all businesses in Milwaukee provide employees with paid sick day benefits. The council can either vote on it themselves or they could put the measure on the November ballot.

The proposed ordinance would require all private businesses in Milwaukee to give their workers one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked. Full-time employees for a large business would earn 72 hours a year. Smaller businesses (with 10 or fewer employees) would only be required to provide 40 hours a year in paid sick days. The days could be taken for illness, medical care for the worker, for their children, parents or any other person related to the worker.

One Wisconsin Now was proud to help sponsor a Milwaukee stop during David Sirota’s book tour. David Sirota is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of the New York Times best selling, Hostile Takeover. Sirota came to the Schwartz bookstore on Downer last night to discuss the issues addressed in his new book, The Uprising. It is an investigative look at America’s new populist movement. To research for the book, Sirota traveled all across the country interviewing people on the front lines of the movement from both the left and the right.

About 40 people attended Sirota’s presentation Tuesday night. He covered the over arching points from his book regarding this new populist movement. He talked about the broad frustration with our government among regular working people and how it was fostering the movement on all ends of the political spectrum. He pointed to the success of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee who won in some very conservative states using an economic populist message. He commented that this should be a hopeful sign that regular people across the political spectrum are beginning to understand that they have been locked out of our current system.

U.S. Senator John McCain has proposed a gas tax “holiday.” This is a concept that has been universally panned by economists. The average consumer would see almost no savings. It seems clear that it is little more than a pander to people that are struggling with record gas prices. While John McCain offers only smoke and mirrors to the average American, all indications show that his feet are firmly planted on the side of Big Oil and their record profits.

Although he has said in past town halls (Rindge, NH, 11/18/07) that he would “oppose any tax breaks or good deals for the gas and oil industry…” his current tax plan does the exact opposite of what he promised last year. McCain’s plan would actually give the top five oil companies $3.8 billion a year in tax breaks. Further, McCain has consistently voted against windfall profits taxes for Big Oil and has voted against taxing them in order to provide rebates to severely strapped consumers.

The Bush economy has long been a disaster for working people but has only recently started to affect the very wealthy. It has been an economy of massive tax cuts for the wealthiest, endless loopholes and handouts to the largest corporations, while charging everything to our national credit card. While Senator John McCain has declared that “the fundamentals of the economy are very strong,” reality is showing that he couldn’t be more wrong if he tried.

Just last week, we learned that the jobless rate has jumped in what is the biggest rise since 1986. This week, a study revealed that childhood poverty rates have risen both nationally and in our state. Nationally, there has been an increase of 1 million children living in poverty. The percentage of children living in poverty in Wisconsin has jumped from 12 percent to 15 percent since 2000. That amounts to an increase of almost 200,000 more children living in poverty. Much of the increase in childhood poverty is directly tied to the loss of jobs during this Bush economy. Sadly, this is not likely the end of these kinds of depressing statistics.

Conservatives like to praise the magic of “the market” when discussing anything about the economy. Hopefully they will finally understand what progressives have been saying for years. The Bush approach of tax cuts for the rich and hand outs to corporations has been “market tested” and has proven itself to be a complete economic disaster.

Gazillionaire Kotex heir F. Jim Sensenbrenner spent today doing his best to keep Wisconsinites who have lost their jobs because of the endless Bush economic policies he has supported away from extended unemployment benefits.

Sensenbrenner, famously characterized by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone as…well, read the story here, was the only member of the Wisconsin House delegation to vote against a plan to extend unemployment benefits for workers by 13 weeks.

This despite the jobless rate skyrocketing by the largest percentage in over 20 years and despite the fact 325,000 jobs have been lost so far due to the failed Bush economy.

F. Jim’s birthday is this Saturday. How appropriate his message to Wisconsin’s unemployed is “let ‘em cake.”

Millionaires Paul Ryan and John McCain have a prescription for $4-a-gallon gas prices for working families: Nearly $4 billion in tax cuts for Big Oil.

Ryan reiterated his support for the disatrous McCain Big Oil tax cut on a conference call today in which he praised McCain for "economic discipline."

Ryan and McCain already provide $5 billion to Big Oil in just the last two years, so it's not surprising they're in lockstep on this one, too.

OWN has called for Ryan to distance himself on this ridiculous $4 billion Big Oil bonanza. If you haven't had the chance yet, click here to sign our petition telling Paul Ryan enough with big tax cuts for Big Oil.

U.S. Senator John McCain has been trying to focus on economic policy recently, even though he has admitted that he needs more education on the subject. One thing that would be helpful in this discussion is for John McCain to stop contradicting himself on things like the Estate Tax.

When asked for his position on the estate tax in 2005, John McCain said that following:

I follow the course of a great Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, who talked about the malefactors of great wealth and gave us the estate tax. I oppose the rich passing on fortunes.

This statement doesn’t exactly square with what John McCain just said yesterday about the estate tax. While talking about the economy, McCain proclaimed that “The estate tax is one of the most unfair tax laws on the books.”

So much for “straight talk.”

One Wisconsin Now is marking the 45th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act’s passage by calling on Senator John McCain to promote policies in the U.S. Senate that close the pay gap between women and men once and for all.

In April, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) skipped the vote on the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would have restored workers’ ability to pursue pay discrimination claims in the courts and provided greater protection for women receiving unfair wages. McCain explained his opposition to the bill by saying that instead of equal pay protection, women simply needed “education and training.” He even told a 14-year-old girl that he didn’t think protections for equal pay would do” anything to help the rights of women.”

The women and families of Wisconsin and the nation can’t afford McCain’s kind of costly inaction. In 2006, Wisconsin women’s wages were about 22 percent lower than men’s. That means a women working full-time in the state would earn around $28,000 per year, on average, compared with over $36,500 for a man. Earlier this year, Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay) and Representative Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee) authored the Equal Pay Enforcement Act. It passed in the state Senate but continues to languish in the Wisconsin Assembly. It’s time for Senator McCain to set the tone for our nation and its state legislatures by making equitable wages for women a priority.

Just yesterday U.S. Senator John McCain once again proved just how out of touch he is with regular working Americans. Despite all of the struggles that people are having he declared “I have a great belief that the fundamentals of the economy are very strong. Very strong.” Apparently he had to say it twice just to convince himself that the statement was true. Less than 24 hours after he made his proclamation, the Labor Department reported that the jobless rate has jumped to 5.5 percent in May, the biggest rise since 1986. That equates to 49,000 more jobs lost by President Bush and his enablers like McCain in Congress.

For McCain the eighth richest U.S. Senator with nine properties worth more than 13 million dollars, maybe the economy does seem very strong. Unfortunately not everyone is as privileged as the Arizona Senator. While he may be living high on the hog, working Americans are struggling to pay their mortgages, fill their gas tanks and pay the ever growing costs for basics like health care and food. On the economy the Senator promises more of the same, tax cuts for the wealthiest and even more tax loopholes for big corporations. He chooses this approach even though over the last seven years it has produced a disaster for our economy. McCain appears willingly delusional about our economy, even if that means celebrating things like record setting job loss.

The economic policies spearheaded by the Bush Administration and supported by Senator John McCain in the U.S. Senate have been devastating to people across our state. These policies have ushered in a time of economic crisis in many different ways for working families. Today a wide cross-section of Wisconsinites came together in a conference call to tell their stories.

Greg Hinds of Menasha just found out that the Appleton plant in which he works will be closing and 300 jobs will be lost. Today he said, “I don’t want a government handout. I want leaders who aren’t so out of touch they don’t see people are suffering. We cannot keep supporting unfair trade deals that cost us family-supporting jobs.”

Johndalyn Smith, a Milwaukee resident is facing the loss of her home. She is angry that Bush and McCain support policies that bail out big corporate investment firms but do nothing for middle-class homeowners like her. She also commented, “I cannot tell you how scary it is to think I may lose my home. I work hard and play by the rules and George Bush and John McCain offer nothing to help me, but they are more than happy to have all of us bail out Bear Sterns for $30 billion.”

Although John McCain claims the mantle of “reformer” he has chosen to surround himself with lobbyists for all sorts of questionable interests. We also know that John McCain has admitted that he still needs an education when it comes to the economy. Given those two facts, why would anyone be surprised that he chose Phil Gramm as his teacher. He is not only a former colleague but he has also been a lobbyist for the mortgage industry. MSNBC is reporting that while Gramm was advising John McCain about his economic policy, he was also being paid by a Swiss bank to lobby Congress about the U.S. mortgage crisis.

When Phil Gramm chaired the Senate Banking Committee, he wrote and passed deregulatory legislation in multiple industries. Some economists point to both this and general lack of enforcement as not only a key reason for the mortgage crisis but also for its spread to other sectors of finance. Given this history it shouldn’t be a surprise that John McCain has proposed even more deregulation and nothing of substance to help individuals that are struggling.

The Institute for Wisconsin’s Future (IWF) released a new report on Wisconsin non-profit hospitals and their billions of dollars worth of tax-exempt property. The report finds that those properties could be generating at least $117 million in property taxes yearly to help ease the property tax burden on individual taxpayers and small businesses. The report includes a list of all 124 tax-exempt hospitals and medical centers, located in 100 communities statewide. It includes tables with data on each non-profit hospital in the state, including potential local property tax payments.

Wisconsin’s property tax exemption for non-profit hospitals dates back to a time when they largely served the poor. But now, as the IWF report says, “these former almshouses are massive, sometimes luxurious institutions.” In addition, most of the facilities that were once located nearest to the poor are closing while large palace-like structures are being erected in wealthier areas. Increasingly the larger non-profit hospitals are behaving more like their counterparts in the for-profit world. According to data that IWF obtained from the Wisconsin Hospital Association, these hospitals posted nearly $1 billion in income in 2006.

I don’t envy the lobbyist that has to argue a case for what has become a massive industry in Wisconsin. Non-profits with a combined revenue of $11.5 billion. A combined 2006 profit of $1 billion. Non-profits owning a combined $5.8 billion in real property. Erecting palaces in more affluent areas while closing down operations in the poorest areas of the state. With this kind of data, how can even the most seasoned lobbyist defend the status quo with a straight face?

On Thursday the House of Representatives approved an expansive new veterans education benefit that would be paid for by a tax on wealthy Americans. It would provide the equivalent of a free four-year college education at a public university. Some Republicans joined Democrats in passing the aid that would benefit veterans who enlisted after the September 11 attacks. Unfortunately the group of Republicans that voted for the plan did not include Wisconsin Republicans Paul Ryan and F. Jim Sensenbrenner.

Paul Ryan not only voted against providing veterans the new education benefit, but then gave a quote to the New York Times saying, “I can’t think of a worse time to raise taxes.” It is telling that Ryan all but ignored who would be the direct beneficiaries of this particular tax and he also ignored exactly who would be taxed under it. People earning over $1 million would be making a very small sacrifice to pay for the new education benefits to our troops, who have sacrificed so much. It is amazing that the same people that were so willing to send our troops off to war, are now so hesitant to honor them in a real and substantive way. Apparently for Ryan it’s all about ideology and protecting rich people’s money.

The State Senate took the lead today to end the loophole that lets Wal-Mart and other big corporations evade $15 million annually by exploiting the state tax law (and the taxpayers).

Under the tax evasion scheme, tells the Institute for Wisconsin's Future, Wal-Mart would have one part of its business pay another part of the biz for rent allowing it to "reduce" its Wisconsin profits and consequently, reduce the amount of money it's required to provide the taxpayers of Wisconsin.