One reads that U.S. deficit to eclipse $1 trillion in 2020, CBO says, as fiscal imbalance continues to widen: The U.S. government’s budget deficit is projected to reach $1.02 trillion in 2020, according to a report released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, as the federal government continues to spend much more than it collects…
Bad Ideas
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Boosterism, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Culture, Development, Economics, Economy, Local Government, Trump, WEDC
‘But Not in Conditions of Their Own Choosing’
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s a truism to say that all people make history, but not in conditions of their own choosing: Admittedly and sadly, the local boosterism of the pre-Trump years is now in retrospect worse than one might have initially believed: across America boosters who peddled false descriptions & junk solutions during the economic hardship of the…
Bad Ideas, Boosterism, CDA, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Politics, WEDC
Market-Hating Republicans Have Been a Local Problem for Years
by JOHN ADAMS •
George Will, writing in the Washington Post, observes that Josh Hawley sounds like he has far too much faith in government: The sails of [Republican] Sen. Josh Hawley’s political skiff are filled with winds gusting from the right. They come from conservatives who think that an array of — perhaps most of — America’s social injuries,…
America, Bad Ideas, CDA, Economics, Economy, Gov. Walker, Government Spending, Local Government, State Government, WEDC, Wisconsin
But, but, but…we were promised growth, growth, growth!
by JOHN ADAMS •
Locally, statewide, and nationally, Trump & those who flacked his tax bill, and those who also pushed corporate welfare schemes (Foxconn, WEDC, Whitewater CDA), promised growth, growth, growth! How odd that these men — politicians, movers-and-shakers, developers, landlords, and public relations types — seem to have missed the mark: The World Bank sees U.S. growth stumbling from…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, WEDC
Journal Sentinel’s Rick Romell Reports the Obvious about Foxconn Project
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at the Journal Sentinel, business reporter Rick Romell reports that More signs emerge that the pace of Foxconn’s Wisconsin project is falling short of expectations. Honest to goodness – there have been years of reports, and years of analyses, that made clear to any reasonable person that this project was destined for failure. Anyone and…
Bad Ideas, Politics, Wisconsin, WISGOP
In Wisconsin, Gerrymandering Has Brought Out the Crackpots
by JOHN ADAMS •
One reads – and it’s true – that in Wisconsin gerrymandering has disproportionately favored WISGOP candidates. It’s done more, it seems: gerrymandering has produced a decade’s worth of crackpot Republicans: Walker’s crony economics, Ryan’s trickle-down tax bill, Priebus’s sycophancy to Trump, Fitzgerald’s literal serenades for Trump, etc. Occasionally, these men spoke in libertarian language, but…
Bad Ideas, Business, Government Spending, Newspapers, Taxes/Taxation
Government Breaks for Local Newspapers are a Bad, Bad Idea
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s understandable worry that communities across America are losing their local newspapers, and so one hears that something simply must be done to save them. Clara Hendrickson, in Local journalism in crisis: Why America must revive its local newsrooms, proposes that we (1) “provide public funding for local journalism” (via tax incentives, mainly), (2) “address…
America, Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Boosterism, City, Corporate Welfare, Economics, Economy, Local Government, Mendacity, Newspapers, State Capitalism
What the New Dealers Got Right – What Whitewater’s Local Notables Got Wrong
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s sound reason to doubt that the New Dealers’ economic solutions to the Great Depression were effective, but there’s no doubt that Roosevelt’s Brain Trust was hard-working, smart, and candid in its description of America’s economic problems. For a critical assessment of the New Deal, written accessibly, see The Forgotten Man: A New History of…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, Comedy, Corporate Welfare, Development, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Mendacity, State Capitalism, State Government, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn: ‘Innovation Centers’ Gone in a Puff of Smoke
by JOHN ADAMS •
Trump insisted Foxconn in Wisconsin would be the eighth wonder of the world, and smarmy development men in places like Whitewater spoke about how much would come of the project, but in a puff of smoke that project’s ‘innovation centers’ are gone. Nick Statt reports Foxconn finally admits its empty Wisconsin ‘innovation centers’ aren’t being…
Bad Ideas, Foreign Affairs, Sen. Ron Johnson, Trump
National TV Program Ridicules Ron Johnson’s Defense of Trump
by JOHN ADAMS •
Bad Ideas, Boosterism, Mendacity, Politics, Trump, Waste Digesters
Saying and Believing Anything
by JOHN ADAMS •
Adam Serwer, writing on Twitter in response to a series of distortions from the conservative Federalist website, states plainly the truth of Trump-supporting lies: There is no incentive to correct because the targeted audience will believe anything pro-Trump they are told, whereas acknowledging error would signal weakness and insufficient devotion to the Great Leader. Yes,…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Foxconn, Government Spending, State Capitalism, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn: First In, Now Out
by JOHN ADAMS •
One reads that Christopher ‘Tank’ Murdoch, the first Wisconsin resident hired by Foxconn, has left the company: Christopher “Tank” Murdoch, the first Wisconsin resident hired by Foxconn Technology Group and an honored figure at last year’s groundbreaking for the firm’s planned flat-screen factory, has left the company. In a brief interview, Murdoch said he left…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Foxconn, Government Spending, Mendacity, That Which Paved the Way, UW Madison, WEDC
Be Patient, UW-Madison: Only $99,300,000.00 to Go!
by JOHN ADAMS •
If a group invited a guest speaker who said the world was flat, then that group would be rightly discarded as a credible policy advocate. In Whitewater and other towns, crony-capitalist groups of different sizes proudly declared the Foxconn project a boon for Wisconsin. (Trump, himself, declared it a boon for the whole planet: “the…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Boosterism, CDA, Local Government, Politics, School District, Taxes/Taxation
School Board, 8.26.19: Insatiable
by JOHN ADAMS •
School Board Meeting 08/26/19 from Whitewater Community TV on Vimeo. Update, evening of 9.9.19: Although this discussion of tax incremental financing (TIF) took place at a school board meeting, a program like this is (obviously) very much an initiative of city government and special interests. School districts like Whitewater’s have a role on a joint…