For residents facing poverty, one would hope for, and understand, a combination of private and public relief. Churches and other private organizations do much in this effort; government expenditures for the genuinely needy amount to a small portion of all government spending. Support of this kind is a worthy effort. Whitewater also has two large…
Economy
Business, City, Development, Economics, Economy, Health, Local Government, Planning, Politics, WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN
Meetings & Motivations
by JOHN ADAMS •
Post 11 in a series. This is series about a proposed digester energy project for Whitewater, one that would rely on importing other cities’ unwanted waste into Whitewater for processing. A series like this is only indirectly about general wastewater upgrades, at whatever price. It’s about waste importation, and officials’ claims that importation would be clean…
Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Free Markets, Gluttony, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park
Conservatives Against WEDC
by JOHN ADAMS •
Only a generation ago (not long, really), most conservatives would have rejected something like the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s ineffectual, wasteful attempts to manipulate the economy for the benefit of a few insiders’ friends. Today, communities across our state are beset with any number of unctuous men hawking a kind of big-government conservatism, with false…
City, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Free Markets, Government Spending, Local Government, Marketing, Poverty, University, WEDC, Wisconsin
Wisconsin on Pace for Most Layoff Notifications Since WEDC Created
by JOHN ADAMS •
WKOW 27: Madison, WI Breaking News, Weather and Sports Now I thought, as it’s what I have heard again, again, and again, that the WEDC was the Laser-Focused Semi-Private Job Creator of Wisconsin™. How odd, then, to read that since the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s inception, Wisconsin is on pace for more job layoffs than…
Development, Economy, Government Spending, Marketing, Public Relations, Taxes/Taxation, WEDC
WEDC’s Development Gurus Fail Again
by JOHN ADAMS •
All Whitewater has heard Chancellor Telfer, City Manager Clapper, and CDA Chairman Knight tout money from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation as though it were manna from Heaven. We were supposed to see this money as they meant us to see it, as blessing and providence. Meanwhile, each time those officials flacked these public funds,…
City, Cycling, Development, Economy, Good Ideas, Health, Hip & Prosperous, Planning
In Support of the Complete Streets Initiative for Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
This Tuesday, January 20th at 6:30 PM, Common Council will consider a Complete Streets ordinance (item O-3) for Whitewater. A Complete Streets program simply requires planners to consider bike and pedestrian travel, for example, when either building or reconstructing streets within our city. (I listened closely to discussion of the idea at our 12.16.14 Common…
CDA, City, Development, Economy, Government Spending, Infrastructure, Local Government
Is Whitewater’s Public Infrastructure Undeveloped? No.
by JOHN ADAMS •
I wrote on Friday that I would consider a bit more about Whitewater’s 2015 proposed budget today. This post’s title frames how to think about the budget: the city’s fiscal condition is only a small part of the local economy’s condition. Important, to be sure, but also small. Many city services are ordinary and commonplace…
City, Economy, Government Spending
The Proposed 2015 City of Whitewater Budget
by JOHN ADAMS •
The challenge of government is not fundamentally its cost, but its complexity, intractability, and most concerning of all its use of authority not as representative of residents but as self-interested action contrary to representation. A small rural town of fifteen-thousand, and it’s 289 pages just to list the town’s annual budget. There’s an anecdote about…
Business, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Free Markets, Local Government, Wisconsin
The New (But Old) Zero-Sum Game
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at Rock Netroots, Lou Kaye makes this accurate observation about how most local communities’ officials understand development: For the most part, city leaders here [he’s referring to Janesville] and across Wisconsin not only believe that communities are in competition with one another, they vigorously support and fuel those concepts by carving out special slush…
Business, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Free Markets, WEDC
WEDC Afflicted with Internal Strife
by JOHN ADAMS •
Not long ago, Messrs. Telfer, Knight, and Clapper met in Whitewater with Reed Hall, so-called CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, to ‘celebrate’ another round of public money in the service of crony capitalism. These gentlemen must have thought – somehow – that all this would look grand and spectacular, that it would be…
Books, Business, Development, Economy, Local Government, Press
The Book on Janesville
by JOHN ADAMS •
Amy Goldstein, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the Washington Post, is writing a book about Janesville after GM’s departure, entitled, Janesville: An American Story. I’ve been awaiting the book, and recently (also happily) discovered publishing information about it, from PublishersMarketplace.com: Pulitzer-winning Washington Post reporter Amy Goldstein’s JANESVILLE: An American Story, following three families as the GM…
Corporate Welfare, Economy, Freedom of Speech, Local Government, New Media
Rock Netroots
by JOHN ADAMS •
Business, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Local Government
Rand Paul on Chamber of Commerce Republicans
by JOHN ADAMS •
Sen. Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, often moves (sometimes quixotically) between libertarian and conventionally conservative, Republican positions. Still, there’s unquestionably some libertarian in him, and in his libertarianism he shares a dynamic philosophy (if not party label) with a huge number of other Americans (about 22%, or just under one-in-four people). Here’s what Paul, speaking…
Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Free Markets, Government Spending, Press
The Gazette’s Ideological Albatross
by JOHN ADAMS •
It was Carl Denham who once declared, famously, that “It was beauty killed the beast.” In the same way, nothing matters more for a publication of news and opinion than its ideology, its intellectual outlook. A misguided outlook will prove debilitating, if not fatal. A strong set of principles helps a publication steer true in…