In Whitewater, there’s a business lobby that amounts to a right-wing landlord or two, the dogsbodies who follow three paces behind, and the municipal officials who have been, variously, beguiled or browbeaten into asserting that government-directed capital spending means general prosperity. It doesn’t; it’s the great myth of municipal policy. A building here, a building…
Poverty
CDA, City, Development, Economy, Government Spending, Local Government, Poverty
Common Council, 8.20.19: Fiscal & Economic
by JOHN ADAMS •
Yesterday, I posted about part of a Whitewater Common Council meeting that addressed a traffic signal at a dangerous intersection. See Common Council, 8.20.19: Misperception. There was another topic at that meeting: the annual audit of the city’s fiscal condition (link below). In another place and time, the fiscal condition of government might be decisive…
City, Culture, Economy, Education, Health, Poverty, School District
School Board, 7.22.19: One Worthy Question
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater’s school board met in regular session on Monday night, with an agenda of 16 items, of varying importance. In a two-hour, open-session discussion of over a dozen items, with topics great and small (and at least one board member as interested in wheedling or badgering himself into future meetings as any deeper question), there…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Employment, Government Spending, Local Government, Poverty, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Three Fundamental Failures: Employment, Income, and Poverty
by JOHN ADAMS •
An earlier post addressed Walker’s Fundamental Failure to meet his jobs pledge even after eight years. The record is much worse: years of corporate subsidies and meddling in the marketplace for preferred businesses & political cronies have produced failures of employment, income, and poverty. (Small town officials who copied this approach on the local level, as…
Business, CDA, Economics, Economy, Poverty
Gas Stations, Fast Food, and What the Market Will Bear
by JOHN ADAMS •
People drive cars, and most cars take gasoline; many people like to get food quickly, and so fast food restaurants meet that desire. There’s nothing wrong with having gas stations or burger joints in a town. One reads today that Whitewater will sell some city-owned land near a roundabout to a gas station chain, Kwik…
Agriculture, Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, Economics, Economy, Local Government, Poverty, State Capitalism, State Government, Taxes/Taxation, That Which Paved the Way, Trade, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin
‘Stung by Trump’s Trade Wars, Wisconsin’s Milk Farmers Face Extinction’
by JOHN ADAMS •
After years of the ignorant scheming of tax incremental financing, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, capital catalyst grants, the Trump tax bill, and now Trump’s trade war, Alan Rappeport reports Stung by Trump’s Trade Wars, Wisconsin’s Milk Farmers Face Extinction (“The flagship industry in a pivotal swing state faces an economic crisis”): KENDALL, Wis. —…
Charity and Mercy, City, Education, Poverty, Press Release, School District
What Matters, What Doesn’t
by JOHN ADAMS •
Some contrasts are so clear that, on seeing them, one can tell immediately what matters and what does not: Number of homeless students in Whitewater School District reaches ‘crisis level’: The number of homeless students in [Dr. Lanora] Heim’s district last school year was more than double what it was three years ago—going from…
City, Development, Economy, Parodies, Poverty, That Which Paved the Way
Really, Really Urgent CDA Announcement!
by JOHN ADAMS •
Shortly after booting my computer this April 1st morning, I found staring back at me the following Really Really Urgent Message from the “Whitewater Community Development Authority.” Perhaps it has something to do with a recent excuse-making press release story at the Gazette. News Release: April 1, 2019 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (this means now!) Really…
Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Development, Economics, Economy, Government Spending, Local Government, Poverty, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Transportation
Private Businesses Craving Public Money
by JOHN ADAMS •
A private group may invite whom it wishes, but the guests invited tell much about the organization doing the inviting. Long years ago, straining even the finest recollection, private businesses relied on their own efforts for success (or so one has heard). Look about now, even in small and struggling places, and one finds well-fed…
Charity and Mercy, City, Culture, Local Government, Poverty, School District, University
The Recent Cold
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s been unseasonably cold in southeastern Wisconsin this week, and in Whitewater that presents a challenge for the disproportionately large number of impoverished residents (some of whom occasionally lack utilities, even at the most unfavorable times). The three large public institutions in the city – municipal government, school district, and public university – have collectively dozens…
Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economics, Economy, Free Market, Government Spending, Hunger, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government, Planning, Poverty, State Capitalism, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin
The Fight Against Gravity
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Trump Administration wants to bolster industries that are market failures, with coal as an example. Catherine Rampell writes of that effort in The Trump administration learns that fighting gravity is hard: The Trump administration is learning that, as new data show that the industries it has worked hardest to prop up — through bailouts, tariffs…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government, Mendacity, Poverty, State Capitalism, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Nationally and Locally: The Big-Government Conservatives Are Economy-Wreckers
by JOHN ADAMS •
Catherine Rampell, writing about the national GOP, accurately describes their economic policy under Trump in The GOP has become the Soviet party. This has been a building national problem for years, but a building local problem for about as long: a clique of slogan-rich but insight-poor local conservatives have wrecked economies like Whitewater’s economy with a steady diet of…
Charity and Mercy, City, Culture, Economy, Good Ideas, Local Government, Poverty
Political and Apolitical Means of Local Accomplishment
by JOHN ADAMS •
One test of an institution’s vitality is how eager people are to become members, and how interested a community is to learn who’s become a member. Strong institutions or organizations attract attention. When the institution is a city or county government, one looks to see who’s eager to run for office, and how many people…
Babbittry, CDA, City, Economy, Local Government, Poverty
Reported Family Poverty in Whitewater Increased Over the Last Decade
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over the last ten years, while Wisconsin and America recovered from the Great Recession, in Whitewater poverty among families with children actually increased. The Great Recession – deep and painful for many, lasted from December 2007 to June 2009. Afterward, most parts of America saw recovery, sometimes slow, sometimes rapid, but recovery by either definition. That’s why for…
