There is an old Republican Truism, that apparently turns out Not be so True. And it goes something like this:
If we just free the Job Creators (Corporations and Business Owners) from their 'crushing' burdens of complying with Regulations, and paying their many Taxes, and honoring Worker Benefit plans such Pensions and Union Standards -- that once free of such economic hindrances, these same Job Creators would take all those 'cost savings' and turn them into brand new Jobs, for anyone that needs a Job {at whatever Wage the market will bear, of course}.
Well, this basically was the game-plan of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, for the last several years --
to free Job Creators from all their undue burdens, and
to free the tax-payer from their obligation to pay for things like Teachers and County Clerks, like Policemen and Firemen, like a century of employee-gains that previous generations of Union Workers had sacrificed and fought for ...
So just how well, is the Walker-Koch Austerity Agenda been working out for his long-suffering state's citizens, in meanwhile?
Issue of the Week: Walker’s Austerity Agenda Is Killing Job Creation
by Shepherd Express Staff, expressmilwaukee.com -- March 28, 2014
The Journal Sentinel seems to be giving Gov. Scott Walker a pass on his lackluster job-creation record, with no real investigation of why Wisconsin is yet again lagging behind the rest of the nation in jobs. Last week, new jobs data showed that Walker’s Wisconsin created a mere 28,351 jobs from September 2012 to September 2013, landing us in 35th place of the 50 states. Our 1.2% growth is about half the nation’s 2.1% increase in jobs.
The state’s largest newspaper leads with the headline about 28,351 jobs created which sounds good until you find out that was for an entire year and more than two thirds of the other states are doing better. The real story that the Journal Sentinel seems unwilling to discuss is that with all of Walker’s right-wing policies -- like his attacks on unions and his tax cuts for the wealthy that were carried out in the name of job creation -- Wisconsin is in the lowest third among states in job creation. His policies don’t create jobs, but rather shifts wealth from the middle and lower classes to the top few percent. If we didn’t take money out of the pockets of the average working Wisconsin resident, they would have more money to spend in their local economies and that is how jobs are created. Demand creates jobs, not tax cuts for the wealthy.
[...]
“Far from enabling the state’s economy to ‘take off like a rocket,’ as one state lawmaker predicted, the austerity policies of the past three years have produced sluggish job growth in Wisconsin, in much the same way as the International Monetary Fund has concluded that austerity policies have produced economic stagnation and slow job growth around the world,” the [Marc] Levine report concludes.
[...]
To drill into this Austerity-Spotlight report a bit, just continue reading ...
It took some digging, but here it is -- the Levin report -- that you will NOT likely see trumpeted or debated on the Sunday Talk Shows. Who's got time for that? Isn't that what ALEC gets paid for -- to dismantle and bury reports such as these?
Gauging Employment Growth in Wisconsin: State-By-State Comparisons September 2002-2013
by: Marc V. Levine, Catherine Madison, Nadège Rolland
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Center for Economic Development
CED Data Brief -- March 2014
[...]
Wisconsin’s employment growth in recent years has been the subject of much political spinning2 or accounts that find the trends “confounding.”3 However, placed in the longer time perspective of the past decade -- a period in which Wisconsin has generally posted mediocre national rankings in job growth, punctuated by an especially marked improvement in 2010, and consistent underperformance since 2011 -- certain patterns seem to emerge. Although this brief does not presume to present a definitive analysis, the data appear consistent with a narrative that Wisconsin’s employment growth malaise is the result of a confluence of long-term job-killing trends and a more recent mix of austerity policies -- at the federal and state level -- that have severely inhibited employment growth in the state.
[...] In September 2009, Wisconsin ranked 33rd in year-over-year employment performance; in September 2010, Wisconsin rocketed to 13th among the 50 states. What happened?
In a word: the stimulus. In 2009, the Obama administration passed the $787 billion “stimulus package,” a Keynesian-style infusion of public spending that injected billions of dollars into the economy, counteracting the decline in aggregate demand that followed the crash and, by bolstering demand, encouraging businesses to begin hiring again. Wisconsin, with Rep. David Obey chairing the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee and steering the legislation through the House, did remarkably well in garnering funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. Federal government expenditures in Wisconsin rose by 52.7 percent between 2008 and 2009 (from $40.1 billion to $61.3 billion) -- the second largest percentage increase in the nation.8
What does our Nation typically do, when
old Republican Truisms, turn out
Not be so True?
Typically we ignore them. We do not hold them to account. We do not look back and say, as a Nation: WTH were you thinking, Republicans? {Where's the Beef!?}
We just simply give them another Free Pass. We let them re-group unscathed, let them concoct another equally-faulty batch of Truisms -- to be foisted on a long-suffering public, desperate for some help, some real Jobs, and above all else some real Truth.
Some real Truth, about how decades of catering to the Job Creators, and running from Taxes like the plague, is in truth decimating our Nation, is eating up our life savings, is treating our fellow-unemployed-citizens, like automaton bargain chips, on some billionaire board-game of Global Economic Risk.
To move, or trample, or dispose of ... however those 'unhindered' Job Creators, now see fit.
Enough Already!
When will someone protect our rights as workers, not treat them as trivial?
When will someone provide for our fellow citizens in need, not treat them like social pariahs?
When will someone stand up against Austerity, and raise revenues from those Job Destroyers, as the Constitution empowers and instructs us to do?
The sad answer is: Probably Not soon enough.
... because that is another Truism about Americans and more so, American Pride. Most of us are ashamed to ask for help, and most are afraid to take it. And even worse, most Dems in power are strategical afraid to offer it ... H.E.L.P. Real concrete, changes my life, help.
Because WHAT will our friends and neighbors think; WHAT if we each can't pull our own weight. WHAT if we fail to rise to the occasion by our own grit and determination ... in a decimated economy, one that offers hope only to the lucky corporate few? What then?
What if it one day turns out the specter of all these ill-conceived Republican Truisms -- actually have managed to come True?
What then? ... because as we just discovered, Austerity does NOT solve our oh-so-many ills.
If the facts were to be examined, our individual stories to be told, it would become clear, that Austerity only works to make our many problems worse, not better.
If the {long-suffering Citizen's} Truth were ever to be told.