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Originally Posted by Dutch
IRT Walker, I've heard a bit about him generating a surplus in the state and producing a lot of new jobs. Have this things had a positive impact in WI?
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No sir. Even ignoring the job market (which has grown steadily worse over the last four years), he keeps blowing the surplus on tax cuts and then claiming we need spending cuts to compensate for the deficits he creates...and targets education to do that.
You know where employers don't want to move their operations? To a state where they can't count on a pool of educated workers.
You know what Wisconsin hasn't spent the last four years doing? Supporting education.
Do the math. Scott Walker can't.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mckerney
He's claimed that, but in reality he's run a deficit every year he's been in office and is facing another $2 billion deficit over the next biennium. On new jobs Wisconsin has been behind neighboring states and in his first term saw about half the job growth he said his policies would create. His main jobs program, aside from putting Open for Business on state signs, the WEDC has been a complete failure.
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~40k jobs added the last four months of 2014. ~146k estimated added for his entire first four years. That means we spent 3 years, 8 months with thumb-in-ass disease attributable in no small part to his policies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JPhillips
But it, and the post-war boom, at least tell us that current taxes can be raised without an economic meltdown.
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Difficulty: the post-war boom was fueled in large part by the devastation in Europe during the war. The American economy was the only Western economy not in an absolute shambles. When you're producing things for the entire world to consume, income growth is going to be strong enough to sustain 1950s-level marginal rates.
Comparing the current economic climate with that of the post-war era and concluding that the top marginal rate has room to go up as a result is kind of a specious comparison. Do I think that the economy could sustain Clinton-era tax rates? Yes.
But Eisenhower-era rates are another question, and I don't think we can rely on past performance as an indicator of future results there.