“For 52 years, Kathy and I haven’t missed a State Fair—except for last year, of course—and we’ve shared some of our favorite memories here, including eating our fair share of Wisconsin cream puffs,” said Gov. Evers. “Getting shots in arms is a critical part of making sure our state and our economy continue to recover, so we’re thrilled to partner with the folks at DHS and the Wisconsin State Fair to provide cream puffs to all those who get their COVID-19 vaccine at the state fair clinic on-site this year.”
Let me get this straight… Evers is very concerned that people who are not vaccinated will catch and/or spread the virus. So he invites the unvaccinated to come to a massive public event, get a shot, and then wander around before the shot will be effective. Won’t that spread more virus? Shouldn’t he be encouraging the unvaccinated to stay away and get vaccinated BEFORE they go to events like this? Instead, he is encouraging more unvaccinated people to attend the State Fair than might otherwise attend.
Unfortunately, if there is anything that Tony Evers has shown throughout the entirety of his elected career, he is not a competent leader. Spurred by complaints to the state’s Fraud, Waste, and Mismanagement Hotline, the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau investigated multiple allegations that the DWD’s administration of unemployment insurance program was still suffering from delays and mismanagement. The hotline reports included many issues including delayed payments, call center wait times, insufficient assistance, and the failure to comply with state statutes and federal program requirements.
The LAB found that the issues with the call center’s effectiveness were consistent with their findings in January. Based on the continuing complaints, the DWD still has not corrected for the issues even though they have been continuing for over 15 months.
The LAB also dove into the data regarding the DWD complying with certain federal requirements and found that the DWD was woefully out of compliance. One of the requirements imposed by the federal government as a condition for the state to receive funding for the unemployment insurance program is the DWD is required to provide a prompt appeals process for individuals who are denied unemployment benefits. The federal rules require that the state issue appeal decisions for 60% of appeals within 30 days and for at least 80% within 45 days.
The DWD met that standard until May of 2020. Beginning in June 2020, the DWD fell to less than 50% of appeals decided within 45 days. That temporary failure to comply was understandable given the crush of unemployment claims at the time. Unfortunately for Wisconsin’s unemployed, the DWD’s appeals process steadily worsened to the point that as of May 2021, only 17.5% of appeals were decided within 45 days and only 10.2% were decided within 30 days.
Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News last week.
A few weeks ago, Governor Tony Evers held back Wisconsin’s economic recovery by vetoing a bill that would have ended the federal enhancement for unemployment benefits early. Last week, Governor Evers compounded his putrid decision by launching another wasteful donothing economic development government program with the taxpayers’ money.
The data coming out of other states continues to show the foolishness of Evers’ veto of the bill to end enhanced unemployment benefits early. The principle is very simple. If you want people to do more of something, then pay them more to do it. In this case, the federal government, in a moment of misguided altruism, is sending money to states to pay people more money to stay out of the workforce.
The economy is groaning out of the government-enforced recession in fits and spurts with some sectors roaring and others continuing to struggle. One of the most pressing problems in many sectors is that employers throughout the country are struggling to find workers to fill their open jobs. With an unemployment rate of 3.9% and a labor participation rate of 66.3%, most of Wisconsin’s employers are having the same problem.
For the states that ended enhanced unemployment payments in early June, they saw a 33% decline in new jobless claims compared with 4% in states that are still paying people more to not work, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics analyzed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Those states that withdrew in late June saw a decline of 12%. Those that withdrew in July saw a decline of 10%. Every week counts when it comes to economic recovery. Even better, the labor participation rate in those states that withdrew in June increased by 0.25%. People are getting back to work faster in those states and more people are reentering the workforce. Evers’ decision to keep the enhanced federal unemployment payments through September will keep Wisconsin’s economy dragging behind other states.
As a tacit acknowledgment of his damaging veto, Evers announced last week that he would spend $130 million in federal COVID relief funds for workforce development to help with the worker shortage.
Of those funds, $100 million will be spent on a “workforce innovation grant program to encourage regions and communities to develop leading-edge, long-term solutions to the workforce challenges the state faces.” In other words, a bunch of unelected government bureaucrats are going to hand out your money to groups and businesses that can meet whatever version of “solutions” meets the liberal definition of “leading-edge.” Expect that money to go to things like green energy and education initiatives that are run by people who give money to Democrats.
$20 million of your money will go to subsidize “employment and skills training opportunities with local employers.” The remaining $10 million will for to “provide workforce career coaches.” This money will be used to pay people to teach unemployed people how to work as if it is the responsibility of the taxpayers to pay to train people to work.
There are already dozens of programs like this in every community in Wisconsin, but Evers seems to think that one more will do the trick. The fact that he is spending tens of millions of dollars that will be doled out at his administration’s discretion is a convenient political advantage the year before he seeks reelection.
With all of this spending, however, Evers admitted that the impact will not be felt any time soon – if ever. Speaking to reporters in Green Bay last week, he said that the initiatives “will be a fall enterprise.” While Wisconsin’s employers are struggling right now, Evers jumps to the rescue with a plan that will not even begin until the trees take on their autumnal hues.
In these two decisions we see the liberal mind of Tony Evers at work. Faced with a worker shortage that is retarding Wisconsin’s economic recovery and causing irreparable damage to many Wisconsin businesses, he vetoes the partial solution that would have had immediate effect and saved taxpayer money in favor of dumping $130 million of taxpayer money into the pockets of political allies for a solution that might begin to help sometime next year. In Evers’ calculation, spending taxpayer money to purchase political favor is more important than solving the state’s problems.
As a tacit acknowledgment of his damaging veto, Evers announced last week that he would spend $130 million in federal COVID relief funds for workforce development to help with the worker shortage.
Of those funds, $100 million will be spent on a “workforce innovation grant program to encourage regions and communities to develop leading-edge, long-term solutions to the workforce challenges the state faces.” In other words, a bunch of unelected government bureaucrats are going to hand out your money to groups and businesses that can meet whatever version of “solutions” meets the liberal definition of “leading-edge.” Expect that money to go to things like green energy and education initiatives that are run by people who give money to Democrats.
$20 million of your money will go to subsidize “employment and skills training opportunities with local employers.” The remaining $10 million will for to “provide workforce career coaches.” This money will be used to pay people to teach unemployed people how to work as if it is the responsibility of the taxpayers to pay to train people to work.
There are already dozens of programs like this in every community in Wisconsin, but Evers seems to think that one more will do the trick. The fact that he is spending tens of millions of dollars that will be doled out at his administration’s discretion is a convenient political advantage the year before he seeks reelection.
With all of this spending, however, Evers admitted that the impact will not be felt any time soon – if ever. Speaking to reporters in Green Bay last week, he said that the initiatives “will be a fall enterprise.” While Wisconsin’s employers are struggling right now, Evers jumps to the rescue with a plan that will not even begin until the trees take on their autumnal hues.
Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News last week.
I hate group projects. How many times have you heard that statement or uttered it yourself ? When a group project involves a group of people voluntarily coming together to achieve a common goal, they can be terrific. But more often, group projects like those in school entail a hodgepodge of people with different motivations, varying work ethics, and suspect integrity who are thrown together to accomplish an assigned task.
Every group project seems to have “that guy.” You know the one. He’s the lazy slacker with a bad attitude. He shows up to the first couple of meetings for the group project. He offers a thought or two, but they are terrible. He then proceeds to bash everyone else’s ideas before retreating to sulk for the rest of the project. He doesn’t contribute anything meaningful and disappears for days or weeks at a time. The rest of the group gives up on him and finishes the project without him.
When the project is presented and is well received, that guy is suddenly everywhere. He is taking credit for the work and acting as if every great idea were his. With shameless audacity, that guy shoves his colleagues out of the way to bask in unearned adulation for work that was not only someone else’s, but that he actively maligned. In the great state budget group project, “that guy” is Governor Tony Evers, and his budget project teammates in the Legislature are justifiably piqued at his behavior. When Governor Evers first proposed his budget in February, it included a massive 12% spending increase that needed a tax increase of $1 billion to support it. Evers argued that Wisconsin needed to tax and spend more than ever in order to fund, “the future we dream.” Several weeks ago, the state announced that unprecedented tax collections would potentially result in a massive surplus in tax revenue in the state’s coffers. Governor Evers was quick to trumpet that every dollar of that surplus should be plowed into even more government spending. For his entire tenure in office, Evers has advocated for more taxing and more spending at every turn.
As the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee finished its work on the budget a month ago, the Republicans included a $3.3 billion tax cut. Not a single Democrat on the committee voted for the tax cuts. Instead, the Democrats lambasted the tax cuts as a missed opportunity and a sop to the rich.
When the final budget that included those tax cuts was passed by the Assembly, only four Democrats voted for it. In the Senate, only three Democrats voted for the final budget. Democrats slammed Republicans for passing tax cuts with Democrat Senator Chris Larson going so far as to accuse Republicans of, “kicking the dust in the faces of our kids.”
Yet after all of the scorn and derision that Evers and the Democrats threw at Republicans for cutting taxes, Evers was first to step to the front of the class and claim credit for them. When he signed the tax-cutting budget (after reducing the tax cuts with his veto pen), Evers took credit while declaring, “I’m providing more than $2 billion in tax relief and cutting taxes for middle-class families at a time when our economy and families need it most.”
Gone were the lamentations about not spending money. Absent was any acknowledgment that Evers had actually proposed a tax increase in his budget. Missing was a hint of credit for the Republicans who actually wrote and passed the budget that included the tax cut. Even though Evers vociferously opposed cutting taxes every step of the way, he was quick to take credit for them when they proved popular.
In every possible way, Governor Evers is “that guy.” After his initial budget proposal that included a tax increase, he sulked in the corner and threw insults at Republicans as they crafted a real budget. When the work was done and included really popular things like a huge tax cut, Evers took credit for the good work. He did not even have the common decency to admit that he opposed the tax cuts or give credit to the people who did the hard work to include them.
Just like when Evers was caught multiple times plagiarizing the work of others during his tenure as the state school superintendent, Evers has demonstrated again that he has no scruples about taking credit for the work of others when he thinks it will serve his personal ambitions. His inability to give even a little credit to others or admit when he was wrong reveals an insecure man of poor character. He is the guy that nobody ever wants on their group project.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Tony Evers on Wednesday announced that $130 million in federal coronavirus relief funds will be used to help address the state’s worker shortage problem and assist unemployed people searching for a job.
The bulk of the money, $100 million, will go toward a workforce innovation program for the development of solutions to workforce challenges the state faced after the COVID-19 pandemic, Evers said.
Another $20 million will go to a worker advancement initiative that will offer about 2,000 unemployed people subsidized employment and skills training opportunities with local employers. And $10 million would go to a program that provides workforce career coaches to help people find jobs.
So Evers won’t do something that would save money and actually help the problem, like end federal unemployment enhancements early, but he will spend a ton of your money on another government program. While not actually solving anything, he will send your money to his political cronies who run programs like this.
I hate group projects. How many times have you heard that statement or uttered it yourself ? When a group project involves a group of people voluntarily coming together to achieve a common goal, they can be terrific. But more often, group projects like those in school entail a hodgepodge of people with different motivations, varying work ethics, and suspect integrity who are thrown together to accomplish an assigned task.
Every group project seems to have “that guy.” You know the one. He’s the lazy slacker with a bad attitude. He shows up to the first couple of meetings for the group project. He offers a thought or two, but they are terrible. He then proceeds to bash everyone else’s ideas before retreating to sulk for the rest of the project. He doesn’t contribute anything meaningful and disappears for days or weeks at a time. The rest of the group gives up on him and finishes the project without him.
When the project is presented and is well received, that guy is suddenly everywhere. He is taking credit for the work and acting as if every great idea were his. With shameless audacity, that guy shoves his colleagues out of the way to bask in unearned adulation for work that was not only someone else’s, but that he actively maligned.
In the great state budget group project, “that guy” is Governor Tony Evers, and his budget project teammates in the Legislature are justifiably piqued at his behavior.
While the Legislature was busy last week passing a budget that increases spending and still cuts taxes, Governor Tony Evers was busy weakening Wisconsin with his veto pen. With two vetoes, Evers retarded Wisconsin’s economic growth and opened the door to election corruption for years to come.
Anyone who has gone to a restaurant or retail establishment in Wisconsin has seen the “help wanted” signs and felt the impact of the deficit of workers in those businesses. The impact is equally great on Wisconsin’s manufacturing, agricultural, and tourism sectors. There are more jobs than people willing to take them and Wisconsin is in a state of full employment with an unemployment rate of 3.9%.
One of the reasons that more people are not applying for those open jobs is because taxpayers are paying them more to sit at home and not work through enhanced unemployment payments funded by federal COVID relief money. The Legislature passed a bill to end those federal enhancements early so that taxpayers would not pay people to stay unemployed when there are plenty of available jobs. Evers vetoed that bill. According to a survey by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, 85% of Wisconsin’s businesses support ending the enhanced benefits early because they are desperate for workers, but Evers would rather that the taxpayers pay people to not work. The enhanced unemployment benefits will end in September, but Evers will prolong the labor shortage and hold back Wisconsin’s economic recovery as long as he can. The other bill that Evers vetoed is more nefarious. The Republican Legislature passed a bill that would have prohibited local governments from accepting private money to run elections. The bill was meant to reaffirm a simple principle that something as integral to our system of self-governance as the management of elections should be run by elected officials who are responsible to the people.
What prompted the need to reaffirm this American principle was the action by several liberal cities to sell the electoral process to a liberal activist group in the last election. Last year, a liberal activist group funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who also uses his social media platforms to influence the elections, offered several liberal cities a pile of cash to “help” manage the elections. Several cities took the money and literally, in some cases, handed the ballots over to unelected liberal activists to count them.
In Green Bay, for example, Zuckerberg’s group gave the city $1 million to “help” with the election. For that cash, the city allowed the liberal activists to “help” register people to vote, direct city employees in collecting and managing ballots on election day, access secure areas with ballots, tabulate and count ballots, and even cure disputed ballots. The city of Green Bay abandoned their duty and sold the election process to a liberal activist group.
Perhaps Evers would have signed the bill if the New Berlin or Appleton had outsourced the running of the election to a conservative activist group funded by Republican billionaire Dick Uihlein. But since this is a tactic being used exclusively by leftist activist billionaires and their front groups to corrupt elections, Governor Evers was more than happy to let the practice continue as he is up for reelection next year.
Governor Evers has shown that he is not one to let good public policy stand in the way of political advantage. These two vetoes show that he is willing to prolong the economic pain for Wisconsinites and sell the electoral process to private interest groups if it will benefit him and his leftist comrades. Wisconsinites should veto him next November.
WHITEFISH BAY, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Tony Evers signed the Republican-written state budget Thursday, enacting a two-year spending plan that includes a $2 billion income tax cut while making 50 largely minor partial vetoes, saying unfinished business still needs to be addressed.
[…]
Both Evers, who signed the budget, and the Republicans who wrote and passed it took credit for the tax cut made possible by a revenue surplus.
Evers, a Democrat who is running for reelection next year, cast it as a bipartisan effort even though the tax cut was added to the budget by Republican lawmakers. Only seven Democrats out of 49 voted for the budget. Evers’ original budget would have raised taxes, primarily on manufacturers and the wealthy, by more than $1 billion.
“I could have vetoed that,” Evers said of the GOP tax cut proposal. “I made a promise to the taxpayers, to the state, we would reduce middle class taxes by 10% and we did 15%. It is a bipartisan effort.”
Republicans reacted angrily to Evers taking credit for the tax cut, with the GOP co-chairs of the budget committee calling it “laughable.”
Thee is a lot of detail at the link, but the summary is below. Thank goodness for Matt Kittle and Empower Wisconsin for following up on this. We had a problem under Governor Walker and it has gotten substantially worse under Governor Evers. It has been two-and-a-half years since Evers took office promising to fix this.
Gov. Tony Evers campaigned on shutting down Lincoln Hills School for Boys, the state’s serious juvenile offender prison, The Democrat hammered his predecessor, insisting Republican Gov. Scott Walker had failed to take action. On the campaign trail Evers declared Wisconsin needed “responsible leaders who are more focused about solving problems and protecting lives than winning elections.”
Two and a half years after Evers took office, things have gotten a lot worse inside the walls of Lincoln Hills, according to documents obtained by Empower Wisconsin in an open records request, and the governor has repeatedly argued to delay the closing of the juvenile detention centers.
While Evers and Republicans have fought over funding to replace Lincoln Hills and the Copper Lake School for Girls with regional detention centers, the governor is ultimately responsible for the safety and security of the institutions. Lincoln Hills staffers say Evers’ Department of Corrections has swept worsening conditions under the rug.
Under Governor Evers:
* Sexual misconduct incidents soared 75 percent at Lincoln Hills.
What prompted the need to reaffirm this American principle was the action by several liberal cities to sell the electoral process to a liberal activist group in the last election. Last year, a liberal activist group funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who also uses his social media platforms to influence the elections, offered several liberal cities a pile of cash to “help” manage the elections. Several cities took the money and literally, in some cases, handed the ballots over to unelected liberal activists to count them.
In Green Bay, for example, Zuckerberg’s group gave the city $1 million to “help” with the election. For that cash, the city allowed the liberal activists to “help” register people to vote, direct city employees in collecting and managing ballots on election day, access secure areas with ballots, tabulate and count ballots, and even cure disputed ballots. The city of Green Bay abandoned their duty and sold the election process to a liberal activist group.
Perhaps Evers would have signed the bill if the New Berlin or Appleton had outsourced the running of the election to a conservative activist group funded by Republican billionaire Dick Uihlein. But since this is a tactic being used exclusively by leftist activist billionaires and their front groups to corrupt elections, Governor Evers was more than happy to let the practice continue as he is up for reelection next year.
Governor Evers has shown that he is not one to let good public policy stand in the way of political advantage. These two vetoes show that he is willing to prolong the economic pain for Wisconsinites and sell the electoral process to private interest groups if it will benefit him and his leftist comrades. Wisconsinites should veto him next November.
MADISON – Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a bill Wednesday that would have barred a nonprofit group from repeating its practice of giving millions of dollars to more than 200 Wisconsin communities to help them run elections.
The Center for Tech and Civic Life gave money to cities around the country last year using $350 million from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. The effort riled Republicans because most of the money in Wisconsin — $8.8 million out of $10.6 million — went to the state’s five largest cities, where Democratic voters are concentrated.
Assembly Bill 173 would have prohibited local governments from accepting donations to help run elections from the center or other private groups. Any donations to the state for conducting elections would have to be equally distributed to local governments based on their populations.
Here’s what this allows… local election officials can essentially outsource the running of an election to the highest bidder. In lefty-land, this means doing what they did in Green Bay. The mayor literally handed the keys to the election boxes over to an unelected liberal interest group to “help” run the election and count the ballots. Theoretically, it means that a conservative elected official could hand over the election process to WILL or MacIver Institute to “help” run the election and count the ballots. This completely violates the principle that elected people who are accountable to the voters are in charge of our elections.
These things don’t happen in a vacuum and elections have consequences. Evers is up for reelection next year and is clearly doing everything he can to ensure that his supporters can cheat as much as possible. I hope the Republicans have an answer.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a Republican bill Tuesday that would eliminate a $300-a week federal bonus for unemployed people.
The bonus was designed to help the unemployed during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s scheduled to end on Sept. 6 but Republican legislators pushed the bill through the Assembly and Senate earlier this month, insisting that business can’t find workers and the bonus is keeping people from seeking work.
Wisconsin’s governor blasted the state’s senior senator Friday for giving a platform to six people who claim they’ve had adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines instead of promoting the millions who haven’t reported serious side effects and avoided sickness and death.
It’s kind of like when activists give a platform for victims of police violence instead of the millions who have been protected by police and had positive interactions with them.
Facts are facts. In the short term, there are people who have adverse reactions to the vaccines while most people are just fine. We don’t know the long term effects yet. Shouldn’t people know with facts? We want people to know that nut juice isn’t milk so that they can make an informed consumer choice. Don’t we want them to know that they might have an adverse impact from a vaccine so that they can make an informed choice?
Evers originally said he wanted to spend $2.5 billion on economic relief for families, tourism, workers and small-business owners, as well as $500 million on the continued pandemic response and $200 million on infrastructure, including broadband.
During a news conference Wednesday, Evers answered vaguely when asked about how the reduced amount would affect his plans, saying the state now has $700 million less to help it recover from the pandemic. He said the reduction “hurts” and that it may affect how much his administration can spend, but he didn’t elaborate.
Evers’ spokeswoman, Britt Cudaback, said the governor still plans to follow through on his pledge to spend about $620 million of the stimulus money on grants for small businesses, organizations working to eliminate racial disparities, tourism and mental health programs for children. But she said other amounts could change.
MADISON (WKOW) — Gov. Tony Evers said Thursday he has not been in talks with Republican leaders in charge of the legislature while GOP leaders on the committee that writes the budget said they could start taking votes on removing items from Evers’ budget as soon as next week.
[…]
“If the question is specifically ‘is there room to negotiate on tax increases, the answer to that would be ‘no,'” Born said. “There’s a lot of stuff in this budget that are areas of agreement, things we can work on, agree with, and negotiate if that’s what people want to do in the governor’s office but tax increases is absolutely not one of them.”
Evers argued that he could issue multiple health emergencies because of the changing nature of the pandemic. The mask order first took effect in August and Evers extended it four times since then, most recently on Feb. 4 immediately after Republican legislators repealed it.
Gov. Tony Evers outlined his initial plans on Monday for some of the roughly $3 billion in federal COVID-19 stimulus funds headed to Wisconsin, saying hundreds of millions of dollars will flow to small businesses, infrastructure and continued pandemic response. The governor also vetoed a bill on Monday that would have given GOP state lawmakers more say over how the federal funds are spent.
Wisconsin is set to receive about $5.7 billion under the latest federal pandemic stimulus, with $3.2 billion earmarked for state government. The remainder of the funds will go to local governments and non-governmental programs.
Speaking at a small business in Milwaukee, Evers said he plans to spend $600 million on supporting small businesses, $500 million on continued pandemic response, $200 million on infrastructure and $50 million on aid for the Wisconsin tourism industry. The governor said his administration is working to get the funds disbursed as quickly as possible.
“At the end of the day, we’re still battling a pandemic and all the uncertainty that comes with that — workers and business owners are still filled with worry, families are still struggling to make ends meet,” he said.
Evers said the money dedicated to infrastructure development will include a “significant investment” in broadband expansion, something he and GOP lawmakers have agreed should be a major priority. The governor said announcements about which specific programs will receive funding in each broad category are to come. He noted the new business loans will “build on” an existing pandemic grant program that has sent money to about 53,000 businesses in Wisconsin.
It’s not just that Governor Evers is lying about why his Department of Health Services (DHS) undercounted COVID-19 deaths in the state’s nursing homes by nearly 1,000; it’s that he is so obviously and provably lying.
When asked this week why DHS officials quietly upped the number of nursing home deaths from 1,956 to 2,927, Evers rather perplexingly claimed that state investigators simply couldn’t figure out where thousands of COVID victims lived.
“Our local folks got lots of death certificates and death investigations that just had a street name on it,” he said. “How do we know that is a nursing home?”
This just isn’t true. If it were, then the State of Wisconsin hasn’t managed to find a home address for a staggering 37% of the people who died of COVID-19 over the past year. That’s either terrifying incompetence or, far more likely, sickening dishonesty.
Nothing says, “I care about Wisconsinites who lost their livelihoods in a pandemic” like jacking up taxes.
In summary, the changes included in the Governor’s budget would increase net taxes by $1,020,728,000 ($464,824,000 in 2021-22 and $555,904,000 in 2022-23) and would increase net fees by $17,162,700 ($7,172,900 in 2021-22 and $9,989,800 in 2022-23). In addition, it is estimated that measures included in AB 68/SB 111 to enhance the collection of current taxes would generate an additional $78,031,700 ($38,745,800 in 2021-22 and $39,285,900 in 2022-23).
