Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Trump Joke of the Week: President-elect is Toothless Cat

Everyone from Bernie Sanders to Politico is on to the Trump tax cut gambit.

Candidate Trump threatened Carrier with tariffs if it moved jobs out of the United States.  Now Carrier will keep most of the jobs in Indiana after President-elect Trump, declawed and de-fanged, wheeled and dealed with Carrier and gave them major tax breaks to stay put.

Tax cuts to companies, income and property (this does not include TIF, secured by job guarantees and/or building improvements), are not justified: Kauffman Foundation, Three Tax Topics.

The scary part of all of this is the direction towards corporate socialism in the name of building the economy.

Illinois Tax Hike: Will Walker's Wisconsin Plan Work or Will the Simpsons Win?

The ink is barely dry on the Illinois tax hikes and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is ready to raid the Prairie State:

Governor plans business border war with Illinois

Gov. Scott Walker is planning an all-out border war with Illinois, hoping his promise of a better economic climate will lure businesses away from a state considering a historic tax hike. 

The Illinois House early Wednesday approved a 67 percent increase in that state's personal income tax rate, and a 46 percent increase in its corporate tax rate.

Obviously Walker's strategy is not limited to America's Dairyland. From Associated Press:

Neighboring states gleeful over Illinois tax increase

Neighboring states gleefully plotted Wednesday to take advantage of what they consider a major economic blunder and lure businesses away from Illinois.

"It's like living next door to the 'Simpsons' -- you know, he dysfunctional family down the block,Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels said in an interview...

Everything I learned about building a strong economy is that taxes are just one of many facets that enter into the decision by corporate executives to locate or relocate a company. As I noted in a post three years ago,

The Role of Taxes:

Then, there is the more subtle point that study after study demonstrates that lower taxes are not a critical element in determining business development decisions. There are so many sources that prove that point:

• So, are taxes the most important site selection factor for companies when choosing a future facility location? Of course not. In fact, in the overall scheme of things, taxes probably rank somewhere between No. 3 and 10, depending upon whom you ask.

• Critics of the tax incentives, however, say that local governments are competing in an unnecessary race to the bottom by offering increasingly deep local tax cuts. They contend that tax breaks are far from the most important factor when companies choose where to locate their facilities.

This point was not lost in the AP article:

But economic experts scoffed at images of highways packed with moving vans as businesses leave Illinois. Income taxes are just one piece of the puzzle when businesses decide where to locate or expand, they said, and states should be cooperating instead trying to poach jobs from one another.

"The idea of competing on state tax rates is . . . hopelessly out of date," said Ed Morrison, economic policy advisor at the Purdue Center for Regional Development. "It demonstrates that political leadership is really out of step with what the global competitive realities are."

By going where no other state dares to tread, Illinois could prove itself to be a policy pacesetter or the opposite — a place so dysfunctional that officials created a jaw-dropping budget crisis and then tried to fix it by knee-capping the economy.

Like the Simpsons, Illinois may have the last laugh.

All of this is not to say that taxes, particulalry the more regressive taxes cannot be burdensome to middle and low income families and the elderly. 

Madison's Arteries Need An Asprin, Not Surgery

There is clutter and trash masquerading as signage in Madison. You see it on Odana Road and East Washington, Park Street and Sherman Avenue.

The Wisconsin State Journal to informs us that City's arteries need surgery, leaders say.

The thrust of the story is that we must spend millions of public dollars to improve the main entrance ways to Madison:

Public expenditures and plans for new development are in the works to put the areas in a good position to prosper when the current recession lifts, said Mayor Dave Cieslewicz.

For now though, despite some improvements, hundreds of thousands of motorists coming into Madison each day see patchworks of shabby older buildings and typical highway fare — fast-food stores, billboards and auto service stations.

The article focuses on the need for millions of dollars of public investment in the main corridor entrances to Madison, South Park Street, University Avenue, and East Washington.

Lauded as the finest entrance way to Madison is John Nolen Drive.  The John Nolen Drive entranceway was mostly the work of one city employee, planner John Urich. Urich worked tirelessly on the design and the ordinances to protect this spectacular approach to our city.

John's legacy is broad and deep.

Another significant contribution of Mr. Urich was the Madison sign ordinance. John is rolling over in his grave.

This city is a disgrace. The violations are overwhelming in volume and substance. It is debatable as to which venue, starting with State Street is the most offensive. The callous signage is on both public and private property. The situation, of course, was made worse, when the city allowed these portable advertisements on the sidewalks and terraces in an effort to offend pedestrians, those confined to wheel chairs, and anyone who would not like the community to look like a honkytonk.

Ironically, the strongest statement in the Wisconsin State Journal article on the issue is the caption below this photograph that reads, in part, "Billboards, fast food, gas stations and car part stores all part of the visual clutter of South Park Street."

Sorry, State Journal, and city officials.  Billboards, fast food, gas stations, and car part stores are all a very small part of the visual clutter. As I said, just go see the segments of Odana Road where there are offices and retailers who are not fast food or car parts stores, and you will see the real visual clutter.

The problem with visual clutter is that it also has economic consequences. Occupants of offices and retailers who do not want to be part of the clownish atmosphere, abandon such areas.Then rents and property values decline, and they are subsequently replaces with more garish uses.

Funny thing is there is a solution to this which does not cost millions of dollars. In fact it would cost less than one half of a full time salary.

Enforce the sign ordinance.

I am not saying that capital improvements are not needed in some areas. But I would not spend a penny on any capital improvements or even conduct a study of "recommended new features" until I knew what these areas looked like with enforcement of the sign ordinance.

Put it another way: How could you justify spending millions of public money or expect the private sector to spend tens of millions of their dollars if the street or avenue was to be plastered with illegal signs?

For those who want to know, we already have the well documented answer as to the reason the sign ordinance is not enforced:  "There is not enough money."

Saving The American Economy - End Poisonous "Free Trade"

As I look at the abandoned homes and abandoned factories it seems that we will never fill those once healthy spaces unless there are healthy jobs.

Many of those healthy jobs are gone forever - or al east gone until we correct the source of their loss. American manufacturers have gone overseas in search of lower costs. Or at least lower wages.

Forcing U.S. workers to compete against workers exploited in Asia and South America is unfair, cruel and not in anyone's best interest.

It is time to revisit the trade agreements, the treaties and the trade regulations.

There is no free trade when the workers of one nation are forced to compete with the exploited workers of another nation. There is no free trade when the manufacturer in one nation is forced to compete with the manufacturer in another nation that substitutes poisonous materials that are cheaper.

It is time to reinstate tariffs and end the exportation of our jobs and our wealth.

Earth Day Looking Into the Future : Earth Day at 40

Forty years ago Tom Smith was a University of Wisconsin student. He was also the student organizer for the first Earth Day event which kicked off on April 17, 1970 and ran for an entire week.

Today Professor Thomas W. Smith is organizing the anniversary Earth Day at Forty. It is a good thing that some things do not change.

Then, as now, Tom was kind enough to invite me to speak Tuesday at Monona Terrace. It was a heady experience sharing the dais, on the eve of Earth Day, Tuesday night April 21, 1970, with Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI), Senator Mike Gravel (D- Alaska), Boyd Gibbons, Secretary to U.S. Council on Environmental Quality and of course the rock band, Oz.

I made my own small effort by introducing a resolution in the city council that proposed banning the internal combustion engine. That went nowhere.

I suggested using methane as an alternative fuel. That is finally making some progress.

Our fledgling movement to create a pedestrian, bicycle, and transit mall of State street took a small step forward as the blocks between Park Street and Lake Street were shut down for fair exhibitors.

Unfortunately the issues, as learned over the past four decades, are even more challenging. The oceans rise from global warming and those oceans are filled with thousands of square miles of floating debris, mostly plastics which are gradually degrading from the effects of sun and water into the seas that feed much of the world's population.

At the time, Senator Nelson was asked who could we afford to clean up the environment. He responded by asking "How could we not afford to clean the environment?'

Today our society is divided. One side looks at the externalities. They examine the  price of contamination that entire nations pay for an unregulated environment.

The air and the water are not free. Not when the cost of obtaining clean air and water is mounting daily for most people.

For centuries, in every nation it was recognized that while a stream might run through private property the landowner had no right to poison the water that an entire community needed for survival.

It is time for modern society to conserve that principle. That is what I will say this coming Tuesday. Some things do not change.

 

DOT Verona Road Meeting Fish Fried at Allied Drive

I was curious about the Wisconsin Department of Transportation plans for a free fish fry in the Allied drive neighborhood where they planned to roll out some plans about the Verona/Beltline interchange. DOT: Free Meal At Public Meeting A Mistake

In an effort to boost participation, the DOT offered a free fish fry and child care to residents using taxpayer money that comes from the gas tax.

The DOT said Thursday that partly because of a WISC-TV report on the free meal and negative feedback, taxpayers will not foot the bill for the free food. The DOT said an anonymous donor will pay for it instead.

All of this brought to mind comments I heard at a neighborhood meeting I attended at Allied  Drive around 2004. I was surprised when some neighborhood residents expressed support for the massive rebuild of the interchange which would significantly impact their area, and not all positively.

When I asked why they expressed support for the project, the responses was unanimous. "The DOT is the only government agency that came in here and asked us what we wanted before they began making plans for our neighborhood."

A lot has happened in Allied Drive since 2004. That statement may be dated. After all,  other government agencies and non-profits were part of some significant changes in the area and did some listening themselves.

Without passing judgment on the changes at Allied drive or the propriety of the DOT paying for a fish fry and babysitting, which is a critical need to get parental participation in an area with lots of small kids, there is a lesson here.

It is good to listen.

The State of the State of Wisconsin and the United States

The right-wing chatter boxes continue to provide flawed analysis about the national and Wisconsin economy.

They ignore the fact that the U.S. economy was permanently and critically altered by NAFTA and other trade agreements that allowed $2.00 a day workers to replace American workers. They miss the point that a nation cannot engage in two wars at a cost of billions of dollars a week which do little to contribute to the productivity of the country.

When we look at the depth and breath of this depression, the worst economic crisis facing the nation since the 1930's, it is beyond fascination to see these extremists demanding the economy they destroyed be repaired in a year.

It took five years to come out of the Great Depression. That depression saw an expansion of jobs as the advent of World War II and American industrial might combined to right the greatest economy in the world.

The Republican banking crisis, the trade agreements pushed by the right and accepted by some Democrats, will take more than 12 or 18 months to fix.

It is time we come to recognize that 20% unemployment was avoided, that the majority of troubled financial institutions are now above water, and that depression did not cut deeper.

Growing Poverty in Madison Part II and Tim Cooley

In yesterday's post Growing Poverty in Madison Part I, I noted that to further soclal justice a municipality needs revenues.  Unfortunately, too many leaders, in and out of government, either fail to acknowledge that money, that is tax dollars, needs to be raised, or they address the problem by talking a good game but failing to fund the required investment in human capacity.

Yesterday, while I was posting about poverty, long time buddy at The Capital TImes, Dave Zweifel, knocked my socks off praising Tim Cooley. Questioning city’s process is a good thing

Frankly, although I disagree with some of his views, I find Tim Cooley to be a breath of fresh air. He was appointed economic development director by Mayor Dave Cieslewicz last January in an effort to assist businesses and developers to navigate the sometimes mysterious paths through city hall and, hopefully, attract new companies to locate here.

One public official who gets it is Tim Cooley. Cooley flatly states that to fund Madison's community programs a tax base is required - that means competitively attracting investment into Madison, not its suburbs.

Cooley was featured in a Wisconsin State Journal article last week, City's economic development director rattles cages in push for change

Since taking the $107,673 a year job, Cooley's pushed to make Madison more competitive, questioned the city's rigorous approval process and moved to loosen rules on public aid for businesses. He's mused about installing a city manager-style of government and downsizing the council, likened the use of Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) to playing poker, and offered radically different ideas for the redevelopment of the Edgewater hotel and neighboring property.

I may disagree with Cooley on the need for a city manager, but he is certainly in step with my feelings regarding the need to economically expand Madison. That is why I found it curious that some said,

"But he doesn't understand Madison's culture. He's not making an effort to balance what makes Madison special with economic development.”

What part of Madison culture does he not understand? That we are soft-spoken? That we resist new ideas? 

Perhaps growing up on Madison's east side and graduating from East High School is the problem. That certainly makes him the exception rather than the rule in this town, where outsiders have held sway over government for forty years. Mea culpa.

Cooley is one of the few people who not only knows the balance but is prepared to make it work.

If this city wants to combat poverty it had better understand what Cooley is saying about the need to make Madison competitive with the rest of Dane County. Epic Systems Corporation is in Verona because of attitude as much as TIF policy. It should sicken every Madisonian to see that Madison-born company building a billion dollar campus fifteen miles from where it was founded and spent its first twenty years.

Imagine what those property tax revenues would do to combat poverty.

Growing Poverty In Madison - Part I

Last week Mike Ivey of The Capital Times reported Poor flock to city of Madison, not the 'burbs'

(nationally)....The number of poor grew by 25 percent in suburbs from 2000 to 2008-almost five times the growth rate in primary cities-making the suburbs home to the largest and fastest growing poor population in the country.

But the Madison metropolitan area bucked the trend. The poverty rate showed a significant increase in the city and no change in the suburbs over this time period.

The Brookings Institute report "The Suburbanization of Poverty: Trends in Metropolitan America, 2000 to 2008" only goes back to 2000, but this is a trend that began in the early 1980's, as poorer urban families searched for better homes, first in small to medium size cities like Madison, Albany and Harrisburg, PA, as well as the suburbs. The Promised Land, published in 1992, tells the story of black migration in America since the 1940's.

Their goal was not much different than that of their fellow middle and upper income migrants - seeking neighborhoods with employment, good schools and safe streets.

With this pattern of migration came problems. Many communities were unprepared for the increase in poverty. Housing designed for young 27 year old professionals could not accommodate the needs of low income families with children. School systems with limited budgets were challenged to educate kids with little or no pre-school guidance. Housing, counseling, and family enhancement programs were short staffed and underfunded.

Frankly, when you look at the challenge, it is surprising that Madison has done as well as it has. TThe challenge is that political ideology, ignorance, and funding issues all contribute to the problem:

• Liberals refuse to acknowledge that gangsters, extortionists, and drug dealers follow the impoverished families to Madison and a law enforcement response is required.
• Conservatives refuse to acknowledge that law enforcement is just one tool in combating crime and that without programming that empowers families, crime will prevail no matter how many police officers are sent to a neighborhood.
• Housing advocates refuse to acknowledge that no one is helped by continually adding to the supply of more low income housing if employment, child care, transportation, health care, and family enhancement programs are not developed at a comparable rate as the housing stock.
• The employment, child care, transportation, health care, and family enhancement programs are not effective if understaffed, poorly funded and uncoordinated.
• No matter how sincere the commitment, none of this works without government revenues and private sector participation. That means a tax base of businesses, particularly office buildings and retail, must be continually developed to provide the resources to fund effective programming.

"Soglin Snow Fact Check: Disappointing," Says Mark Clear

Mark Clear, 19th district, City of Madison, Common Council President Pro tem asked if I would provide space for a rebuttal to my commentaries on the city of Madison snow-plowing operations. Here it is. Rather than interrupt the flow of Mark's work, my own comments are at the end of the post.

____________________________________________________________________________

By Mark Clear:

Former Mayor Paul Soglin has gotten a lot of press for his critique of Madison’s commitment to snow removal. But he makes a number of claims that don’t bear up to scrutiny.

Claim: “The city retired plowing vehicles and did not replace them.”

Fact check: False. The city currently has 178 pieces of equipment for snow removal, every single one of which was used in the Dec. 8-9 storm, and, for that matter, the January 7^th6.2 inch storm. That's an 87% increase over the 95 pieces of equipment the Soglin administration had available in 1990. (Both numbers include city-owned and contractor equipment.) During that same period, miles of street maintained by the city has increased about 30%. So the raw numbers of trucks and the ratio of trucks to lane mile have actually increased. And the equipment the city has today is more efficient and effective resulting in an operation that performs better than it did in the past.

Claim: Staffing has not kept pace with city growth.

Fact check: Needs clarification. It’s true that the full-time staff of the Streets Division has not grown commensurate with growth in lane miles. The city utilizes more personnel from other agencies and more contractors to help with snow removal. That’s just good, efficient business. The unpredictability of snow events demands that kind of flexibility.

Claim: “After 1999, Madison did not increase the budget for snow removal commensurate with inflation and growth.”

Fact check: False.  The city’s 1999 snow removal budget was $3.9 million. The 2010 snow removal budget is $5.7 million, an increase of 46%. Over the same period, inflation and growth in miles of street maintained by the city lane miles was 45%.

Claim: “The city adopted winter parking policies for the downtown which made it more difficult for plows to navigate narrow car-choked streets, driving up snow removal costs.”

Fact check: True.The downtown Snow Emergency Zone, created in 1992, does increase time and costs for snow removal, because compliance with alternate side parking rule is lower than in other parts of the city. Despite that, I don’t think the Council would support eliminating it today and there has been no recent proposal to do so. The SEZ assists with the challenging reality of parking conditions in our high-density downtown. Yes, it has a cost (though it’s difficult to quantify). In 2008 the Council adopted changes to the SEZ to help lower those costs, and those changes have been effective (as described in the Piraino Report).

Claim: Basic service has been reduced over the past decade.

Fact check: False. The most valid way to quantify the service level is by measuring the average time for a full plowing operation. This metric removes all the variables of budget and equipment capacity and human capacity and gets down to the true performance of a snow removal operation. In the CapTimes story, Paul suggested that the service level should average 12 hours, and that it did during his term in the 1990’s. I think that’s a reasonable minimum to set, but today the city is actually doing far better. The city did not start tracking this specifically until the 2006-2007 season as part of Madison Measures. That season the average was 9.5 hours. Last season (2008-09), the average plowing time was 9.1 hours.

The facts bear out one simple conclusion: the City of Madison is more effective and efficient at plowing snow today than it was ten or twenty years ago.

Most of this data was not included in the Piraino Report because that was not the goal of the report. Rather it was to examine the response to one specific storm and develop recommendations that merit further study. I do not intend to gloss over the problems encountered in that storm—they were real and they must be addressed. But Paul is off base by making incorrect statements about the causes of those problems, which takes the focus away from finding the true causes and looking for ways to improve.

I hope Paul will retract his misstatements and the undeserved public damage they have caused to the reputation of our hard-working and responsive staff who deliver quality services to our citizens every day.

Ald. Mark Clear, 19^th District
Common Council President Pro Tem

 

My response:

“The city retired plowing vehicles and did not replace them.”

Sorry Mark, but the research done by Kristin Czubkowski of The Capital Times says otherwise. Our administration had more than 95 pieces of city equipment available in 1990 and even more by 1997.  Your use of the number 95 as the total of city equipment plus private contractors is just plain wrong. The Capital Times story notes:

..and the stories about that Dec. 1990 storm mentioned 199 or about 200 pieces of equipment between the city and contractors...certainly more than 95 and even more than the city's 178 this year. That number is much higher than for other 1990 storms, which cited numbers like 165 or 180 pieces of equipment...

If we want to get to the bottom of this we should figure out how many pieces of city and private contractor equipment there is and the type of equipment. A bobcat does not replace a dump truck with a plow blade.

The point remains unchallenged: we do not have the proportional number of pieces of snow removing equipment to keep up with city growth.

"Staffing has not kept pace with city growth."

Mark, I agree we should be proud if we can do more with less, but for those of us paying attention, while we recognize the city might be getting more out of certain divisions, Public Works has suffered. There is reduction in parks mowing, parks and tree maintenance and trimming as well as snow plowing. Turn it around -- would not the city have a better response if the seven frozen positions were filled, or would it make no difference since there is no equipment for them?

Staffing has not kept pace with city growth.

Thank you for acknoweldgng that staffing has not kept up with growth. from what I can tell the use of private contractors has not kept up either.

“After 1999, Madison did not increase the budget for snow removal commensurate with inflation and growth.”

OK. It stayed the same. Then why the difficult choice of plowing all the streets inadequately or only the main streets adequately? It is not enough to budget if seven positions are frozen. Seven positions frozen for quarter of a year probably represents a a $130,000 reduction in service.

Claim: “The city adopted winter parking policies for the downtown which made it more difficult for plows to navigate narrow car-choked streets, driving up snow removal costs.”

We are in agreement. When the changes, which I opposed, were adopted in 1992, I was willing to let the downtown alders try this experiment and then if it failed, revisit the issue. It is time to revisit the issue. In fact, it is long overdue.

"Basic service has been reduced over the past decade."

Basic snow removal service is reduced and my statement that it should take 10-12 hours is generous for a major storm, not for an average storm. When I speak of 10-12 hours I am referring to a major storm in the 10-12 inch category and not the average storm. Most storms are in the 3-6" category and those should be plowed in 8 or 9 hours. In the recent  six inch storm there were city streets that did not get their first plow blade until 15 hours after the storm hit.

Finally Mark, you conclude by saying,

I hope Paul will retract his misstatements and the undeserved public damage they have caused to the reputation of our hard-working and responsive staff who deliver quality services to our citizens every day.

Every step along the way I made it a point to not criticize the city staff. The elected officials, not the city staff, are responsible for the problem. I found it unfortunate that the city staff was criticized for a problem they did not create. The city staff should be given the equipment and additional colleagues, so they can do the job properly. And this is a good time to make the point that the private contractors are useful and valuable, but they are no substitute for properly trained and equipped city employees. Privatization is not the solution. The private sector can supplement, but they can never replace the core public works team.