Monthly Archives: January, 2021

(The Center Square) – There appears to be no hope for a coronavirus relief package at the Wisconsin Capitol. Assembly Republicans on Wednesday made it clear they will not agree to the package supported by both Senate Republicans and Gov. Tony Evers.

“To my dismay, the Senate voted to give unelected bureaucrats the ability to close schools, businesses and places of worship, and removed many important provisions that protect individual rights, such as the prohibition on mandatory vaccinations,” Rep Cindi Duchow, R-Delafield, said. “With its actions [Tuesday], the Wisconsin Senate sided with Governor Evers over their constituents.”

The Republican controlled Senate approved a coronavirus relief package that provides legal protections for some businesses in the state to reopen. The plan also includes a number of technical changes that Gov. Evers wanted, including an extension for federal unemployment benefits.

Rep. Jim Steneke, R-Kaukauna, is the second highest ranking Republican in the Assembly. He said the Senate package leaves out dozens of things that the Assembly included in its coronavirus relief package; namely those that would have allowed churches and schools to reopen, and would have limited the power of local public health officers to shut down businesses across the state.

“Things like providing assistance to hospitals, first responders, and frontline medical workers, giving parents and students more flexibility and accountability when it comes to open enrollment and virtual learning, and protecting schools and businesses from certain liabilities to reduce the possibility of frivolous lawsuits were all included in our bill – issues that we know are important to countless Wisconsinites,” Steineke explained.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told News Talk 1130 WISN’s Jay Weber on Wednesday he has no plans to support the Senate plan. Vos’ decision is the first public acknowledgement of a split between Assembly and Senate Republicans. New Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, drove the Senate’s coronavirus relief package.

Wisconsin Democrats, for their part, don’t like either of the Republican plans.

“It’s time for Wisconsin’s Republican legislators to stop playing games with people’s lives and construct a COVID relief package that includes meaningful, substantive relief like rental assistance, small business grants, and hazard pay for healthcare workers rather than providing for blanket immunity from liability and forcing workers and consumers into unsafe situations by prematurely returning to business as usual which will likely result in community spread of the virus and an increase in deaths in Wisconsin,” Marisabel Cabrera, D-Milwaukee, said Wednesday.

(The Center Square) – To say Republicans at the Wisconsin Capitol are unimpressed with Gov. Tony Evers’ proposed fix for the state’s beleaguered unemployment office is putting it mildly.

The governor spent time during Tuesday’s State of the State speech focusing on the problems at the Department of Workforce Development.

“Since the beginning of this pandemic, we saw an unprecedented influx of unemployment claims — it exceeded the number of claims even during the Great Recession. To put it in perspective, over the course of four years from 2016 through 2019, the Department of Workforce Development handled 7.2 million claims. Well, since March, the DWD received 8.8 million claims alone — 1.6 million more claims than the four previous years combined,” Evers told lawmakers during his speech. “Previous administrations and more than a decades’ worth of legislators have known this system was outdated and couldn’t handle an economic crisis like the one this pandemic presented, and they never took the time to fix it.”

Evers then pledged to fix it.

“Replacing this system will take years — that’s why it should’ve been done sooner, but it’s also why we now have not another moment to waste. No politics, no posturing, send me the bill and let’s just get it done,” the governor added.

On Wednesday, Evers officially called for a special session of the legislature for next Tuesday. He wants Wisconsin lawmakers to spend $5 million to begin the process to modernize DWD’s computer system.

Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, on Wednesday said Gov. Evers could have asked for $5 million for new computers months ago.

“This is unbelievable,” Wanggaard said. “Ten months of saying the system is broken, hundreds of thousands of people waiting months to receive benefits and his ‘plan’ to fix the unemployment fiasco is $5 million to start, and a mandate on employers to file online. We waited 10 months for this? Good grief.”

Wanggaard said he supports updating DWD’s computer system, but wants more.

Gov. Evers has called several special sessions since last spring, but the Republican-controlled Assembly and Senate have ignored them all. The governor hopes that doesn’t happen again. There’s no word from legislative leaders on their plans for the governor’s order.

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump on Tuesday hailed the completion of 450 miles of border wall completed long the U.S.-Mexican border and praised the men and women of te U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

At a news conference held at the Mexico–U.S. border in Reynosa–McAllen, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, Trump said the border is more secure than it's ever been.

“When I took office, we inherited a broken, dysfunctional, and open border," he said. “We reformed our immigration system and achieved the most secure southern border in U.S. history. It is at a level that it’s never been before.

“We took on the cartels, the coyotes, and the special interests, and we restored the rule of law. For years, politicians ran for office promising to secure the border, only to get elected and to do the absolute exact opposite.”

Trump referred to Congress promising to build a wall 10 years ago “but they couldn’t get it built, he said. “It wasn’t easy getting it built. Getting it financed was tough. Getting it built was even tougher. All the different chains of title and all the different things we had to go through – very, very complex and very difficult, but we got it done."

The president said in every region where the wall was built, illegal crossings and drug smuggling attempts plummeted.

In the Rio Grande Valley, illegal crossings dropped nearly 80 percent, he said; in Yuma, Arizona, by 90 percent.

Since the border wall extension began being built, ICE and Border Patrol have reportedly seized over 2 million pounds of fentanyl, heroin, meth, and other deadly narcotics, arrested nearly 500,000 onducmented immigrants with criminal records, and removed nearly 20,000 gang members from the U.S.

Border wall construction is expected to halt after President-elect Joe Biden takes office next week.

Several other policy changes were implemented under Trump, including transforming the existing “catch and release” program to “detain and remove,” and revising the country’s asylum program, which included signing an agreement with Mexico called the “Migrant Protection Protocols,” or MPP.

Trump took heavy criticism for one immigration policy early in his administration, separating migrant children from their parents as they attempted to enter the country illegally together. After significant backlash, the policy was scrapped.

Trump thanked the President of Mexico, Andrés Obrador, whom he said loves Mexico and the U.S. Obrador instructed 27,000 Mexican soldiers to help guard the southern border over the last two years.

“Nobody thought that was possible,” Trump said.

The U.S. also entered into three asylum agreements with the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Under the new and current policy, if undocumented immigrants are arrested at the U.S. or other borders, they can be sent to a neighboring country instead of kept in the country they are apprehended.

As a result of these agreements, 98 percent of those apprehended and remanded to Department of Homeland Security custody were removed, according to a recent DHS and DOJ report.

“Simply put, if you enter the United States illegally, you are apprehended and immediately safely removed from our country," Trump said. "Without this core principle, there is no border, there is no law, there is no order.”

On the issue of law and order, Trump briefly addressed the events of last week when a group of people wearing Trump clothing stormed the Capitol, saying, “As I have consistently said throughout my administration, we believe in respecting America’s history and traditions, not tearing them down. We believe in the rule of law, not in violence or rioting.”

Wisconsin had a 2019 homeless population of 4,538, or 7.8 homeless people per 10,000 residents, according to a new study by the home services website Porch.com.

The share of the homeless population in Wisconsin was the eighth lowest rate among the 50 states, according to Porch.com, which based its conclusions on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's 2019 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress.

The share of the state’s homeless residents living unsheltered was 6.5%, while the share of chronically homeless people among the Wisconsin homeless population stood at 11.7%.

Nationwide, more than 560,000 Americans, or 17.3 per 10,000 people, experienced homelessness last year, the researchers concluded. The U.S. homeless rate declined between the years 2007 and 2019, but the rate started to inch up again beginning in 2017, the study found.

Homelessness also tends to be concentrated in the nation’s 50 largest cities, where an estimated 53% of the U.S. homeless population lives, according to Porch.com.

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How States Compare on Homeless Populations

RankStateTotal Homeless Population per 10,000Total Homeless PopulationHomeless IndividualsHomeless Population in Families With ChildrenPercentage of Homeless Population Living UnshelteredPercentage of Homeless Population Chronically Homeless1New York47.392,09142,11349,9784.40%7.80%2Hawaii45.36,4124,4201,99256.80%27.60%3California38.3151,278128,77722,50171.70%27.50%4Oregon37.615,87612,3543,52263.90%30.90%5Washington28.321,57715,9855,59244.30%22.60%6Massachusetts26.818,4716,25912,2124.50%12.80%7Alaska26.11,9071,38452314.30%14.10%8Nevada23.37,1696,61455553.10%10.00%9Vermont17.51,08968140810.50%17.40%10Colorado16.79,6197,2632,35622.70%22.70%11Maine15.72,1061,2328744.50%10.70%12New Mexico15.53,2412,46477738.80%44.90%13Minnesota14.17,9774,5863,39120.70%21.90%14Arizona13.710,0077,5382,46945.30%18.70%15Florida13.228,32821,2657,06344.00%20.20%16Idaho13.02,3151,51679942.50%19.40%17Montana12.71,35794741025.40%16.80%18Nebraska12.22,3651,7156504.70%19.20%19South Dakota11.2$99572527023.50%10.10%20Tennessee10.97,4675,6371,83034.80%15.20%21Maryland10.96,5614,6521,90920.50%19.70%22Pennsylvania10.313,1998,4264,77312.30%14.10%23New Hampshire10.31,39681258410.70%15.60%24Missouri10.16,1794,1732,00615.80%17.20%25New Jersey10.08,8625,8952,96716.70%16.00%26Oklahoma10.03,9443,06388131.40%24.20%27Rhode Island10.01,0557303256.70%18.80%28Georgia9.810,4437,9132,53037.20%10.90%29Delaware9.5$92156535610.30%18.20%30Wyoming9.5$54843711122.80%12.20%31Kentucky9.14,0793,0731,00619.10%13.10%32Arkansas9.02,7172,30341452.10%25.40%33Texas8.925,84819,6116,23743.40%13.60%34Ohio8.910,3457,0413,30414.60%8.40%35North Carolina8.99,3146,8672,44724.40%13.60%36Utah8.72,7981,92187714.60%18.30%37Michigan8.68,5755,2123,3637.70%11.10%38Connecticut8.53,0332,10093315.00%7.10%39Kansas8.22,3811,74263919.90%16.80%40Indiana8.15,4713,7831,68811.70%6.70%41South Carolina8.14,1723,31885441.20%22.60%42Illinois8.010,1996,5133,68618.50%18.10%43Wisconsin7.84,5382,5451,9936.50%11.70%44West Virginia7.81,3971,14924817.80%11.50%45Iowa7.32,3151,5747418.10%14.70%46North Dakota7.3$5573771802.20%13.10%47Virginia6.85,7833,6662,11714.90%15.20%48Alabama6.73,2612,51974236.50%11.30%49Louisiana6.32,9412,41652533.10%15.20%50Mississippi4.01,18496322141.00%18.80%

Source: Porch.com

(The Center Square) – Republicans at the Wisconsin Capitol found very little to like about Gov. Tony Evers’ State of the State speech.

Sen. Van Wangaarrd, R-Racine, took the governor to task for his Tuesday night speech in which he looked back on 2020 and focused on the coronavirus, rather than laying out a blueprint for Wisconsin going forward.

“In my three terms in the State Senate, I have never seen a more backwards-looking, depressing and divisive State of the State address,” Wangaarrd said. “Instead of looking towards the future, it focused on the past and negative. It was void of new ideas and full of blame. Where is the passion? Where is the hope? This was just ‘blah blah blah’.”

Wangaard was not alone.

Sen. Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point, said the governor failed to deliver a plan.

“People tuned into [the] state of the state address to hear a plan – a plan to get kids back in schools, a plan for a vaccine rollout, and a plan on how to fix an unemployment system that has failed Wisconsinites for the last nine months,” Testin said. “Gov. Evers didn’t deliver. Gov. Evers has no plan, no vision, and no accountability.”

Rep . Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, who will help write the new state budget, took umbrage at Gov. Evers claiming credit for Wisconsin’s strong fiscal position in the face of the coronavirus.

“Governor Evers would like the people of Wisconsin to credit him with the last state budget and at the same time he hopes they forget the constant missteps by his administration during a time so difficult for many,” Born said. “It was Legislative Republicans who stepped up and introduced a budget that protected taxpayers while also funding top priorities. We cut taxes for middle-class Wisconsin families and increased funding for education by over half a billion dollars. Republicans pushed for an increase in funding for hospitals and our direct care workforce all while ensuring we could save money for a rainy day.”

Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, said the governor’s State of the State was frustrating.

“It’s almost like our teacher-turned-governor is trying to rewrite the history books while class is still in session,” Steineke said. “We heard absolutely nothing about how Governor Evers abdicated all responsibility when tens of thousands of Wisconsin workers were begging for help in receiving their unemployment aid. Where was the leadership?”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s governor used his first speech of the new year to look back.

“As I stood before you and delivered my second State of the State address last year, the world and our state looked much different than it does now,” Gov. Tony Evers said in his speech Tuesday night. “Then things changed overnight.”

The governor mostly discussed the coronavirus. He said nearly 5,000 deaths in the state were attributable either directly or indirectly to the virus since March, and talked about the changes the virus forced on the state. He also addressed the massive federal investment in Wisconsin because of the virus.

“We were grateful to be able to invest nearly $2 billion in our state’s response. We distributed more than 26 million pieces of PPE and sanitizing supplies to hospitals, long-term care facilities, veterans’ homes, and frontline workers. We provided more than $379.1 million to help stabilize our economy and support nearly 53,000 of our small businesses, more than 15,000 farms, and our lodging, hospitality, and tourism industries. We invested more than $200 million in helping communities across Wisconsin recover,” Evers said. “But we know we have a long way to go to get our economy back on track.”

The governor said the challenges from 2020 will carry-over into 2021.

“I do not underestimate the challenges that this new year may bring, or the grief we’re still grappling with, the ramifications we’ve yet to fully realize, the new problems that may arise still this year,” Evers added.

Gov. Evers did spend time talking about Wisconsin’s unemployment issues. Thousands of people waited months in 2020 to have their claims processed by the state’s Department of Workforce Development. Thousands more waited months to be paid.

“The bottom line is that our unemployment system isn’t designed to handle the massive numbers of modern days, which has contributed to delays in processing claims, required more time to implement new federal programs, and made it harder to get benefits out the door,” Evers said. “Our antiquated system isn’t quite as old as I am, but it has been around since Richard Nixon was president — this system isn’t new, and these problems aren’t, either.”

The governor promised to “modernize” the unemployment system, and pledged to call lawmakers back into a special session to make that happen. Though he didn’t have specifics on how much such remedies would cost, or just how long it would take to implement changes.

“We know that replacing this system will take years — that’s why it should’ve been done sooner, but it’s also why we now have not another moment to waste. No politics, no posturing, send me the bill and let’s just get it done,” Evers said.

There was , however, no focus on Wisconsin’s slow-to-start vaccination program. Wisconsin is second to last in the Midwest in distributing the vaccine.

Republicans in Madison didn’t let that go unnoticed.

Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, on Tuesday called for the governor to unveil his coronavirus vaccine plan.

“The Governor has an opportunity to reassure people in Wisconsin that they will be vaccinated soon,” Darling said in a statement, “It’s time to put aside politics and start delivering vaccines to our most vulnerable citizens.”

Darling said Gov. Evers had months to prepare for the vaccine’s arrival, and has now had a month to get it out to the people.

“Governor Evers continues to try to shift blame for his troubled rollout of the vaccine.” Darling added. “The people of the state deserve answers from him.”

Wisconsin’s vaccine count on Tuesday showed 163,371 of the state’s 373,100 doses have been administered. In all, Wisconsin has been promised more than 600,000 vaccine doses.

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump on Tuesday told reporters outside the White House that the second impeachment attempt proposed by House Democrats was “really a continuation of the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics."

Democrats this week introduced a single article of impeachment against Trump, accusing the president of encouraging his supporters prior to their breaching of the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday, when Congress was set to meet to certify the Electoral College votes confirming President-elect Joe Biden's win.

Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Democrats have no chance of successfully impeaching and removing the president before Jan. 20, Inauguration Day.

“The case cannot come to trial in the Senate. Because the Senate has rules, and the rules would not allow the case to come to trial until, according to the majority leader, until 1 p.m. on Jan. 20, an hour after President Trump leaves office,” Dershowitz told Fox Business Sunday.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., sent a letter to Republican senators explaining the process. In it, he writes that the Senate could legally “dispose of any articles of impeachment” proposed by House Democrats.

“The Senate is currently in recess and is holding pro forma sessions every three days until January 19,” the letter states. “Pursuant to the unanimously approved order setting up the recess and these pro forma sessions, the Senate may conduct no business until January 19.”

McConnell noted, “without unanimous consent, the Senate may not conduct any business of any kind during pro forma sessions, including beginning to act on received articles of impeachment from the House.”

Even if the House did vote to impeach Trump for a second time through a simple majority vote, McConnell said that all 100 senators would have to agree to conduct “any business of any kind,” and that is not going to happen. Trump was first impeached by the Democratic-controlled House in late 2019 but he was later acquitted in the GOP-controlled Senate.

Senate Impeachment Rules would be followed after the Senate resumes regular session on Jan. 19, and a trial would not start until “after President Trump’s term has expired,” McConnell said.

Democrats charged Trump with “incitement of insurrection,” accusing him of inspiring protestors to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, the same day Trump gave a speech emphasizing his supporters’ peaceful rallies nationwide.

In his speech, Trump accused media conglomerates and big tech of interfering in the election, and gave examples of alleged voter fraud in several states.

“All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left Democrats, which is what they’re doing and stolen by the fake news media,” Trump said. “That’s what they’ve done and what they’re doing. We will never give up. We will never concede.”

“We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated,” Trump said. “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

At the end of his speech, he urged people to “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” and “try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help, we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”

Of the House efforts to impeach, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who previously voted to impeach the president, said the push to impeach the president now is “so ill-advised.”

(The Center Square) - Democratic senators at the Wisconsin Capitol say the pared-down Republican coronavirus relief package is too small.

Democrats spent their Tuesday fighting the package from Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, designed to survive the governor’s scrutiny.

“We need to do a lot of catch up,” Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-West Point, said on the Senate floor. “We need to really start catching up here and recognize that there are people and businesses here in Wisconsin that need our help.”

Sen. Chris Lawson, D-Milwaukee said the Democratic proposal would help those people and businesses by adding emergency pay for healthcare workers and first responders, would stop evictions for non-payment of rent, and expand unemployment benefits in the state.

“We need to actually step-up to meet this moment in history,” Lawson said. “If we pass the [Republican package] as it’s proposed, we should be graded D-. barely passing. Doing the absolute minimum.”

Republicans complain the Democratic plan would do nothing to get kids back into school or reopen classrooms, noting the Democratic plan would prohibit the state’s Department of Public Instruction from measuring student performance for the year.

LeMahieu was the only Republican to speak to the Republican coronavirus relief plan, and said very little from the Senate floor.

LeMahieu said the proposal does five things, some of them rather technical in nature, but it also ends the waiting period for federal unemployment benefits. Most important to Republicans, the package provides schools, nonprofits, doctors, and small businesses in the state some protection against coronavirus lawsuits.

“The bill we passed in the Senate today builds on our previous negotiations and addresses the critically important needs of school districts, non-profit organizations, and small employers,” LeMahieu said in a statement after the vote. “Throughout this process, it’s been clear all parties want to do what is best for our state. Passing this bill responds to the needs of frontline healthcare providers and gives our state’s economy the tools to safely re-open without the fear of frivolous lawsuits.”

The Wisconsin Assembly will next vote on the package. The governor said after the vote that he is waiting for lawmakers to send the plan to him.

"Although it's not the COVID compromise we originally proposed, AB 1 as amended by the Senate is a good start to support our state’s response to this pandemic," Evers said on Twitter. "The Assembly should pass AB 1 as it was amended today and send it to my desk for my signature without delay.

There are no guarantees the Assembly will approve the package.

State representatives passed their own coronavirus relief package last week. It is much larger, and includes provisions to get kids back into schools and check the power of local public health officers who’ve kept parts of the state all but closed for months.

“In the coming weeks, we will continue the work to open schools, lift gathering bans, and limit the powers of local bureaucrats to shut down churches and main street businesses,” LeMahieu added. “We remain committed to these principles and committed to ensuring our state’s best days lie ahead.”

The Milwaukee-Waukesha metro area’s share of extreme poverty – neighborhoods where at least 40% of residents live below the poverty level – is the highest in Wisconsin, according to a new analysis from the website 24/7 Wall St.

Among the metro area’s poor population, 20.1% live in neighborhoods where four out of 10 residents live in poverty, the analysis found. The overall poverty rate in the metro area is 13.7%.

Extreme poverty affects 43 out of 422 neighborhoods in Milwaukee-Waukesha, 24/7 Wall St. found. And the 2018 unemployment rate in these poor neighborhoods is 12%.

Only eight states in the nation – Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming – have no metro areas with neighborhoods affected by extreme poverty, according to the study, which incorporates data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2018 American Community Survey.

Nationwide, among the 43.5 million Americans who live under the poverty line, 9.6% live in communities deemed afflicted by extreme poverty. Those who reside in these high-poverty neighborhoods must deal with higher crime rates, fewer employment opportunities and lagging education options, the study found.

The poverty line in the United States stands at $12,760 in annual income for individuals, according to 24/7 Wall St. The number in poverty likely will climb due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to the analysis.

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Cities With the Most Concentrated Poverty in 2018, by State

StateMetro Area Hardest Hit by Concentrated Poverty% of Poor Who Live in Neighborhoods With Extreme PovertyOverall Poverty RateNeighborhoods With Concentrated Poverty2018 Unemployment Rate in Poor NeighborhoodsAlabamaMobile19.7%19.3%20 of 11313.9%ArizonaPhoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale13.8%14.6%49 of 9758.5%ArkansasHot Springs18.6%18.6%3 of 2015.1%CaliforniaFresno33.2%24.1%35 of 19814.5%ColoradoPueblo9.3%18.9%3 of 5316.1%ConnecticutHartford-West Hartford-East Hartford9.2%10.0%9 of 28317.0%FloridaTallahassee16.7%15.7%6 of 7518.0%GeorgiaAlbany38.2%25.2%9 of 4321.4%HawaiiUrban Honolulu5.4%8.7%3 of 22815.5%IllinoisSpringfield23.8%14.9%7 of 5612.3%IndianaMuncie29.5%18.4%6 of 2713.0%IowaWaterloo-Cedar Falls8.9%13.8%3 of 4817.5%KansasWichita7.5%13.3%5 of 15217.6%KentuckyBowling Green15.4%17.7%3 of 376.7%LouisianaMonroe34.6%23.1%10 of 4414.9%MaineBangor19.8%15.4%2 of 458.8%MarylandBaltimore-Columbia-Towson8.1%10.4%22 of 66815.6%MassachusettsSpringfield27.4%16.2%16 of 13316.2%MichiganFlint33.6%19.8%22 of 12922.7%MinnesotaDuluth13.9%14.1%6 of 846.4%MississippiJackson24.4%17.1%17 of 12719.3%MissouriCape Girardeau27.8%17.5%4 of 229.8%NebraskaLincoln14.4%12.4%4 of 736.1%NevadaLas Vegas-Henderson-Paradise5.1%14.1%10 of 48713.6%New HampshireManchester-Nashua2.9%8.1%1 of 8510.1%New JerseyTrenton17.2%11.4%5 of 7518.8%New MexicoLas Cruces25.8%27.5%6 of 4012.9%New YorkBuffalo-Cheektowaga-Niagara Falls23.4%14.2%26 of 2919.5%North CarolinaWilmington13.2%16.4%4 of 5610.9%OhioToledo29.0%16.9%27 of 16115.7%OklahomaLawton15.3%15.5%3 of 3314.1%OregonMedford2.7%16.3%1 of 4115.9%PennsylvaniaReading31.4%12.8%10 of 8921.0%Rhode IslandProvidence-Warwick4.1%12.5%5 of 35912.7%South CarolinaCharleston-North Charleston10.4%13.3%7 of 1519.6%TennesseeMemphis26.6%18.6%49 of 30915.6%TexasLaredo52.3%30.1%25 of 607.0%UtahOgden-Clearfield5.0%8.0%2 of 11610.3%VirginiaRoanoke15.5%13.4%3 of 658.6%WashingtonKennewick-Richland9.3%13.7%1 of 488.3%West VirginiaHuntington-Ashland11.1%18.6%7 of 9210.8%WisconsinMilwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis20.1%13.7%43 of 42212.0%

Source: 24/7 Wall St.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced Jan. 4 that schools could remain open in communities with 9% or greater positivity rates if positivity among students and school staff was lower than in the surrounding community. Previously, the state required schools to close in communities where the positivity rate was 9% or greater.

The same day, Kentucky’s Healthy at School guidelines became mandatory and middle and high schools were allowed to reopen for in-person instruction.

Temporary statewide school closures also began in New Mexico and West Virginia. New Mexico’s closure is effective through Jan. 15, while schools in West Virginia are closed through Jan. 18.

The nationwide status of school closures and reopenings is as follows:

Two states (N.M., W.Va.) and Washington, D.C. have state- or district-ordered school closures2016-17 enrollment: 695,968 students (1.38% of students nationwide)Five states (Calif., Del., Hawaii, N.C., R.I.) have state-ordered regional school closures, require closures for certain grade levels, or allow hybrid instruction only2016-17 enrollment: 8,319,164 students (16.44% of students nationwide)Four states (Ark., Fla., Iowa, Texas) have state-ordered in-person instruction2016-17 enrollment: 9,180,918 students (18.15% of students nationwide)Thirty-nine states leave decisions to schools or districts2016-17 enrollment: 32,391,809 students (64.03% of students nationwide)

(The Center Square) – Total nonfarm payroll employment fell by 140,000 from November to December according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) monthly report for December 2020. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.7 percent.

The losses reported in December ended seven consecutive months of job gains as states began implementing stricter economic lockdowns citing increased number of COVID-19 cases as the reason.

While the BLS argues the decline in payroll employment “reflects the recent increase in coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and efforts to contain them,” the White House argued in a news release that job losses were a result of increasing lockdowns by state governors.

Job losses indicate “the regressive nature of government-mandated closures, and the reduction in economic activity that occurs when individuals are subject to these restrictions,” the White House news release states.

In December, job losses in leisure and hospitality and in private education were partially offset by gains in professional and business services, retail trade, and construction, BLS notes.

The unemployment rate of 6.7 percent is nearly double the 3.5 percent rate of pre-lockdown in February 2020. Although it is an improvement from the peak of 14.8 percent (revised) unemployment rate reached in April.

The unemployment rate for Black Americans fell to 9.9 percent in December, the first month it fell below 10 percent since February.

The unemployment rate for Hispanic Americans increased by 0.9 percentage point to 9.3 percent.

Among the unemployed, the number of individuals on temporary layoff increased by 277,000 in December to 3 million. This number is significantly down from 18 million in April but is 2.3 million higher than in February.

The number of permanent jobs lost declined by 348,000 to 3.4 million in December but is up by 2.1 million since February.

In December, 23.7 percent of workers teleworked because of the coronavirus, up from 21.8 percent in November.

In December, 15.8 million people reported that they had been unable to work because their employer closed or lost business due to their respective state’s shutdown—“that is, they did not work at all or worked fewer hours at some point in the last 4 weeks,” the BLS report states. The number is an increase of one million from November.

(The Center Square) – New Hampshire is taking aim at a Massachusetts policy to tax Granite State residents' income who work remotely for Bay State-based companies.

The Boston Herald reported in December that Massachusetts instituted the policy during the early days of the COVID-19 crisis to maintain revenues the state would normally garner from out-of-state employees physically working within their borders.

New Hampshire and Gov. Chris Sununu filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the tax policy after Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker extended the mandate.

"Massachusetts has radically redefined what constitutes Massachusetts-sourced income in order to tax earnings for work performed entirely outside its borders," New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon Macdonald said in the state's latest submission to the Supreme Court, the Boston Herald reported. "This does not maintain the status quo. It upends it."

Andrew Cline, president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, said there is a lot at stake in this lawsuit.

"New Hampshire has painstakingly over many decades created an economic engine in New England, and the basis of that is the absence of an income or sales tax and a very light touch on business and economic regulations," Cline told Center Square. "The Massachusetts move to tax the income of everybody who works remotely for a Massachusetts company really does put that at risk because suddenly New Hampshire is no longer a tax refuge for New England."

With the explosion of working remotely and its potential to become the norm, New Hampshire could become a haven for the whole eastern United States, Cline said.

New Hampshire isn't the only state with something to lose.

Ohio, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, New Jersey, Connecticut, Hawaii and Iowa all signed amicus briefs siding with New Hampshire supplicating the Supreme Court to hear the case.

Cline said one of the lawsuit's underappreciated points is that it will set a dangerous precedent for other states. If Massachusetts gets away with this, other states will follow, he said.

"There are six states that tax remote workers in similar ways," Cline said. "If [Massachusetts] wins and the Supreme Court allows a state to tax remote workers wherever they live regardless of having any physical nexus in the state, you will see states quickly passing laws to reach over their borders and tax everyone who they can claim is doing remote work in their states. And all of a sudden, tax competition among states is reduced."

Massachusetts' policy calls for taxing income New Hampshire residents would have earned commuting to the Bay State. So if a Granite Stater previously commuted to Massachusetts three days a week before the coronavirus crisis, Massachusetts taxes them for three days-worth of income earned working remotely.

The problem with this, Cline said, is as it stands, there is nothing he can see keeping states from applying this to all income earned by any employee they can construe to work for a company within their borders.

There are questions of constitutionality as well.

"Historically, you had to have, based on legal precedent and law, a physical nexus in that state for a state to justify taxing you," Cline said. "The way Massachusetts has structured its remote workers' tax that physical nexus is really removed or reduced to the point that it's meaningless."

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers is asking for more coronavirus vaccine doses – even as half of the state’s allotment sits in refrigerators across the state.

Gov. Evers on Friday joined seven other Democratic governors in writing a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services asking for a share of the doses that are being held in reserve.

"The failure to distribute these doses to states who request them is unconscionable and unacceptable,” the governors' letter stated.

Evers signed letter is raising some objections. As of Friday, the same day the governor signed the letter, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported that doctors in the state had distributed 123,402 of the state’s 266,675 allocated doses. Wisconsin is in-line to get 420,200 doses, but many of those have not yet been sent.

Wisconsin Republican Congressman Bryan Steil said Gov. Evers has failed to quickly get the vaccine to frontline healthcare workers and people living in the state's long-term living facilities.

"If Gov. Evers cannot figure out how to distribute the vaccine to those who need it, he should step aside and let someone who can lead this effort do it,” Steil said on Twitter.

As of last week, Wisconsin trailed almost every Midwestern state in vaccine delivery.

“Gov. Evers said ‘It is going to take us a long time to get these vaccines in people’s arms.’ Really? Why can 38 other states plus [Washington] DC administer vaccines faster than Wisconsin?,” Steil asked in another tweet. “Wisconsin should be leading the nation! This is a matter of life or death for many. Do your job, governor.”

Wisconsin’s vaccine managers are now looking to expand the pool of people who can get the vaccine.

The state’s vaccine distribution subcommittee could vote Tuesday to open Phase 1b of the vaccination program. That could allow vaccinations for more frontline workers, along with essential workers and people who deemed at-risk.

Essential workers cover everyone from police officers and firefighters to grocery store clerks. The at-risk population covers everyone from seniors and people living in nursing homes to prisoners and inmates.

Some advocates say Wisconsin needs to fast track the vaccine into jails and prisons rather than simply into the state’s nursing homes.

The federal government certainly has no issue spending taxpayer money these days. The budget deficit for 2020 surpassed $3 trillion, a level far beyond any the nation has seen. For perspective, this is the largest deficit relative to the size of our economy since World War II and the largest raw number deficit in our nation’s history. The next administration is going to inherit an increasingly urgent spending problem that has plagued the United States for decades.

Despite these alarming numbers, President-elect Joe Biden seems intent to nominate for his cabinet some of the same officials who helped get us into this mess. Perhaps none are more emblematic of this trend than the prospective new Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack. Vilsack previously served as head of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) through the entirety of the Obama administration. This will be his second go-round at USDA and – if it is anything like his first – our economy and taxpayers are in deep trouble.

Farm spending in the United States puts a hefty burden on our debt all on its own. For example, the 2018 Farm Bill carried a 10-year price tag of roughly $867 billion. The 2013 Farm Bill, over which Vilsack presided, had a 10-year cost of $955 billion. Vilsack and other proponents cynically claimed it would actually cut spending in the long run. However, the spending cuts were back-loaded to the end of the 10-year span, so they would predictably be superseded by subsequent legislation and never actually take effect. This is the type of underhanded political operator set to re-take the reins at USDA.

Not only does Vilsack demand exorbitant spending, but the policies behind those dollars are harmful to farmers, and to the economy at large. For example, Vilsack is a major proponent of commodity subsidies. These subsidies prop up crops if prices or revenue fall below a certain [largely arbitrary] benchmark. This is a brazen effort to institute government central planning of the economy. It is also remarkably inefficient. It incentivizes the production of excess crops, driving supply up and prices down, necessitating further subsidies and on and on the cycle goes. As a result, The Wall Street Journal reports farm income dropped 40 percent in the four years after Vilsack’s farm bill.

Despite all this, Vilsack and his allies position him as a champion of small farmers and opponents of his legacy as heartless corporatists. However, as is often the case in Washington, the opposite is true. In fact, 94 percent of subsidies go to only six crops: corn, wheat, soy, cotton, rice and peanuts. However, these six crops only account for 28 percent of production. Roughly seven in 10 commodities farmers operate just fine without assistance. Vilsack’s subsidies serve not to aid struggling small farms, but to prop up wealthy special interests. In fact, the top one percent of farms, in terms of gross annual income, receives 20 percent of the subsidies in farm bills like Vilsack’s.

Naturally, lobbyists for varied food interests across the nation are already lining up to praise Biden’s designation of Vilsack to return as USDA Secretary. Surely, the 850 millionaire “farmers” in Manhattan, who received millions in farm subsidies from Vilsack’s USDA and are still receiving them today, are thrilled to see Vilsack’s return. The federal bureaucracy has been a hotbed of cronyism for years precisely because of the type of leadership ushered in by people like Tom Vilsack. This is the proverbial “swamp” that 2016 voters wanted drained.

If Vilsack is successfully confirmed for another stint at USDA, he will have a shot to become the longest-serving Agriculture Secretary in the nation’s history. In the interim, he has been the head of the U.S. Dairy Export Council. This government-created entity takes money from dairy farmers and uses it to promote big dairy. This is crony corporatism at its finest. Given this record, it is unthinkable that anyone could believe Vilsack may be the one to change the broken status quo at USDA.

Tom Vilsack is not an unknown quantity. He has a years-long service record of reckless agricultural policy and cronyism that comes at the expense of America’s small family farms and ranches. The senators who will be tasked with evaluating his nomination in the coming weeks would do well to study this record and ask tough questions. Ultimately, any honest evaluation will produce the conclusion that the USDA should not open its doors to Vilsack a second time.

(The Center Square) – The new top Republican in the Wisconsin Senate wants to see how willing Gov. Tony Evers is to work with the Republicans in the legislature.

Senate Majority leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, told News Talk 1130 WISN’s Jay Weber Monday he wants to split the massive Republican coronavirus relief package into two pieces, and see if Gov. Evers will sign at least one of them.

“We’ve been in contact with his office, I talked to him over the weekend again. He appreciates the fact that we’re trying to get something done. I don’t have an agreement with him, he’s not going to provide me with an agreement,” LeMahieu said. “Hopefully we can all get together in the next couple of days and get this done.”

LeMahieu’s first priority is Wisconsin’s businesses, schools, and nonprofits protection from coronavirus lawsuits.

“We really want to make sure that we get liability protection to make sure schools, churches, nonprofits, small businesses can reopen and stay open without the fear of frivolous lawsuits,” LeMahieu added.

Assembly Republicans easily passed their coronavirus relief package last week, LeMahieu said he balked at that package because senators felt certain Gov. Evers would veto it.

The Senate Republican package isn't guaranteed, however.

LeMahieu said Gov. Evers essentially ended negotiations with lawmakers back in December when Congress passed their latest coronavirus relief package.

“There is going to be a lot of money coming into the state because of that federal bill,” LeMahieu explained. “That took a lot of the importance for the governor to get a (state) bill done. It took that away because he is going to get all of this extra federal money to spend.”

LeMahieu did not say what he and the Senate Republicans plan to do if Gov. Evers vetoes their proposal.

The Wisconsin Senate held a hearing on their proposal Monday morning. The hope is to have a full vote in the Senate by Wednesday.

(The Center Square) – Democrats in the U.S. House took steps Monday to once again try to remove President Donald Trump from office, introducing a single article of impeachment and a resolution that would ask Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, thereby displacing Trump and assuming power over the nation’s executive branch.

The resolution, seen as a procedural step before the House moves to consider impeachment, immediately drew an objection from House Republicans. The chamber then went into recess until Tuesday, and it’s expected the 25th Amendment resolution will go before the full House for a vote later this week.

Reports suggest Pence is not inclined to invoke the 25th Amendment, even if the resolution ultimately passes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said in that scenario, the House would move forward with impeaching the president over Wednesday's events that led to the U.S. Capitol being breached by crowds of Trump supporters.

An impeachment vote is seen as likely to succeed in the Democrat-controlled House, which would make Trump the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice. Less certain is the outcome in the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans but due to change hands. Even after Democrats take control – when Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, the winners of last week's Georgia runoffs, are sworn in – it’s considered unlikely the supermajority needed to actually remove the president would materialize.

The Capitol incursion caused five deaths and led to members of Congress fleeing the House and Senate chambers – interrupting the process of recording the results of the Nov. 3 presidential election. Critics of Trump argue his remarks at a rally earlier in the day sparked the events that took place at the Capitol.

If the 25th Amendment was invoked, Pence would take over as acting president. Trump would be given an opportunity after several days to challenge the assertion he was incapable of performing his duties; if Pence again invoked the clause, the matter would be settled by Congress.

With President-elect Joe Biden due to be sworn in Jan. 20, some observers have questioned why Congress is spending its time trying to remove a president who will leave office in a little more than a week. Others have pointed to continued chatter online, by those who feel the Nov. 3 election was decided fraudulently, seeking to interfere with the inauguration ceremony and prevent Biden from becoming president. Still, others have expressed concern Trump might misuse his pardon powers on his own behalf, to benefit his close friends and allies, or even on behalf of the individuals who stormed the Capitol.

Trump was impeached in December 2019 over allegations he improperly sought to pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden. The Senate voted in February 2020 to acquit Trump without hearing any additional witnesses.

Understandably lost in the wake of Wednesday’s shocking events was the fact that, with two election wins in Georgia, Democrats took control of the Senate to go with control over the House and presidency. Though tax policy may have taken a backseat in these Georgia elections, the results raised the chances of significant tax hikes, and the undoing of progress made in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), substantially.

The most likely tax hikes that President Joe Biden will push for with a Democratic Congress are increases to income tax rates. During the campaign, Biden proposed to raise the top individual income tax rate from 37 percent to 39.6 percent. Biden’s tax plan also included a provision that would subject annual income above $400,000 to Social Security taxes (currently only annual income up to $142,800 is subject to these taxes).

Biden will also likely push to increase taxes on capital gains. Capital gains and dividends are currently taxed at a lower maximum rate of 23.8 percent, in recognition of the fact that this same income has already been taxed once. Biden’s campaign called for taxing capital gains and dividends as ordinary income, which would push the maximum tax rate up to 39.6 percent when paired with his proposed hike to the top individual income tax rate, increasing the double-taxation penalty on investment income.

But even as capital gains and dividends tax hikes are proposed, so too may Biden seek to increase corporate taxes. His tax plan would raise the corporate income tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent, while also reverting to a global tax system.

The TCJA improved America’s corporate tax competitiveness substantially not only by lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, but by shifting to a so-called territorial tax system. Prior to this change, U.S.-based multinational corporations had to pay U.S. income taxes on income earned by foreign subsidiaries when repatriated back to the American parent company.

This policy had the effect of simply encouraging corporate inversions, or the shifting of operations to a country that did not have this requirement (such as 29 of 35 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). Eliminating this outdated global tax encouraged companies to come back to the United States and to bring cash back into the country – resulting in the repatriation of more than $1 trillion in assets. Biden’s proposal to undo this change would likely send many multinational companies and their assets back overseas.

Another questionable change Biden is likely to pursue is the removal of the cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction. Prior to the TCJA, taxpayers who itemized deductions could deduct their state and local taxes against their federal income tax liability. This effectively blunted the impact of high state tax rates – part of the reason that blue states have proved so eager to remove the $10,000 cap the TCJA placed on the deduction.

Yet the SALT deduction is a handout to the wealthy, and removing the cap would do very little to benefit most taxpayers. A staggering 96 percent of the benefit of removing the SALT cap would go to the top 20 percent of taxpayers, while also using federal tax policy to effectively encourage higher state tax rates.

And this is just a selection of some of the most significant tax changes a Biden presidency could oversee with control of Congress. Changes to the estate tax, refundable tax credits, and other deductions could very likely be coming down the pipe as a direct result of the Georgia election results. Taxpayers can only hope that Congress shows restraint and avoids sweeping changes that harm an economy that needs all the help it can get in the middle of a pandemic.

“I’ve often wondered why everyone loves to read about disasters and suffering?”

– James Baldwin

The Counter-Reformation was a response to the 1517 Protestant Reformation. It began in 1545 and ended in 1648 with the conclusion of Europe’s religious wars. Numerous clarifications were made in church policy in reaction to the Reformation. In 1870, the Catholic Church defined the pope as the highest authority to interpret and orchestrate all existing critical religious doctrine.

This was the first time in history a religion granted this authority to a head of a church. Due to the long-standing feud between the Church of England and the Roman Catholics, Anglican theologians claimed, “The doctrine of papal authority to make decisions is out of line with other religions.” They chastised the year of this decree of “Papal infallibility” as the “annus horribilis,” or a “horrible year.”

In 1992, the 40th anniversary of her reign over England, Queen Elizabeth said, “1992 has turned out to be an “Annus Horribilis.” She branded 1992 as a year she chose not to remember because three royal marriages collapsed, a fire destroyed more than 100 rooms at Windsor Castle, and a major sex scandal involving the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, disgraced the country and monarchy.

There has been an ambiguous global debate if 2020 was the worst year in recent history? Surly it must rank up there with 1349, when the Black Death wiped out half of Europe. And it certainly can be compared to 1918, when the "Spanish flu" killed over 100 million people worldwide. It looks as if global scholars have respectfully spurned the Queen by naming 2020 as their “Annus Horribilis.”

Discovered in Wuhan, China, in November 2019, the Covid-19 virus created the greatest global crisis since World War II. It prompted worldwide lockdowns and caused a global economic crisis. Dr. Li Wenliang, who discovered the virus, was silenced by Chinese Communists and died in 2020.

France, the UK and Spain implemented lockdowns in March. The U.S. soon did the same. U.S. stocks tanked with Wall Street suffering its biggest loss since the March 9, 2008, financial meltdown. To avoid a bigger crisis, the Federal Reserve pumped liquidity into markets to stabilize its balances.

According to the International OECD, in the first three months of 2020, world economies contracted by 3.4%. The International Labor Organization reported that the average income fell by over 10% in the first nine months of 2020, due to forced shutdowns and businesses struggling to survive.

“It even crowded indoor cats, forcing them to share their space with reluctant humans.”

– James Felton

In Australia, massive fires roared throughout the summer season, burning 103,000 square kilometers, about the size of South Korea. The fires created one of the worst wildlife disasters in history that killed over 3 billion animals including 60,000 koalas. Over 87,000 buildings and homes were destroyed. At least 445 people including nine firefighters were killed in the fire. Smoke filled the skies for half the year.

Britain left the EU on Jan. 31. UK’s open markets, and its relationship with the EU in particular, heavily depressed its labor market for domestic talent by allowing unchecked waves of immigrants. As the strongest member of the EU, other countries now fear this could possibly totally nix the EU.

Although there is some economic trade-offs for Britain, they got the better part of the deal. They maintained access to their target trade markets and regained complete control of their borders.

China ended Hong Kong’s autonomy in 2020. It enacted laws against defying Communist rule. Hong Kong’s citizens reacted violently and China backed down. In June, China came back again with severe laws against subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign countries.

“Hong Kong has been put in handcuffs by the Red Chinese and lost all independence.”

– Christopher Patten

On Aug. 4, the accidental detonation of dangerous chemicals in Beirut killed over 200 people, left another 300,000 instantly homeless and devastated the struggling Lebanese economy. State negligence was blamed for the fatal blast. Prime Minister Hassan Diab as well as three ministers were charged with criminal acts. Lebanon was already in financial meltdown with mass poverty.

French school teacher Samuel Paty in October was murdered by a radical Islamist as he showed caricatures of Prophet Mohammed in a civics class. France has used caricatures to mimic various religious and political authorities for years. President Macron promised to combat radical Islamism on French soil, which prompted new Muslim political unrest throughout France, a Catholic nation.

Violent protests in the U.S. in the wake of the death of George Floyd spread across the globe. The U.S. had over 4,700 Black Lives Matter demonstrations by June 6. Half a million people protested at over 550 locations across the country. The Justice Department estimates that more than 700 law enforcement officers were injured and there were at least 40 deaths during the nationwide protests.

Fox News reported insurance experts calculated the BLM protests eclipsed the 1992 Los Angeles riots, making them the most expensive civil disturbance in U.S. history. The 1992 LA riots that followed the acquittal of police officers in the Rodney King beating cost well over $2 billion in 2020 dollars.

In Bristol, Britain, protesters toppled a statue of slave trader Edward Colston. In Belgium, protesters destroyed statues of King Leopold II, known for his brutality in the Republic of Congo. Violent riots against Paris police over the death of Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old Black man who died in 2016, spread to Marseille, Lyon and Lille, where numerous injuries occurred as 10,000 people protested.

In America, the 2020 presidential election proved as revolutionary as quarantines. Fear of infection, frustration over weeks of forced isolation and exhaustion from a bitter presidential race put voters in a hostile mood over the election. As states arbitrarily mailed out ballots, the transition to mail-in balloting exposed numerous flaws in state registrars to efficiently authenticate and count all ballots. Each state flew by the seat of its pants, and many Americans lost total confidence in the system.

The media, pollsters, and radical collectivists distorted facts and statistics throughout the campaign to dethrone established politicians and replace them with socialists and identity activists. Although they succeeded in defeating Donald Trump, the GOP defied their attempts and won key races in the House and Senate. Pundits now question if we’ll ever have a legitimate election year again.

Amid the global death, destruction, dissension, recessions, political and social unrest and the media’s biased and half-truth reporting in our nation, history will show America stood tallest of all others on the globe. We showed the world it was the strong economy our leaders built before the pandemic that helped America survive “Annus Horribilis,” while others fell to tragedy, depression and despair.

"America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle.”

– George Bush