Robert Kraig: Wisconsin’s economic direction is alarming

On Friday Robert Kraig, the executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin, wrote an op-ed in the Wausau Daily Herald outlining the alarming direction Wisconsin’s economy is headed. Here’s a snippet from that op-ed. What passes for discussion of economic strategy in Wisconsin is dominated by Gov. Scott Walker’s discredited…

Continue Reading

How do two income families have less disposable income than one income families 30 years ago?

This is a question anyone seeking higher office should have a credible answer to.

Continue Reading

New report: Scott Walker’s Wisconsin worst in nation on shrinking middle class (UPDATED)

As noted by CapTimes reporter Mike Ivey, a new report by the Pew Charitable Trust showed Wisconsin with the largest decline in the nation in the percentage of families considered to be middle class. If you feel like you’re working harder for less money, it’s not your imagination. Wisconsin ranks…

Continue Reading

Justin Moralez on anti-public employee Act 10: “there is a residual effect on families”

Last week I noted Republican State Assembly candidate Justin Moralez had not answered (after a week) a question I asked regarding his stance on Act 10, Gov. Scott Walker’s notorious anti-public employee legislation, and shortly after I posted about the fact that Moralez had not answered my question, he sent…

Continue Reading

Peter Barca: Make 2014 the Year of the Middle Class

From my email inbox comes Democratic State Rep. Peter Barca’s latest column. Decisions made inside the state Capitol in 2013 have not been kind to Wisconsin’s working, middle-class families. Our state remained in the bottom half among states for job creation and we recently led the nation in our increase…

Continue Reading

What Do The Middle Class Do? (VIDEO)

From Sandy and Richard Riccardi, the folks who brought us “Hockey Mama For Obama” back in 2008 (which garnered 1.5 million hits and counting on YouTube) comes their latest, “What Do The Middle Class Do?” (With “Mitt and Ann Romney”)

Continue Reading

Want to stimulate Wisconsin’s economy? Stop with the war on public employees!

Many on the right have been arguing that the provisions of Wisconsin Act 10, the so-called “budget repair bill” that virtually eliminated all collective bargaining rights for public employees, haven’t really been a “bum deal” for public employees. Those making that argument have pointed to the fact that despite assertions…

Continue Reading

When the Meme Goes Against You, Kill the Meme!

Rick Santorum wants to destroy the “middle class” (the phrase) through an ostrich-like process of denying America is a class-based society!  If there are no classes, there can be no “middle class” by definition!  QED!

Continue Reading

Everything that’s wrong with our economy in one graph

You want to know what’s wrong with our nation’s economy – and our nation in general? Here’s a graph that I think sums up what’s wrong quite tidily: The growing gap between the incomes of the top 1% and everyone else is precisely what’s wrong with our country, and until…

Continue Reading

Paul Ryan: tax increase on rich is “class warfare” but tax increase on the middle class is okay

So apparently Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin’s first Congressional district supports tax increases after all, so long as those tax increases target the middle class and not the rich: Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said on Sunday that House Republicans would oppose President Barack Obama’s payroll tax cuts for…

Continue Reading