Badger Blogger

Today we learned that Milwaukee’s unemployment rate is the second worst of the 50 largest cities in the nation.

City jobless rate is 2nd worst
Among the 50 largest U.S. cities, only Detroit had a higher unemployment rate than Milwaukee in August, according to a new study at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

“It’s a serious indicator that we need to take some notice of,” said Marc Levine, a professor of history and director of the Center for Economic Development, which takes a monthly look at Bureau of Labor Statistics data for Milwaukee and 49 other cities.

Based on household surveys, 8% of Milwaukee’s residents working or seeking work said they couldn’t find a job in August. Only Detroit, at 15.1% unemployment, was worse off. And all but 10 of the 50 cities had unemployment rates of less than 6% in August.

Does it strike anyone as strange that even with news like that and learning that “Milwaukee also ranks in the bottom fourth in terms of employment growth in the last 12 months, the last 36 months and the last 84 months,” our Mayor, Tom Barrett appears to be running unopposed. I know there has been talk of Sheriff David Clarke running, and I honestly hope he does, but I have heard him talking on the radio (he appears on WMCS’ Eric Von Show occasionally) and what I hear isn’t really encouraging… Hope I am wrong, but time is running short.

Does this sound familiar? According to a report in today’s Wisconsin State Journal:

“State agencies will be paying off a questionable computer project for the next 20 years, according to a report by the state’s top computer official. That’s in spite of the fact the project was originally supposed to save the state millions of dollars over just a few years.”

20 years to pay off? That’s, like, 20 times the normal life cycle of a computer, right?

“By June 2008, the state likely will have spent an estimated $65 million on the server project. That’s about five times the consultant’s incomplete cost estimate, which also projected millions of dollars in savings from the project over just five years…

The costs of the project currently far outstrip the payments that state agencies make to participate in it, according to the report. Those deficits mean that the program will have to be paid off through payments by agencies until 2028, the report said.”

That waste like this occurs in state government is nothing short of shameful.
Where is the outrage?

These are the same people who are pushing to make a “model of efficiency” out of every aspect of Wisconsin’s (a.k.a. “your”) health care system…. all based on the “projections” of their advocacy groups.

After all, according to the Healthy Wisconsin website:

“Healthy Wisconsin Reduces the Cost of Government in Wisconsin: Wisconsin state and local governments are being hit hard by skyrocketing health care costs. Under Healthy Wisconsin, it is estimated that state and local government will save $1.3 billion, half of which will be used to reduce property taxes.”

It actually reduces costs? Wow, that’s fantastic. Just like those computers that are going to burden us until 2028, right? Don’t buy into the Democrats smoke-and-mirrors, folks. Stand your ground.