Last night I went on RT to discuss the union collective bargaining rights issue in Wisconsin and where the national debt issue stands in Congress.
A quick correction of the data I quoted in the interview. From 2002 to 2008, the population growth of Wisconsin plus inflation grew 23 percent. Direct spending the state grew 32 percent (not the 37 percent I quoted) during that time frame. Rather, it was state salaries that grew 37 percent during the boom period of the last decade (twisted the numbers in my head). But the fact remains true that Wisconsin overspent its growth rate during the past decade, assuming that the large tax revenues yielded from economic expansion would continue in perpetudity. And that is not to mention pension system mismanagement that relied on unrealistic return on investment expectations. Those are reasons why Wisconsin’s budget is in trouble. It is not because Alan Greenspan missed the housing bubble. And on that point, why would we trust the Fed (that supposedly screwed up Wisconsin’s budget) to effectively print the state and the country out of this recession?
Also see David Godow discussing the union issue here.