Milwaukee and Dane County Subsidize Rural Republican Utopia's.

% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.

Two articles came out at pretty much the same time that finally brought everything into focus; liberal state hellholes like Dane County and Milwaukee are propping up the rest of the state….every resentful rural community. They’ve been hoodwinked by their do-nothing Republican politicians who haven’t lifted a finger to solve their problems.

No excuses Walker trolls, liberal progressive government policies work when their elected officials actually serve their constituents with policies they need. Can’t say the same for “small government” Republican districts being starved and ignored. No wonder they resent big cities for getting everything. Cap Times:

1. Dane County responsible for over half of Wisconsin’s job growth since 2001, according to a city of Madison economic development plan. 

2. Dane County represents 9 percent of the state’s population, but accounted for 56 percent of job growth between 2001 and 2015, with an increase of almost 43,000 jobs, from about 279,000 to 322,000. That’s an increase of 15 percent over that time period, as compared to a 3 percent increase seen statewide.

3. This growth, the report says, is “increasingly private-sector driven.” In Madison, the private sector makes up 76 percent of the workforce.

4. The job growth is also “concentrated at the top and bottom ends of the economic spectrum,” the report said, ranging from food preparation to software engineering.

5. The data also found that from 2001 to 2012, Dane County added 1,100 new businesses and Madison’s GDP grew from $23 billion to $39 billion, representing 6.5 percent annual growth. “For all intents and purposes, the Madison regional economy grew right through the recession,” Dan Kennelly, manager of the city office of business resources said.

6. Madison also leads in business growth and construction activity. “If you compare Dane County to the rest of the state of Wisconsin, by really any economic measure, whether it’s job growth or innovation or GDP or what have you, we’re really driving the state’s economy in a lot of ways,” Kennelly said.

Milwaukee Subsidizes The State: The city gets only 66 cents in state spending for every dollar in state taxes paid.

In the 2012 recall election, Gov. Scott Walker bluntly signaled that a vote for his opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, could make this state as bad as the city. “We don’t want Wisconsin to become like Milwaukee,” he warned. Walker was well aware that Milwaukee was seen in a negative light across much of the state, as a place of poverty and crime or for some people as a simply a city with many minority residents. To get elected, Walker cynically capitalized on that negative image, while reinforcing it because, after all, he had served as Milwaukee County Executive. Who would know better how bad Milwaukee was?

In fact, even as Walker was libeling the state’s biggest city, the reality is the opposite was true: it was Walker’s state that was the relative loser, that was leeching off the city. By 2012, the data shows, the city’s economy had become so successful that Milwaukee got back just 88 cents in total state aid for every dollar in total taxes it paid to the state.

That includes every category of state dollars flowing to Milwaukee, from state aid to Milwaukee Public Schools to shared revenue to cities, transportation aid and other smaller categories, and also includes every form of taxes flowing from Milwaukee to the state, including sales taxes and personal and corporate income taxes paid by city residents and businesses. All this information is tracked by the state Department of Revenue (DOR) and it shows Milwaukee is a net contributor to the state.

That was not true as recently as 2009, when the city was getting $1.07 from the state for every dollar in taxes it paid. But by 2011 the city was a net contributor to the state and that net outflow has increased every year until by 2015 the city was paying nearly $1.4 billion in total taxes to the state and getting back just over $912 million in state aid. That’s a return of just 66 cents from the state for every dollar in taxes paid.

The city has been booming economically since the Great Recession, enjoying tremendous real estate development, seeing its many local businesses recover and grow revenue, and becoming a magnet for companies moving from the suburbs to the city.

But is that how Gov. Walker sees the situation? Or Republican legislative leaders? I shared the information about Milwaukee’s net contribution with Walker’s communication’s director Tom Evenson, with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and asked for a comment. None responded.