Former Fed economist, covering economics and politics in the Badger state, data geek, common sense is my super power.

Joined August 2015
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The Badger Pundit retweeted
89% of senior citizens support raising taxes on younger workers to maintain their benefits. The median primary voter is 65.
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The Badger Pundit retweeted
25 years ago, 90% of Republicans were proud or extremely proud to be American. 87% of Democrats felt the same way. 25 years later, 92% of Republicans are proud to be Americans. Just 36% of Democrats feel the same way. It's not an exaggeration to say the left hates America.
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Me: AI, help me understand what a @FrancescaHongWI governorship would look like. AI: Sure, no problem.
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Barnes in third place for the first time.
NEW ALL-TIME HIGH: Francesca Hong has a 45% chance to win the Wisconsin Democratic Governor nomination
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The Badger Pundit retweeted
Freedom 250 is proud to announce Rodeo 250 — The Evolution of the American Cowboy, a signature attraction of the Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Visitors will journey through the evolution of the American cowboy. From Spanish vaquero traditions to cattle drives, Wild West performances, charros, trick riding, Roman riding, trick roping, and the emergence of modern professional rodeo. All brought to life by the legendary @CerviRodeo. DATES: June 25–July 10, 2026 TIMES: Sun–Wed at 4 PM; Thu–Sat at 7 PM; special July 4 show at 3 PM LOCATION: American Heartland Arena, National Mall, Washington, DC 🎟️ RSVP now for FREE tickets
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The Badger Pundit retweeted
What’s better than a rare Super Delta formation featuring the Thunderbirds and the @USNavy Blue Angels over Washington, D.C.? Watching it from four different views for #UFCWhiteHouse as part of #Freedom250. 🇺🇸
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I humbly offer some observations on @WisDems convention and the straw poll. 1. Not a Centrist Party. The @WisDems are a pretty left-wing party. The three far-left candidates (Hong, Barnes and Roys) together got 293 of 597 or 49 percent of the votes in the straw poll. The left candidates (Rodriguez and Crowley) got 41 percent and the left with some centrist ideas (Brennan and Hughes) got 10 percent. My classification is based on each candidate’s online policy manifesto. Though Hong is the only one to proudly wear the socialist label, the policy programs of Hong, Barnes and Roys are nearly identical. Rodriguez and Crowley both want a lot of new spending and offer no way to pay for it. Yet, their promises are a little less extravagant than the far-left candidates so I classify them as merely "left". Brennan and Hughes classification is based on hunches. Brennan’s website has no policy page and Hughes’s site apparently has a virus so I couldn’t access it. 2. Attendance Poorer Than Expected. Cutaway shots showed lots of empty seats at the convention. I would have expected a larger turnout given the possibility of a wave election in their favor and the number of contested elections. The No Kings crowd apparently isn’t into formal organization or sitting through speeches. 3. No Chance for a Brokered Result. Some have suggested a repeat of the 2022 senate race where everyone but Barnes dropped out. They forget that Barnes was leading at that time and had been ahead in every poll for the last 12 month. Not so now. In this case Barnes, Rodriguez, Hong and Roys each have a rationale for staying in. Barnes leads in the most recent poll, Hong has the strongest following, Rodriguez’s campaign is showing signs of life and Roys has the nod of the all-powerful teacher’s union. Crowley and Brennan probably want to stay in to save face with their backers. Hughes, however, needs to find another hobby.
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Raising the minimum wage in Wisconsin to $20 would have the same effect. It's basic economics.
McDonald's announced they're replacing cashiers with kiosks in California just after the $20 minimum wage kicked in. Shocking to absolutely no one who understands basic economics. When you artificially price labor above its market value, employers find substitutes. Machines, automation, or they simply eliminate positions entirely. The teenagers who desperately need that first job experience? Gone. The single mother trying to re-enter the workforce after years away? Priced out by someone with more skills. You've just created a legal barrier that prevents the least skilled workers from competing on the one thing they had going for them: willingness to work for less while they build experience. Politicians pat themselves on the back for "helping workers" while unemployment among young minorities hits double digits. The workers who keep their jobs benefit (temporarily), but the invisible victims, those who never get hired in the first place, don't make headlines. Economics doesn't care about your good intentions.
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With all these foreigners coming for the World Cup and learning about how incredibly great America is, we might have an outbreak of freedom worldwide when they return and demand the same thing in their own countries.
They Love America
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Truth. Everyday Americans are far better than the media portray us.
A wise man once said, if you want to hate America, watch the news. If you want to love America, drive across it. These European World Cup tourists are experiencing the REAL America for the first time: not New York City or LA, but middle America and all its hospitality. 🇺🇸
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Brit here for the World Cup discovers how fantastic the USA is. Check out her posts.
The USA is everything I expected it to be and more Beautiful scenery, green trees everywhere, cute cars, cute shops, hot guys, amazing food, friendly people. 🇺🇸
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Beginning in 2011, Wisconsin moved towards a more free market economy. Illinois did not. It's paying big dividends for Wisconsin workers. Yet at their convention this weekend, @WisDems are going to tell us how they plan to make Wisconsin more like Illinois. How dumb is that?
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The @Wisdems are planning to give United Van Lines a lot of business (one way outbound from Wisconsin only) with their tax policies.
Rhode Island just raised the millionaire tax to 9%. 
Democrats keep calling it “fairness.” The moving trucks call it something else.
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Ick.
A man went to the hospital because something felt stuck in his throat. Doctors found an entire octopus lodged in his esophagus. The 55-year-old attended Tan Tock Seng Hospital after vomiting and struggling to swallow following a seafood dinner. A CT scan revealed a dense mass in his esophagus. An endoscopic examination confirmed what it was, a whole octopus lodged five centimetres from the border between his esophagus and stomach. Doctors first attempted the standard "push technique," applying force to move the blockage down. It didn't work. The octopus would not move, and applying more pressure risked rupturing the esophagus. They then threaded the endoscope past the octopus into the stomach, reversed the camera, and used forceps to grab the octopus by the head and pull it back up and out. Two days later the man was discharged. The case was published in a medical journal and later reported by the American Gastrointestinal Association, which is where the images originated.
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The Badger Pundit retweeted
Democrats are suddenly very, very concerned about responsible budgeting and preserving surpluses to maintain Wisconsin’s fiscal health. As Heartland Post guest contributor James Bohn writes, it would be refreshing if it were at all sincere. heartlandpost.com/democrats-…
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The Badger Pundit retweeted
BREAKING: Francesca Hong takes the lead over Mandela Barnes in the Wisconsin Democratic Governor odds She has a 40% to win the primary
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The most recent trustees report of the Social Security system predicts that the system will run out of money in the fourth quarter of 2032, just six years out (left panel). The American people have been sold a fantasy by the political and media classes that entitlement spending growth can go on indefinitely, even increase. Both parties perpetuate that lie, not just Ds. What I find particularly galling is that younger politicians are happy to go along with the bankrupting of their generation. @RebeccaforWI is one such example. She's a Millennial (born 1987). Yet she's all in on the fleecing of her high school and college classmates.
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The Badger Pundit retweeted
Javier Milei: “I thought being on the left was a mental problem. The empirical evidence is so overwhelming that it never worked anywhere, and they refused to accept it.” “But what I discovered is that being on the left is a disease of the soul. The left is built on envy, hatred, resentment, and unequal treatment under the law. They are very violent, and since they have no way or arguments to answer, they go for physical violence.”
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