It is important to remember how the recession started and what it did to all of us. Investment bankers triggered the great recession playing mortgage monopoly with our investments and pension money. The game exploded and we are all paying the price.
The recession hit the private and public sectors. When people lose their jobs – they don’t pay income tax.When the job market is tanking, people stop buying anything but necessities and sales tax revenue drops like a rock. When the real estate bubble burst – property tax revenue goes down. When these revenues shrink – state and local government lose the capacity to pay for crucial services.
The Recovery Act/stimulus stopped the job loss from getting worse. Looking at this chart, you can see the job loss numbers growing from 2007 to the beginning of 2009. After the recovery Act in February 2009, the job loss rate starts to get smaller and we are beginning to see hiring in mid-2010.
The Recovery Act is bringing Wisconsin $11 billion during the two year period – 2009-2010. A huge portion of that is through tax cuts to individuals and families. Many people didn’t notice this because the money was spread throughout the two years by reducing the federal payroll taxes. This was designed to increase spending. The child deduction amount went up as did credits for college, conservation and major purchases- homes, cars, etc