Wisconsin billionaires quietly bankroll effort to shrink state's social safety net

[RandySF]

Republican lawmakers held a day of back-to-back public hearings in mid-April for bills that would add restrictions to receiving unemployment insurance payouts, ban local guaranteed income programs and prevent state agencies from automatically renewing low-income health insurance.

A lead proponent testifying at the Capitol was a former Republican legislative aide representing a Florida-based advocacy group with no membership and tens of millions of anonymous donations. One Republican lawmaker noted it was the third time that afternoon that Adam Gibbs had spoken in favor of the bills, all which were aimed at dismantling the state’s social safety net.

“Busy day in the Legislature,” replied Gibbs, communications director for the nonprofit Foundation for Government Accountability.

His pitch that April afternoon was succinct: Wisconsin employers struggle to fill jobs because the state’s unemployment insurance benefits — which are among the bottom third of benefits in the nation — are too generous.

“One of the fastest ways that we can deal with Wisconsin’s ongoing workforce shortage is to keep people who are still in the labor market, those recently unemployed, productively engaged in the workforce,” Gibbs told members of the Assembly Committee on Workforce Development and Economic Opportunities.



https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2023/07/11/wisconsin-billionaires-quietly-bankroll-effort-to-shrink-states-social-safety-net/