Brian Dake

President Biden is signing an executive order on Monday intended to cut back on the bureaucracy around government services for the public such as renewing their passports, applying for loans or changing their name.

The order, which Biden will sign on Monday afternoon, affects 36 “customer experience improvement commitments” across 17 federal agencies. The order targets various government services dealing with travel, retirement, business, health and updating personal information, according to a White House fact sheet.

For example, the order will call for a streamlined enrollment experience for retirees looking to enroll in Social Security, and it will allow retirees to more easily claim benefits online.

Taxpayers will be given new online tools to make filing more easy, and filers will have the option to schedule customer service call-backs instead of waiting on hold.

The order will call for Americans to be able to renew their passports online rather than dealing with print forms, and it will aim to streamline the process for travelers with urgent questions for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

The order will also aim to ease the bureaucracy around both student loans and business loans.

The order will create a single portal for the millions of individuals with student loan debt, and small business owners will have a more streamlined process for working with the Small Business Administration on loans, grants and certifications.

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) has been awarded a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to support its comprehensive upgrade and modernization of the Job Center of Wisconsin system and an internal case management system to better connect job seekers with employment opportunities.

The Comprehensive and Accessible Reemployment through Equitable Employment Recovery National Dislocated Worker grant will benefit workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent labor market disruption. DOL announced the availability of $43 million nationwide for the grant in June 2021, with a maximum award of $3 million.

The projects are expected to be implemented by late 2023. The work represents another major component of DWD’s comprehensive effort to improve service for customers – employers, job seekers, current employees and those experiencing disruption in their employment. In recent months, DWD also has introduced improvements to its virtual Job Center of Wisconsin, added a chatbot feature to help job seekers and employers connect, entered into a partnership with Google Cloud to expedite processing of unemployment insurance claims; and contracted with Flexion to overhaul its legacy Unemployment Insurance processing system.

Tens of thousands of people in Wisconsin whose applications for COVID-19 pandemic unemployment benefits were denied could be eligible for up to 79 weeks of unemployment payments.

There are three main categories of newly eligible workers:

• Those who declined to return to work at a site that wasn’t complying with COVID-19 safety standards, such as requiring face masks and physical distancing.
• Those working for an educational institution who became unemployed or partially unemployed after COVID-19 scrambled workers’ schedules.
• Those who were laid off or had their hours reduced as a result of COVID-19 measures, including restaurant workers.

Officials with the state Department of Workforce Development said they would be mailing notices to nearly 28,000 people who were denied benefits under the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program to let them know they are eligible to reapply under the expanded guidelines. If they were denied before but found to be eligible now, they could be paid for the entire period of the pandemic thus far.

The Biden administration announced expanded eligibility for the federal program in February after President Joe Biden in an executive order said workers whose employers didn’t follow safety protocols could get the benefits. The Wednesday announcement by DWD follows from that executive order and guidance from Biden’s Department of Labor.

Wisconsinites who weren’t previously denied federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance can also apply under the expanded eligibility. However, they’ll be limited in the number of weeks of back payments they can claim.

Foxconn Technology Group has reached a new deal with reduced tax breaks for its scaled back project in southeast Wisconsin.

Gov. Tony Evers and the world’s largest electronics manufacturer announced the new deal on Monday. Details of the new agreement were not immediately released.

It was scheduled to be approved at a Tuesday meeting of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., the state’s top jobs agency that previously negotiated the initial deal with Foxconn.

After months of stalemate, Congress struck a deal on nearly $900 billion in Covid-19 relief, including a new round of direct payments and help for jobless Americans, families and businesses struggling in the pandemic.

Wisconsin’s Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday in another case that could reframe the power of state government to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, reviving a debate that began when justices struck down the state’s “Safer at Home” order in May.

The latest dispute stems from an order restricting bar and restaurant capacity that expired more than a month ago, but it raises issues the court left ambiguous in its “Safer at Home” ruling.

Gov. Tony Evers’ administration issued the order on Oct. 6 through powers invoked by state Department of Health Services Secretary Andrea Palm to respond to public health emergencies.

Palm’s order restricted the size of crowds at indoor businesses like restaurants and bars. Under the order, those businesses were limited to 25 percent of their usual capacity. For example, a restaurant that could normally hold up to 200 people would be limited to a crowd of 50.

The Evers administration argues there’s a key difference in this case.

When the court struck down “Safer at Home,” it carved out an exception, stating without explanation in two footnotes in the majority opinion that it was not striking down the state’s powers to close schools.

The law that spells out the power to close schools states that DHS “may close schools and forbid public gatherings in schools, churches, and other places to control outbreaks and epidemics.” The Evers administration argues that Palm’s latest order did just that.

Critics of Palm’s order argue it should be struck down because it relies on part of the same law that the Supreme Court addressed when it struck down “Safer at Home.”

“We have the same agency here. We have the same pandemic. They are repackaging these same exact arguments they made the last time,” said attorney Misha Tseytlin arguing on behalf of the Mix Up, Inc., an Amery bar and grill challenging Palm’s order. “I understand the composition of this court has changed since, but the law hasn’t changed.”

The Federal Reserve kept its benchmark interest rate at a record low near zero Thursday and signaled its readiness to do more if needed to support an economy under threat from a worsening coronavirus pandemic.

The central bank’s policy statement Thursday was approved on a 10-0 vote. Robert Kaplan, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, who had dissented at the previous meeting, voted with the majority this time. Another dissenter in September, Neel Kashkari, head of the Minneapolis Fed, was absent, with his alternate, Mary Daly of the San Francisco Fed, approving the statement.

The statement was nearly identical to the one the Fed issued in September. At that meeting, it adopted a policy goal change it had made in August to keep rates low for some period of time even after inflation hits its 2% annual target. The reason was to allow the Fed to supply a longer boost to the economy and for unemployment to fall further before the policymakers begin to worry about inflation.

Congressional leaders said Tuesday night they are making progress on a sweeping deal to fund the government and provide coronavirus relief but hadn’t yet clinched an agreement.

The top four congressional leaders met twice Tuesday as they race the clock to try to fund the government by Friday and break a months-long stalemate to provide more coronavirus aid.

The bipartisan package was split into two different bills. One $748 billion piece includes another round of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) assistance for small businesses, an unemployment benefit and more money for schools, vaccine distribution and other widely agreed upon items.

The second, $160 billion piece ties together the two most controversial elements of the coronavirus negotiations: more money for state and local governments and protections from coronavirus-related lawsuits.