Uppity Wisconsin
Making Wisconsin Progressive Again
Walker's deficit plan: Dig a deeper hole
Tue, 01/26/2010 - 10:30pm | xoff
So let me get this straight.
Wisconsin's facing a budget deficit of something like $2-billion, and Scott Walker's idea is to dig the hole deeper with a big corporate tax break? And the news media treat him seriously?
As Gov. Jim Doyle was getting ready to deliver his State of the State speech, Walker, surrounded by a bunch of Republican leggies, proposed repealing the state's combined reporting law -- the one that plugged what was widely known as the Las Vegas Loophole.
The Las Vegas Loophole let corporations avoid paying taxes on income they made in Wisconsin by registering their business in some other state, like Nevada, without a corporate income tax. Re-opening the loophole would add another $375-million to the deficit in the next budget cycle.
How would Walker balance the budget while giving hundreds of millions in tax breaks to corporations?
by "redefining the way we provide government, looking at wages and benefits." He said all options would be on the table.
Everyone always says all options are on the table, but it's pretty clear that Walker wants to take the money out of the hides of state workers, following the same anti-worker, privatization policies he's used to create a disaster in Milwaukee County government.
The $375-million is just the tip of the iceberg, by the way. One Wisconsin Now points out that Walker already has proposed about $2-billion in tax cuts, which mostly benefit the wealthy, which would double the deficit. He hasn't said what programs he's slash to balance the bduget, of course, but it's safe to say all options that benefit the middle class and working people are on the cutting board.
How long will the media let him get away with it?
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I see, Anon. The more we cut taxes the more the economy booms. That, I guess, is the lesson from the Bush presidency, which resulted in today's prosperity.
DO some homework there xoff. Every time taxes are cut, revenues in the form of taxes go up not down. The problem is when politician see more money coming in they can't help themselves and they spend it. Then when the revenues go down, they don't know how to pay for all the new programs that should never have been put in, so what do they naturally do, raise taxes. The "wealthy" you refer to are mostly small business owners who create jobs. (How many jobs have you and the policies you prefer created, outside of government jobs?) The more tax money you take out of their pockets, the less they have to hire and pay employees with. The truly wealthy know how to not pay taxes, legally, regardless of how much politicians try to get it from them.
First the deficit is much bigger when you add in the federal money and the requests for new money in next budget.
Secondly, the only way we will climb out of the mess that the Doyle/Jim Sullivan team put us in is to grow our economy or we will just be fighting for less dollars every year.
The Doyle/Sullivan disaster will be with us for a decade.