by Kerry Thomas
January 28, 2008
Governor Jim Doyle’s chickens are coming home to roost.
Last Fall, as the Legislature was debating the state budget,
most independent analyses of the budget showed a more than $800 million
shortfall. Nevertheless, Governor Doyle
and his tax and spend cohorts used creative financing to mask the problem and
make the budget appear to be in balance, in accordance with Wisconsin law.
They raised taxes, and hiked user fees, registration fees,
and any other fee you can think of.
When that wasn’t enough to pay for all the new spending, they just
changed the projections, guessing that Wisconsin taxpayers would pay 3% more
taxes then we had last time around.
This week, analysis of state tax collections found that
taxpayers paid 0.8% more in personal, corporate and sales taxes during the last
6 months of 2007 than in the previous year, not the 3% increase that was
projected.
Instead of a projected $67 million surplus, using generally
accepted accounting principles (something state officials don’t use), Wisconsin
taxpayers are on the hook for a $2.44 billion deficit, a number that’s gone up
by $300 million in just one year.
This is nothing new for Wisconsin taxpayers. Our elected representatives in Madison have
been spending our money faster than we can pay it for more than 20 years. Remember when Tommy Thompson was first
elected governor? The solution then was
to “temporarily” raise the state sales tax from 4% to 5%. For years we’ve watched taxes and fees
across the board inch their way up and up.
Last year the Legislature increased cigarette taxes by
129%. They added new taxes on
alcohol. We still pay more than 32¢ a
gallon to the State on every gallon of gasoline we buy. Now the Legislature is planning to impose a
new tax on video games and video game players.
Yet Governor Doyle and legislative leaders keep insisting
they won’t raise taxes. Or they’ll only
raise taxes as a last resort. Or they’ll
only raise taxes on a small group of targeted people.
I, for one, don’t believe a word of it. Except the part about they will raise
taxes.
We’re seeing the costs of these taxes reflected in the daily
news reports, such as this January 21 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel headline “Tax shortfall may
threaten state services.” Wisconsin’s
economy continues to struggle, as the cumulative burden of all these taxes and
fees is heaped even higher on the shoulders of Wisconsin taxpayers.
Bureaucrats will always be able to outspend what the
taxpayers are able to pay.
It’s been proven that reducing tax rates and lowering the
barriers to business result in strong economic growth, more and better jobs,
and a healthy robust economy. It also
increases the tax dollars paid into government coffers, as all that increased
economic activity expands the size of the economic pie for all of us.
Wisconsin’s business climate today is chilly at best. The high cost of doing business in Wisconsin
continues to drive jobs elsewhere.
Legislation such as Wisconsin’s higher minimum wage laws might sound
good to a low-wage, low-skilled worker, but they have the effect of driving
those jobs to states where the burden of doing business is lower. The cost of complying with Wisconsin’s
onerous regulatory climate has the same effect.
And then you have cases such as the one when Perrier was
looking at Wisconsin to site a new water bottling plant. The Wisconsin Legislature went into near
emergency session, and quickly passed a new law regulating how much water can
be pumped from wells in Wisconsin. (The
fine print of that law even allows the State to regulate the private wells many
of us have that supply water to our homes.)
Perrier took their business and their jobs elsewhere.
This is just one example of the way our Madison politicians
drive business away from Wisconsin.
The foibles of well-intentioned bureaucrats in Madison have
cost the People of Wisconsin plenty.
Yet our elected bureaucrats continue to push for even more onerous
regulations and higher costs for the People of Wisconsin.
Imposing the Progressive Madison vision of a utopian society
on the rest of Wisconsin has been a costly experiment. The evidence of the failure of that
experiment is overwhelming. How much
longer will the People of Wisconsin continue with this failed Progressive experiment?
The People of Wisconsin must decide whether we will continue
to shoulder the growing burden of expanded Big Brother government programs, or
whether we will reject such social engineering efforts and stand on our own,
helping our neighbors who need help, without the heavy shackles of oppressive government
restraining us.