Huh?

The libtards at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal are at it again. No surprise there.

Naturally, the MJS board is calling for more taxes, not to mention raiding the transportation fund (again).

But check out this idiocy.

As an October article by the Journal Sentinel’s Patrick Marley detailed, the eventual compromise then came just days before orders for the layoffs of 800 state employees. Such layoffs would have decimated government services, which is possibly what some folks would like to see.

Now, look at the Socialist Paradise State of Wisconsin’s Employment/Job page.

Welcome to Wisc.Jobs, the Official State of Wisconsin Government job site! Find out what over 40,000 dedicated employees have already discovered - interesting jobs, excellent benefits, and many advancement opportunities that allow you to touch the lives of Wisconsin’s citizens and Improve the State of your Career.

So the MJS would have us believe that getting rid of 2% of the state employees would have “decimated” services?

WTF? How stupid can you be?

No wonder the MJS has no credibility (other than most of the Sports Section).

Don’t Give Doyle Any Ideas

Pol Pot and his minions in the Legislature are hostile toward business. It could be worse…..we could have Eliot Spitzer (Shit for Brains-NY) as governor. Spitzer is the guy, you may recall, that put Strong Capital Management out of business. Strong was one of the top-rated mutual fund companies at the time.

Check this out.

New York recently finished 50th in Chief Executive magazine’s survey of the best states to do business. Respondents cited high taxes, regulation and Governor Eliot Spitzer’s “hostile image toward business.” The Governor, for his part, seems to have decided that if he can’t convince companies to move to the Empire State, he’ll simply have to govern them from a distance.

Eager to fund his proposed 4.8% budget increase this year (last year’s was 6%), Mr. Spitzer is attempting to force out-of-state retailers such as Amazon.com to collect New York state sales taxes. Readers of this page know that a 1992 Supreme Court decision called Quill prevents exactly this type of money grab. The Supremes ruled that forcing such obligations on companies with no physical presence in a state could cripple interstate commerce. Absent Quill, even small Web merchants would have to answer to literally thousands of state and local tax collectors.

The Governor argues that he can get to companies like Amazon through New Yorkers who run ads for Amazon on their Web sites. Nice try. If non-employees with some business relationship with a company were enough to establish physical presence, then Quill would be meaningless.

Rather than competing for the title of most-taxpayer-unfriendly state, Mr. Spitzer would be wise to consider ways to attract more taxpaying businesses. A good start would be improving New York’s overall business tax climate, which the Tax Foundation ranks 48th among the states, just ahead of New Jersey.

I should point out that NJ is also head by a Dem. FWIW, same study, from the Tax Foundation, ranked Wisconsin 39th as a place to do business.

Morons in Madistan!!! Pay Attention!!!

Yes, Russ Decker, yes Pol Pot Doyle, this means YOU. It also means every hammerhead in Madistan that loves to tax everyone into oblivion.

Check out this article in the 2/12/08 edition of The Wall Street Journal.

An old adage says high taxes don’t redistribute income, they redistribute people. For new evidence look no further than migration patterns within the United States, as documented in a new survey by the moving company United Van Lines.

A record eight million Americans — some 20,000 people every day — relocated to another state last year. So where are these families headed and why? The general picture is this: Americans are continuing to flee the Northeast and Midwest, while the leading destinations continue to be Southern and Western states.

The United Van Lines study finds that the biggest population loser last year was Michigan, where two families moved out of the state for every new family that moved in. Americans are also fleeing New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Without interviewing the departed, it’s impossible to know the reasons for this outward migration. No doubt overall economic prospects, climate, quality of life and housing prices play a role.

But one reason to conclude that taxes are also a motivator is because the eight states without an income tax are stealing talent from other states. They are Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming, and each one gained in net domestic migrants. Each one except Florida — which has sky-high property taxes on new homesteaders — also ranked in the top 12 of destination states. The nearby table ranks the top five destination and departure states.

Politicians who think taxes don’t matter might want to explain the Dakotas. North Dakota ranked second worst in out-migration last year, while South Dakota ranked in the top 10 as a destination. The two are similar in most regards, with one large difference: North Dakota has an income tax and South Dakota doesn’t.

Here’s another example. The only Pacific Coast state to lose migrant population in 2007 was California, which has the highest state income tax in the nation. This is the continuation of a dismal 10-year performance with nearly one and a half million Golden Staters leaving what was once the premier destination state in America.

Meanwhile, next door, Nevada was second among the states in new families — and a big percentage of the new arrivals are Californians. Nevada has no income tax. High income Californians can buy a house in Las Vegas for the amount of money they save in three or four years by not paying California income taxes.

One of the few Northeastern states that gained interstate migrants in 2007 was New Hampshire, the only state in New England without an income tax. For the exception that proves the tax rule, we should also mention Vermont, a high-tax state with a big net influx last year. Maybe these folks like the Ben & Jerry’s lifestyle, and we also hope they like the government they’re paying for.

We invite readers to visit the U-Haul Moving Company Web site (www.uhaul.com), where you can type in a pair of U.S. cities to learn what it costs to move from point A to B. If you want to move, say, from Austin, Texas to Southern California, the moving van will cost you $407 to rent. But if you want to move out of California to Austin, the same van costs $1,831. A move from Dallas to Philadelphia costs $663, versus $2,433 to swap homes in the other direction. The biggest discrepancy we could find was $557 from Nashville, Tennessee to Los Angeles, but the trip costs nearly eight times more, or $4,285, to move to Nashville from L.A.

Our friends on the left say Americans are willing to pay more taxes to get better government services, but their migration patterns reveal the opposite. Governors would be wise to heed these interstate migration trends as they try to cope with what may be one of the worst years in recent memory for state finances. The people who tend to be the most mobile in American society are the educated and motivated — in other words, the taxpaying class. Tax them too much, and you’ll soon find they aren’t there to tax at all.

Emphasis mine for the tax ‘em to death crowd in Madistan.

Sorry For the Lack of Posts

I’m back from an undisclosed triple secret location. In the meantime, until I get back into the rants high quality posts you have come to expect from this cutting edge blog, here’s something to make you wonder about the future of the human race.

Crowbars in your pants are not a good thing.

They’re Not All Morons

I frequently refer to people in state government as the “Morons in Madistan”. There are some exceptions. Bill Kraemer, who is filling in for Owen is not one of them.
Neither is Leah Vukhmir. Neither is my assemblyman, Rich Zipperer. Here’s the latest from one of the good guys.

NEWS RELEASE: Internet Tax Freedom Act Passes Committee Unanimously

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 22, 2008

CONTACT: Rich Zipperer
OFFICE: (60 266-5120

HEADLINE: Internet Tax Freedom Act Passes Committee Unanimously
SUBHEADLINE: Zipperer-authored legislation approved by Assembly
committee on Energy and Utilities 10-0.

Madison-On Tuesday, the state Assembly committee on Energy and
Utilities, chaired by Rep. Phil Montgomery (R-Ashwaubenon), voted
unanimously to approve the Wisconsin Internet Tax Freedom Act, a bill
authored by Rep. Rich Zipperer (R-Pewaukee). When enacted, the
Wisconsin Internet Tax Freedom Act will bring Wisconsin into compliance
with the federal internet access tax moratorium, first signed into law
by President Clinton in 1998 and recently extended through 2014 by
President Bush.

“Wisconsin is one of only a handful of states that still collects a tax
for simply signing onto the internet,” said Zipperer. “I’m grateful
that the committee came together in a bipartisan fashion to approve this
common sense legislation. By eliminating this tax, we will not only
bring Wisconsin into compliance with the federal moratorium, but we will
help level the playing field for businesses and families throughout
Wisconsin who want to learn, do business, or simply keep in touch
through the internet.”

The committee also approved a Zipperer amendment to adopt the latest
definition of ‘internet access’ as approved by the federal government in
late 2007. Finally, the committee adopted an amendment that delays
enactment of the bill until the 2009-10 biennium, a move deemed
necessary by the committee because the current budget has already been
enacted.

According to the Department of Revenue, AB 223 will provide Wisconsin’s
internet consumers with $56 million of tax relief in 2009, and the
amount of relief will grow each year as more households and businesses
go online.

The legislation now moves forward to the full Assembly for consideration
during an upcoming floor period.

It’s about time. Many thanks, Rich. Feel free to join us for pizza anytime.

Wonder What the Morons in Madistan and Washington Will Think of This

Do you think this will make a difference to Pol Pot Doyle or the other “tax the rich” morons who write our tax laws?

Democrats in Congress remain committed to raising taxes on grounds that tax rates don’t much matter to economic growth, and in any case they only help the rich. They may be the last public officials on the planet to believe this. In recent weeks alone, some of the unlikeliest political leaders have endorsed tax rate cuts in the name of making their economies better.

Start in Europe, where Socialist Party Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero pledged in December that if re-elected, “One of the first decisions I would take is to eliminate the wealth tax [up to 2.5%],” which he says is one of the highest in Europe and “punishes savings.” Mr. Zapatero is no conservative. But he’s joining the European march down the Laffer Curve on taxes, having already phased in reductions in Spain’s corporate tax rate to 30% from 35% and its personal income tax rate to 43% from 45%.

Like France and Germany, Spain is cutting rates because of the tax competition from their European Union neighbors such as Ireland and East Europe. There are now at least 11 nations formerly behind the Iron Curtain with flat rate taxes of 25% or lower. On January 1, a new flat tax of 10% became law in Bulgaria, replacing its progressive rate structure and as far as we know the lowest such rate in the world. The newly elected Polish parliament is also planning to cut taxes, though an earlier flat-tax proposal earned a veto threat from the president.

And this just in: In the Middle East, Kuwait has decided to slash its corporate income tax on foreign companies to 15% from 55%. Finance Minister Mostafa al-Shemali argued for the cut, noting that Kuwait attracted less than $300 million in foreign investment last year, compared to some $18 billion in lower-tax Saudi Arabia (which has a religious tax but no corporate or income tax on Saudi nationals). “This law will encourage foreign investors to enter Kuwait,” says Ahmed Baqer, head of the parliament’s finance panel.

It’s getting lonelier all the time at the top for America, which with a corporate tax rate of 35% is one of the few developed nations left with a rate of more than 30%. Economist Dan Mitchell tracks these trends for the Cato Institute, and he finds that 26 developed nations have cut either personal or corporate income tax rates since 2005. Since 1980, OECD nations have sliced their average personal income tax rate by 24 percentage points, to 40% from 64%. Corporate tax rates have fallen by more than 20 percentage points. Foreign leaders have learned that, in a world of easy global capital flows, high tax rates chase away investment and entrepreneurs.

Some of these tax-cutting nations — such as Estonia, Ireland, Russia and Spain — have seen revenues rise even as rates have fallen. This is what turns socialists into supply-siders in Spain, if regrettably not in the U.S.

I doubt this will have any effect in Washington. We already know the Morons in Madistan will pretend the actions described above are not “facts”.

What Was He Thinking?

Here’s a little tidbit from a meeting Pol Pot Doyle had in Brookfield to outline his plans to expand and upgrade Wisconsin’s economy. The meeting was held at Competitive Wisconsin.

It’s the usual crap we’ve come to expect from Doyle. Here’s some of the good and the lies.

“Doyle said he plans to announce more than $200 million in public and private investments that would be used to modernize agricultural practices as well as find new market opportunities. Doyle also announced that the state would provide tax credits for cheese cooperatives and dairy producers.”

Umm…..why do they need tax credits? ISN’T IT BECAUSE WISCONSIN’S TAXES ARE SO EFFING HIGH THEY CAN’T COMPETE UNLESS THEY GET A TAX CREDIT?

“In order to compete with manufacturers across the country and the world, Doyle said the state must have a “next-generation manufacturing plan” that would help small and mid-size companies keep up with larger firms.

Doyle also said it was important for the state to look into new opportunities for investment, such as the rapidly expanding biotechnology field.

“Growing Wisconsin will require a commitment to innovation,” he (Doyle) said.”

Pol Pot needs to wake up. Given the lawsuit happy business climate and the confiscatory tax policies, not to mention the stupidity of the State Legislature to make that climate even worse, no one would relocate here. Does the name Briggs and Stratton ring a bell? It’s now a Lowe’s Superstore.

Now here’s the part that led me to headline the post the way I did. The President of Competitive Wisconsin, a certain Tom O’Neill had this to say after Pol Pot’s speech.

“Competitive Wisconsin president Tom O’Neill of M&I Bank praised the governor for his “strong commitment to Wisconsin business” and lauded Doyle’s achievements in office.”

I hope Mr. O’Neill is a better banker than an observer of the obvious around him.

How about this Mr. O’Neill?

“Wisconsin will never be able to compete on any level unless the state’s tax laws are scrapped and Governor Doyle shows a commitment to reward, rather than punish those who achieve in the Great State of Wisconsin.”

I’m not holding my breath…especially after looking at the make up and mandates of Competitive Wisconsin.

This is Just Moronic

It always amazes me just how stupid elected officials can be. Really. Take for example the idiocy of a certain Dave Hansen, a Dim (what do you expect?) from Green Bay.

A bill to require public companies to disclose the strategies they use to lower their Wisconsin taxes will be introduced at the next legislative session in January, Sen. Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay) said Tuesday.

Hansen said the proposal was inspired by a report from the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future, a liberal think tank in Milwaukee that has claimed Wisconsin corporations use loopholes to avoid millions of dollars in taxes every year.

Boy, those guys at Wisconsin’s Future must want a state with no jobs at all. Maybe they should try life in the real world. OF COURSE corporations take strategies to reduce taxes. It’s called responsibility to shareholders by maximizing earnings!!!

Now, here is a guy (Hansen) who votes on the confiscatory tax policies in Wisconsin (and, I’m guessing, has supported every tax increase he’s ever seen) and he wants the victims of his vote to explain to him how they (legally, one would hope) take steps to reduce their Wisconsin Tax Bill? Gee, Dave, maybe you should recuse yourself from any vote on a tax bill since you’re too stupid to understand what you’re voting on.

I’ll make it real simple for you Dave, so you can understand. If this bill goes through, the strategy for companies who wish to reduce their Wisconsin Taxes will be to say “buh-bye”.

I haven’t given one of these out in awhile but Dave Hansen is a worthy recipient. The coveted Asian Badger Award, for complete and total stupidity, goes to Dave Hansen.

Congratulations, Dave. You Earned It!

Tom Barrett Determined to Kill Growth in Milwaukee

Well, the milk carton poster boy, aka Tom Barrett signed a resolution urging the state NOT to add lanes to I-94 south of the city. Naturally, little Tommy wants more rail service.

From the MJS news ticker.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett today signed a resolution that urges the state not to add lanes to Interstate 94 south of the city, but instead to upgrade existing lanes and use any money saved to bolster rail options.

The Common Council voted 10-4 this week to approve the resolution, an effort to influence the state as it conducts hearings on the $1.9 billion expansion plan.

Barrett said it was important for the state to develop a balanced transportation plan and argued it was not fiscally responsible to put forth the highway expansion plan without identifying how the cost would be paid.

He noted that when it comes to efforts to expand rail transportation, such as the proposed Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter link, the state requires local units of government to identify the funding source. There also is a proposal to develop high-speed rail along the same corridor.

“Right now you’ve got decisions being made that are spending decisions,” Barrett said. “The taxing decisions will be years in the making. This is sort of the ultimate free lunch right now.”

Barrett was joined at his news conference by Ald. Bob Bauman, who sponsored the measure.

The state Department of Transportation plan would create eight lanes, adding one in each direction, from the Mitchell Interchange on Milwaukee’s south side to the Illinois border. Advocates say it’s a necessary upgrade to address expected future transportation needs and development in the area.

The Airport Gateway Business Association, which represents businesses near Mitchell International Airport, backs the expansion. A statement from the group’s vice president, Jaime Maliszewski, calls the resolution “extremely short-sighted with a provincial view vs. the 40-year impact of the full I-94 reconstruction project.”

Hearings on the plan continue tomorrow night.

Now, I have a question for you Tommy. Are you going to put trucks on those trains? Any one who goes back and forth to Chicago can see that a great deal, and in some cases, depending on the time of day, it seems like the majority of the traffic on I-94 are trucks. If I-94 can’t handle the commerce coming to Milwaukee, then what’s the incentive to come here? Furthermore, given the plans to make Mitchell Field an alternative to O’Hare, why would people bother if it’s too difficult (and possibly dangerous given the traffic) to get to Mitchell?

To spend the money on a choo-choo that will affect what? 2% of the traffic? What a waste of money. Furthermore, that rail system won’t be self-supporting leaving the taxpayers to make up the difference. There’s already a rail service to Chicago. It’s called Amtrak. It’s not a bad way to go. Give it a try, Tommy, before you start spending other people’s money to support an unnecessary choo choo.

They’re Not Cheap, But They’re Easy

Remember all the fanfare about the Dems “pay as you go” or “paygo”? Well, it was all a big farce. Why? Rich Dems bought off the libtards in Congress. As is per their wont, the Dems also lied from the very beginning about fiscal discipline.

Democrats are committed to ending years of irresponsible budget policies that have produced historic deficits. Instead of compiling trillions of dollars of debt onto our children and grandchildren, we will restore pay-as-you-go budget discipline.”–Speaker Nancy Pelosi, December 12, 2006

Well, as Emily Litella, the half-witted Gilda Radner character on Saturday Night Live, would have put it: “Never mind.” Last week Congressional Democrats formally renounced their ballyhooed budget pledge to offset any new tax cuts with other tax increases or spending cuts. We’re delighted to see this false promise go, but there’s a larger lesson in this failure for the tax and spending battles of 2008.

Senate Democrats gave up on “paygo,” as it’s called, when they realized they lacked the votes to offset the $50.6 billion cost of protecting more than 20 million middle-class taxpayers from getting whacked by the Alternative Minimum Tax this year. They’ve spent the year floating all kinds of tax increases to make up the difference. But in the end they passed an AMT relief bill without a penny to pay for it. Paygo is now pay gone”. [...]

This little-noticed event didn’t miss the gutless democratic candidates for President when the bill on paygo came to a vote.

“In any case, they’ll have to reckon with New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, who helped doom paygo in the Senate. Mr. Schumer runs the Senate Democratic campaign committee, and he’s raised boatloads of cash from hedge funds and private equity while winking that he can block the House’s tax increase on their “carried interest.” Let’s see: Paygo, or more cash to elect more Democrats. Which do you think wins?

The larger relevance of this episode concerns the 2008 campaign. Hillary Clinton in particular has made paygo a major campaign theme because it makes her sound like a fiscal conservative while helping to justify tax increases. But, lo, guess who was missing on Thursday when the Senate voted 88-5 to ignore paygo on the AMT? None other than the candidate herself, along with Chris Dodd, Joe Biden and Barack Obama. To quote another Saturday Night Live character, “How convenient.”

How convenient indeed.