Hey, It’s Wisconsin….Let’s Raise Taxes!!!

From the MJS Business Section 4/9/08.

“Wisconsin’s rich keep getting richer much faster than poor and middle-income households, according to reports released today.
And while the gap between the rich and poor isn’t as wide in Wisconsin as in the country overall, the disparity is growing, according to the Center on Wisconsin Strategy and the Wisconsin Council on Children & Families, both based in Madison.

Households with the highest incomes in Wisconsin increased their wealth by 36% between the late 1980s and the mid 2000s, compared with a 7% growth in income for the poorest households and 14% for middle-income households, the report says.

Based on a state-by-state analysis released today by the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Wisconsin report updates earlier studies that use inflation-adjusted census data and compare households in the highest, lowest and middle fifths of income.

The Wisconsin report shows the Badger State with the 11th most equal distribution of income nationwide, with the average income of the richest fifth ($120,440) six times higher than the lowest fifth ($20,073).”[...]

Now, the Center of Wisconsin Studies is a leftard “think tank” located, naturally, in Madistan. You can see their site here.

If you want to see the people behind the reports, they all have a mini-bio for you to look at. It’s about what you’d expect.

Nevertheless, the above-quoted part of the article lays out the facts and it is what it is. Now, in bullet point form, let’s see how COWS wants to deal with the “problem”.

From the same article.

The report prescribes several policy strategies to help even out Wisconsin’s economic growth.

Among them:

• Raising the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation.
Ummmmm…no. Minimum wage is not designed to be a living wage. It’s a way for business, big and small, to hire people and see if they work out. If they do, the wages will go up as the new employee gives the company a reason NOT to get rid of that employee. Raising the minimum wage will guarantee that a person who wants to work but has no experience will not get hired.

• Improving workers’ skills and education.
No brainer….we need a think tank for that? Note to MPS students…learn to read and write and do simple arithmetic. It will help you in the long run, really.

• Expanding subsidized childcare and health care for low-income workers.
How about not having babies while still in high school? I could see this if the individual was married. Maybe.

• Updating unemployment insurance.
I’m not sure what this means. Does this mean that people who are employed should have their taxes raised to support the inept and lazy? I’m guessing that’s what this means.

• Making taxes more progressive.
Naturally, being a bunch of libtards in Madistan, this had to be put in as a policy recommendation. How will increasing taxes on the upper 20% benefit the lower 20%? At some point, people who do earn will say “see ya” and head for states where acheivement is not punished.

Kudos to the MJS reporter for getting some other viewpoints.

“Van Mobley, an assistant professor of history and economics at Concordia University Wisconsin, said he wished the report had dug deeper into why disparity is growing. To the degree that globalization plays a role, Mobley said, the policy recommendations might have the effect of “spitting in the breeze.”

Laura Dresser, research director for the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that other developed countries have not shown similar increases in inequality despite globalization.

“It’s the framework within which the U.S. has approached globalization,” Dresser said, suggesting that policies on such areas as taxes, trade, unions and training might have made a difference.

Gee, ya think?

Wisconsin in the WSJ Again

Well, we made The Wall Street Journal, and again, it’s on the editorial page regarding the recent SCOW race.

As you may recall, the WSJ covered this race in an earlier editorial, blogged here.

Governor Jim Doyle called the result of Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court election “a tragedy.” It’s surprising to hear how little he thinks of his constituents, who had the sense to depose one of the court’s ultra-liberal justices and in the process helped toughen the standards for judicial accountability.

The election was a referendum on Louis Butler and the high court’s sharp political turn. Justice Butler was appointed by Governor Doyle, a Democrat, to fill a vacancy in 2004. This gave liberals a majority and Justice Butler proceeded to indulge the legal theories of the tort bar and activist left, for instance laying waste to Wisconsin’s medical malpractice laws and endorsing a “risk contribution” liability standard for lead paint that made the question of guilt or innocence irrelevant.

Note to WSJ editorial writers. We know how little he thinks of us. That’s why I call him “Pol Pot” Doyle. He’s on a mission to de-populate the state by taxing everyone into oblivion.

Anyway, it’s always nice to make the WSJ for a good reason…like the defeat of Loophole Louis Butler.

To Be Expected I Guess

Pol Pot Doyle is bemoaning the attacks on Butler, calling them a tragedy.

Poor little Pol Pot. His handpicked candidates went down in flames in two races (SCOW and Milwaukee County).

The real tragedy is having Doyle as governor.

Early WOOT!!

Fox 6 news calling Gableman. 00:52 on 4/2/08 with 94% reporting.

Outstanding.

EDIT:
TMJ is calling it for Gableman, too. 00:57 95% in.

With Gableman winning, the MJS just crapped in its own pants. BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Pimental and his gang of idiots can now go into mourning.

I Wonder if He Consulted Sheboygan

From the Wisconsin State Journal, comes a story of the Whitewater Police Chief and his attempts to shut down the Free Whitewater blog.

Uh, Chief, I’ve got news for you. When you’re not too busy, have a look at that little document called The Bill of Rights.

You might also want to look at what happened in Sheboygan awhile back.

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).

Same Old Crap

It’s always kind of funny (and frankly rather tragic) when the MJS Editorial Board writes about taxes. Take this editorial for example.

A tax that lowers costs? In the short run maybe, but certainly not long-term. Let me just add one other thing. The state Senate should be focused on cutting costs, not raising taxes. Decker and his toadies won’t do that though…that requires creative thinking…..something in short supply in the majority in the upper house in Madistan.

A Very Telling Quote

How bad are things in the Great State People’s Republic of Wisconsin? A look at today’s MJS should give you a clue.

It looks like a couple of low-wattage guys met in an elevator in Shanghai and traded notes on the “bidness” climate of Milwaukee and Wisconsin. Read the article and you’ll see nothing but shallowness and tourist class. Looks like a certain Mr. Armbrust, of Oilgear, is treating Oilgear as his personal ATM….but I digress.

The “telling quote” is from John Shiely, the CEO of Lowe’s Superstore on 124th and Burleigh Briggs and Stratton. It’s sad because it’s so true.

Asked if he would consider opening a new factory in the Milwaukee region, Briggs & Stratton Corp. CEO John Shiely replied that it was unlikely.

Briggs executives love the area’s sports and its proximity to the lake, he said, “but we still have problems with the tone in this town.”

“Other places admire wealth creators,” Shiely said. “They don’t beat them up.”

Bravo and standing applause to John Shiely for telling the truth.

As a CEO, who’s first responsibility is to the shareholders and secondly the employees (who have to pay the armed-robbery tax rates in Pol Pot Doyle’s socialist republic) why would anyone want to relocate here?

Shiely is exactly right.

Here’s some more thoughts. Where the hell is the alleged “Milwaukee 7″ committee. What about the business councils? If any of these so-called “business leaders” had any fucking guts, they would be in Madistan DEMANDING lower taxes and less intrusion from the state.

None of them will, of course. They’re gutless and, in the case of public companies, the Boards of Directors are all purchased and won’t give up their lucrative posts for which they have been purchased.

Now, the lilbtards will point to Uline, which recently announced a relocation from Northern Illinois to Southern Wisconsin. Would Uline have done it WITHOUT the $6.0 MILLION IN TAX CREDITS WHICH IS COMING OFF OF ALL OF OUR BACKS? Why does Wisconsin have to offer tax incentives to little pissant firms? Is it because our tax rates are so out of line that it is the only way Pol Pot can get firms to relocate here? Hmmmmm.

Wait until the naifs re-locate here.

“Welcome to Tax Hell” is the friendliest and most appropriate greeting I can think of.

Oh yeah….here’s another thing. If CEOs are making decisions based on the limos and hookers meeting them at the airport, my advice is, short the stock of said companies. Go long on the firms who have CEOs trying to stay “under the radar” when they make relocation decisions….they have the interest of the shareholders at heart.

Due to nanny state rules to protect the inept and stupid, I have to disclaim any investment advice. Do your own research.

Not Losing Any Time

Well, nice to see the MJS editorial board starting off with their usual nanny state crap.

If the rationale is that Wisconsin should ban smoking on a statewide basis, why shouldn’t Wisconsin pass a concealed carry law? After all, the other states all have concealed carry laws.

Instead of being a nanny state, like all the other states, why not let the market decide? Makes too much sense for the MJS whiners, I guess.

Great White Death of December 28, 2007

It’s Wisconsin. It snows in December. The view out of my back door looking NNE.