Are Wisconsin Taxes Too High?
Business boosters disagree, but it's possible to get to the truth
by Jack Norman
WMC’s goals are straightforward: to reduce the size of state and local government, and thus reduce taxes. It’s an ideological position more than an economic one.
As residents scramble to complete their taxes by this year’s deadline, April 17, there are two contrasting messages coming from Wisconsin’s corporate community on the subject of taxes and economic prosperity.
One of those messages dominates political discussion. It’s easy to state, easy to understand, and easy to put on bumper stickers: Cut My Taxes.
Its chief proponent is Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), the Madison-based big-business lobby that for years has focused its legislative agenda on plaintive appeals for a reduced tax burden.
WMC spends more money lobbying legislators than any other group in Wisconsin. It supplements its lobbying with a steady supply of press releases, op-ed offerings and campaign support for anti-tax politicians.
The power of this message can be seen in WMC’s push against the 2006 reelection of state Sen. Bob Jauch (D-Poplar) in northwestern Wisconsin. Large, pinkish billboards appeared in northern forests, declaring in stark letters: “Sen. Bob Jauch: Higher Taxes! Fewer Jobs!” (P.S. Jauch won.)
The alternative view is rarely heard inside the state. Its key proponent is Forward Wisconsin, a public-private group that woos out-of-state businesses to locate here.
Read more @ The Isthmus.
1 comment:
If find this statement interesting: WMC’s goals are straightforward: to reduce the size of state and local government, and thus reduce taxes. It’s an ideological position more than an economic one.
WMC argues from an ideological perspective that seems out of touch with the feelings and desites of the local community. Gee...where have I seem this ideological argument before? Whereas Forward Wisconsin appears to approach the subject from the community perspective where all members of the local and state community pitch in for the cost of progress.
Of course, on the anti-tax side, you can hear all kinds of slander about the teachers' union and its "thugs," but we never seem to hear WMC and it's bribery mention.
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