Taxes | MacIver Institute

Criticism Over Dem Health ‘Vision’ Mounts

MacIver News Service | July 22, 2010 [Madison, Wisc...] Controversy is brewing over an expansive health care agenda unveiled in Madison this week by the Doyle administration.

“This plan will not only reach deeper into the pocket books of Wisconsin families and further deteriorate the state’s fiscal situation,” said State Representative Robin Vos, a Republican member of the legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance. “But it will also take away our freedoms by imposing even more government intervention in our everyday lives.”

According to the Department of Health Services, the Healthiest Wisconsin 2020: Everyone Living Better, Longer sets out several major health improvement targets, including smoking prevention, lowering obesity rates, ensuring access to good nutrition and increasing exercise levels. The plan also emphasizes the need to improve systems that support health, such as research, health literacy, sustainable funding, partnerships and information systems.

But Vos and others note the plan covers far more topics than the popular positions outlined in the press release issued by DHS.

Vos said some of the most egregious parts of the plan include:

Placing community health centers that may provide sexual and reproductive services in middle schools
Creating universally-mandated early childhood education for children as young as 3 years of age
Raising the alcohol tax
Implementing dram shop laws to place liability on tavern owners and workers, rather than those who commit alcohol-related offenses
Restricting alcohol consumption at public events like Summerfest or the State Fair
Reducing the number of businesses that sell alcohol including, bars, liquor stores and grocery stores

“You can be sure that a plan that suggests reducing the temperature of tap water as a measure of injury prevention is only designed to make sure that government is involved in every facet of your life from the cradle to the grave,” said Vos.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker also assailed the wide-ranging plan.

“It’s a surprise no one that Jim Doyle’s last few months in office are riddled with tax increases and ballooning government,” said Walker.

Vos said the Democrat’s plan was a catch-all of liberal, nanny-state policies that Wisconsin couldn’t afford to do even if the intrusive policies had merit.

Vos said the Medicaid program currently has a $600 million deficit due to years of program and eligibility expansions implemented by Doyle. He noted that deficit grew further this week when the Supreme Court ruled that the state must replace $200 million in raided Patient Compensation Fund money.

“Public health would best be served if we could afford the programs we already have,” said Vos. “This administration should get back to work fixing the current deficit, instead of wasting time creating an even larger one under the auspices of public health.”

See our earlier coverage, here.

Tags: Health Care, Spending, Taxes
Posted in News | July 23, 2010 | | 1 Comment

Wisconsin’s 10-Year Health Plan Includes Government Expansion, New Taxes

MacIver News Service | July 21, 2010 [Madison, Wisc...] State health officials Wednesday released a long-range health vision that proposes increased taxes on alcohol, placing community health centers in middle schools, restricting the sale of alcohol at public events and would begin public schooling for children as young as three years old.

“Everyone — public health departments, educators, health care providers, advocacy groups, employers, community coalitions and residents — can use this plan to make progress on at least one of these important goals,” said State Health Officer Seth Foldy.

The objectives also hit on some hot-button issues that may make the plan politically unpalatable. A push for universal pre-kindergarten, for example, would stretch currently strained public education budgets even further. Elsewhere in the plan the Department of Health Services states its intent to “promote policies that assure societal norms regarding healthy sexual expression.”

The document also includes several obscure policy goals, including one proposal to “Allocate funding to establish the use of electronic methods of payment at farmers markets.”

Critics assailed the plan as an attempt to grow government and increase taxes.

“It is ironic that the day after the Supreme Court ruled the Doyle administration’s raid of the patient compensation fund was unconstitutional that the Democrats announce they won’t address that issue and instead will tie the next Governor’s hands and force him to deal with it; meanwhile they unveil this expansive new plan to increase the cost, scope and size of government,” said State Representative John Nygren (R-Marinette). “It is hypocrisy at its worst.”

Wisconsin Statute Section 250.07 (1)(a) requires the Department to produce a public health agenda for the people of Wisconsin at least every 10 years.

“The vision, goals, and mission of this plan are anchored in a set of core values that form the moral and aspirational compass for the plan,’ writes Department of Health Services Secretary Karen Timberlake at the beginning of the proposal. “These include using science and evidence to solve problems, set policy, and take action; striving for fairness and justice; relying on leadership at all levels; and seeking to prevent rather than treat disease, injury, and disability.”

According to the Department, more than 1,500 people statewide participated in the development of the plan, and implementation is scheduled to begin this fall. The objectives outlined in the vast document will be integrated into the work of foundations, universities, state and local government agencies, private industries and healthcare organizations.

Links

Healthiest Wisconsin, Everyone Living Better, Longer

Healthiest Wisconsin 2020 Focus Area Profiles

Tags: Health Care, Spending, Taxes
Posted in News | July 21, 2010 | | 8 Comments

FCC Plans New Taxes To Give Away Free Broadband To Low-Income Homes

Feds give away thousands of free computers with stimulus funds

MacIver News Service [Milwaukee, Wisc...] The FCC wants to establish new tax funds to ensure every single person in the country has a home computer and internet access, as part of the controversial plan that would allow the agency to regulate broadband access.

The FCC states in its National Broadband Plan “Everyone in the United States today should have access to broadband services supporting a basic set of applications that include sending and receiving e-mail, downloading Web pages, photos and video, and using simple video conferencing.” View the report here.

Not only should everyone have access, the FCC argues it should be in their homes. “While libraries and other public places are important points of free access that help people use online applications, home access is critical to maximizing utilization. Broadband home access can also help rural, low-income, minority and other communities overcome other persistent socioeconomic or geographic disparities,” according to the FCC’s plan.

To pay for these new broadband entitlements, the FCC would first take $15.5 billion out of the Universal Service Fund and ask Congress for “a few billion dollars per year over two or three years.” At the same time, the FCC would “broaden the USF contribution base to ensure USF remains sustainable over time.”

The FCC would also be expanding other service funds, like Lifeline and Link-Up America, to include broadband service. There are also plans to create the Connect America Fund (CAF) and the Mobility Fund. It also wants to design other “new USF funds in a tax-efficient manner.

The federal government has already spent millions of dollars in stimulus funds giving away free computers to low-income families. New York City received $22 million to give away 18,560 free computers this year with no created/retained jobs attributed to the project. Miami received $3.5 million to bring “broadband awareness to over 336,000 students,” give away 6,000 computers and potentially free internet access. Chicago got $7 million to provide computers to 11,000 residents and 500 small businesses. North Carolina got a million dollars for internet projects that include giving away 50 free laptops. Vermont got $2.5 million to give 1,200 computers to 4th and 5th graders.

The FCC estimates that 35 percent of American adults do not use broadband at home. The agency says they tend to be older, poorer, less educated, a member of a minority group or have a disability. They often cite cost as the reason they do not have broadband.

One of the FCC’s recommendations in its National Broadband Plan is “The FCC should consider free or very low-cost wireless broadband as a means to address the affordability barrier to adoption.”

To pay for all these initiatives, the FCC wants to expand the Universal Service Fund, Lifeline and Link-Up America to include broadband service, and create the Connect America Fund (CAF) and the Mobility Fund. It also wants to design other “new USF funds in a tax-efficient manner.”

The FCC cites the success of Link-Up America in expanding telephone service to low-income households. Subscribership went from 80.1 percent in 1984 to 89.7 percent in 2008. (That’s a .4 percent per year growth rate.)

While working to ensure every single American has a home computer and broadband access, the FCC wants to create a “Digital Literacy Corps” to train people how to use the internet.

Although FCC staff wrote the National Broadband Plan, the agency states “the author of this plan is America, itself.” That’s because the FCC has held dozens of workshops, online conferences and public hearings that drew tens of thousands of participants and comments.

The FCC first presented its National Broadband Plan to Congress in March and has hosted panel discussions there this month.

Tags: broadband, FCC, free computers, National Broadband Plan, Taxes, universal service fund
Posted in News | June 29, 2010 | | 2 Comments

Son of a Stimulus!

Hold onto your wallets, folks.

While the public focuses their attention on the man-made disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the man-made disaster of profligate government spending across the country is getting worse.

At the MacIver Institute, we’ve discussed the funding cliff facing many school districts across Wisconsin. We’ve also chronicled the mismanagement of the state’s finances and the reckless budgeting of the Doyle Administration and their allies in Madison. Finally, we’ve run several news and analysis pieces on the dubious stimulative affects of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act boondoggle.

Now, all three storylines are converging into another ‘perfect storm,’ that would gouge the taxpayers, delay any economic recovery and jeopardize the entire U.S. economy.

School districts across Wisconsin have set their budgets for the next year and in many cases have moved to layoff employees, including teachers. As municipalities look at their finances, in many cases they see declining state aid. And the state, well everyone is aware that the well has run dry and that despite increased taxes and fees on individuals and businesses, we’re running a several billion-dollar deficit. There can be no doubt that governments at every level are in a bind.

There are two ways to address these shortfalls, one hard, one easy.

The hard way would be to take advantage of this crisis as a necessary opportunity to examine the role, scope and mission of each unit of government that is facing dire financial times. Such an examination would include, but would not be limited to:

Comparing the pay scales of their employees with any similar private sector workers
Looking at the benefit costs and ways in which they could be reduced
Prioritizing and recommitting to the core mission and determining what functions could be outsourced, privatized or outright discontinued
Collaborating with peer entities in the public and private sector to provide the same service at reduced cost
Cracking down on waste, fraud and abuse
Understanding that resources are limited and reducing services to meet the taxpayers ability to pay

The easy way is to receive a bailout from the federal government.

Last month Congress rejected President Obama’s request for a $24 billion bailout of state and local governments. The president’s request for $23 billion for school districts similarly has failed to gain the necessary support…so far.

Now, President Obama is turning up the heat in his quest for the nearly $50 Billion state and local government bailout. He has written Congressional leadership, imploring them to act, quickly, on this matter and has dispatched his top advisers to the talk show circuit to reinforce the plea.

The Obama Administration and the would-be benefactors of this new ‘Stimulus’ package hope to avoid the tea-party fueled outrage of the last 15 months by attaching this bailout to some non-related piece of legislation that is close to a final vote. They can not let this boondoggle be examined on its merits. The longer this sits out in the public domain for inspection, the less likely its passage becomes.

By now even the most isolated government insider understands the taxpayer revolt another Stimulus plan would cause. “Sure the first one didn’t work, but if we don’t spend $50 Billion more things are going to be real bad,” is hardly a winning sales pitch.

The state and local government bailout isn’t about saving our nation’s schools…or our roads…or keeping cops on the street. Instead, it is merely a bailout of local and state governmental bodies who refuse to break free from the stranglehold of the public employee unions whose work rules, pay and benefit levels are simply unsustainable.

Bailing out those units of government who fail to exercise fiscal discipline is not a one time act. If these school districts, cities and states are not forced to fix the problems now, they never will. They will continue to reach out the feds for more ‘one time’ money. Whether the tax dollars come from the right pocket or the left pocket, it is still your money they are after.

Many see November as an opportunity to change the spend-happy course of governments from Madison to Washington, yet the situation could be made monumentally worse in a matter of days.

The ‘Son of Stimulus’ has gone largely unreported.

Many congressmen and senators who may have to vote on the proposal don’t want you to know that yet another bailout is in the offing.

We do. Pass this on.

By Brett Healy
A MacIver Institute Perspective

Healy is President of the John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy, the free market voice for Wisconsin.

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Tags: Government Reform, Spending, Stimulus Watch, Taxes, Tea Party
Posted in mi perspectives | June 15, 2010 | | 1 Comment

Middle Class Tax Hike on the Way

While the Bush tax cuts are often presented as “tax cuts for the rich,” many middle-class families benefit from the increased child tax credit that was part of the tax cuts. Wisconsin middle class families benefited more than their counterparts in other states from the increase in child tax credit.

The increase in the child tax credit is due to expire in 2011 along with the rest of the Bush tax cuts. If the Democrats in Congress and the Obama Administration follow through on their threat to let the Bush tax cuts expire, middle-class taxpayers in Wisconsin and elsewhere could receive a huge tax jolt.

Because of the Bush tax cuts, joint married filers earning less than $110,000 receive a per-child tax credit of $1000. The tax credit phases out after income reaches $110,000. The tax credit is also $1000 per child for single filers earning less than $75,000 and phases out above that point. Married filers filing separately, the phase-out begins at $55,000.

To qualify for the tax credit, the child must be under 17 and living in the household for at least half the year (with a few exceptions). The child must have some relation to the filer: son, daughter, stepchild, foster child, brother, sister, stepbrother, stepsister or a descendant of any of these individuals, which includes grandchild, niece or nephew. The child must be claimed as a dependent, and cannot have provided at least half of his/her own support. Finally, the child must be a citizen or resident alien.

I think my snow blower qualifies for the credit.

Prior to the Bush tax cuts, the per-child tax credit was only $500. Despite the rhetoric of how the Bush tax cuts only benefited the wealthy, the doubling of the child tax credit had a tremendous impact on the middle class.

Because it is a tax credit and not just a deduction, the credit goes directly to the tax filer’s bottom line. For example, if a family of five files their federal taxes and owes $5,000 before the child tax credit, the child tax credit would reduce their tax burden to $2000, a 60% reduction in their taxes owed. If the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire, the family would only be allowed to reduce their tax burden by $1,500 ($500 per child), effectively a 75% increase in federal taxes for that family.

Normally I’m a believer that children should be seen and not heard. The best time for them to be seen is when I’m filling out my taxes. I’m willing to adopt the entire Vienna Boys Choir then.

Wisconsinites benefit from this tax cut more than residents in other states. Of the tax filers claiming the credit, Wisconsin filers ranked eighth in benefiting from the credit. Wisconsin filers’ average credit ranked fourteenth of all filers. Of the Wisconsinites claiming the credit, the average tax benefit was $1,335 off what they owed.

That’s a lot of cheese curds.

Just as Wisconsinites disproportionately benefited from the Bush increase in the child tax credit, so, too, would Wisconsinites be negatively impacted disproportionately if the increased tax credit was allowed to expire.

Democrats unhappy with the Bush tax cuts neglect to mention that only 25% of the benefits went to those making $250,000 per year or more. When they talk about taxing the rich to pay for the deficit, they mean the middle class. Prior to the enactment of the Bush tax cuts, 33 million Americans were non-taxpayers of the federal income tax. After the Bush tax cuts, total non-taxpayers of the federal income tax jumped to a staggering 52 million. How many middle-class families will feel like “the rich” when the Bush tax cuts expire?

When listening to the tax-the-rich rhetoric coming this summer to pay for the huge Obama deficits, skeptical Wisconsinites may want to keep in mind just how much they benefited from the Bush tax cuts.

By James Wigderson
Special Guest Perspective for the MacIver Institute

Tags: Taxes, Wigderson
Posted in mi perspectives | May 25, 2010 | | 4 Comments

Assembly GOP Push for Fiscal Restraint

MacIver News Service - [Madison, Wisc...] Assembly Republicans on Tuesday unveiled a plan to amend the State Constitution force the State of Wisconsin to save for future downturns in the economy.

“Common sense reforms are needed to put some sanity back into our state budgeting,” said Assembly Republican Leader Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon). “This constitutional amendment requires restraint in spending during the good times and a reserve fund for the bad times, just like families across Wisconsin do every day.”

The Republicans have dubbed their plan the Wisconsin FiRSt amendment: Fiscal Responsibility and Stability for Wisconsin’s State Budget.

As proposed by Representative Mark Gotlieb (R-Port Washington) the 300-word amendment would force the following budgetary changes:

All general tax revenues in excess of 6.5% of statewide personal income must be deposited into the Fiscal Responsibility Fund. If taxes are less than that amount, a deposit of approximately one-half percent of revenues is made instead
During an economic recession, money can be withdrawn from the Fund to help balance the budget
Any accumulated fund balance over 10 percent of annual tax revenues must be distributed as a property tax credit
In an emergency or other unforeseen circumstance, the terms of the fund can be changed by a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature

“This fund will do three things,” Gottlieb said. “First, it will control state spending by forcing the state to save some of the taxes collected in good economic times, and not spend them on new programs. Second, it creates a guaranteed rainy day fund to stabilize the budget without raising taxes during future economic downturns. Finally, it will provide future property tax relief by requiring that fund balances above a specific amount be returned to taxpayers as a direct property tax credit.”

The Assembly Republicans note that between 1991 and 2000, state taxes outpaced personal income growth. Taxes grew by 80 percent, compared to personal income growth of 63 percent.

Proposed constitutional amendments require adoption by two successive state legislatures and ratification by referendum before they can become law. The earliest, therefore, the Assembly GOP plan could be in effect is 2013.

Tags: Government Reform, Spending, Taxes
Posted in News | May 18, 2010 | | No Comments

It is Hard to Stop a Train

It’s hard to stop a train.

When the KRM Commuter Link (Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee Commuter Rail) system faces a hurdle it cannot overcome, the rules are changed to allow the project to proceed.

On Monday morning The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority voted 7-2 Monday apply for federal approval of preliminary engineering work on the KRM.

Originally that vote would not have been enough for the project to proceed. KRM proponents had said that the Milwaukee County Transit System’s finances had to be righted before the feds would begin to look into another transit system involving Milwaukee County. State Legislative efforts to green light a new sales tax for the MCTS failed earlier this year.

From today’s JSOnline:

But Federal Transit Administration officials changed their position Friday afternoon, said Ken Yunker, executive director of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission. The federal officials said they could allow preliminary engineering to start but would not allow final engineering to move forward unless the bus system’s funding issues were resolved, Yunker said.

The SERTA is already empowered to enact a car rental tax of up to $18. However, every time a possible vote on the project is scheduled, the public speaks up and the plan is scuttled.

Yet, thanks to the ‘change of heart’ from the federal government, tax dollars can be spent on preliminary engineering for the KRM project, despite the uncertainty regarding mass transit in Milwaukee County and the public’s lack of appetite to fund an entirely new system.

Members of the SERTA are merely using taxpayers’ money to create more and more ‘evidence’ they can use as justification for hiking taxes even more. Does anyone doubt that the preliminary engineering on the KRM project will will come back showing that this is a great bargain for taxpayers?

Then several months after the fact, like Obamacare, Milwaukee Bus System Bike-rack usage, etc., we will find out that ridership projections do not mesh with reality and taxpayers will need to cough up more money to keep this project alive.

Today’s actions are just further evidence as to why regional transit authorities are bad news for taxpayers. Like the new Milwaukee County tax, efforts to create several new Regional Taxing Transit Authorities across Wisconsin died when the Legislature skipped town last month.

Candidates for elected office who court the support of taxpayer groups would be wise to reject creation of new RTAs in the future.

By Brian Fraley
A MacIver Institute Perspective

Tags: Taxes, Transportation
Posted in mi perspectives | May 17, 2010 | | No Comments

“Pennies” Add up to Huge Tax Hike Without Accountability

“Are there any Tea Partiers here?” Thomas Beebe asked. A couple of pairs of eyes looked right at me. What can I say? When there’s a gathering of people trying to figure out how to raise taxes, I tend to stick out.

Twenty-two parents gathered Saturday morning to hear a presentation by Beebe on the “Penny for Kids” plan. Beebe is the executive director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES), an organization that advocates for increased taxes to fund Wisconsin’s public schools. The Penny for Kids plan is a proposal to raise Wisconsin’s sales tax from five to six cents on the dollar (a twenty percent hike) to fund the state’s public schools, nearly a billion dollar increase in state taxes.

Michael Mathias, a former candidate for school board, and Ted Kraig, a former Democratic candidate for State Assembly and an employee of WEAC Council #10, organized the meeting at the MPS Administration Building’s auditorium with the assistance of school board member Peter Blewett.

Blewett said the purpose of the meeting was to create a group of parents who would be active on school funding issues and to help “make sure the right people get to Madison.” Blewett said to the audience that there were limits on what the school board can do to increase funding, saying the answer to MPS’s funding problems were with the state.

Beebe said the problems that MPS was facing regarding funding were many of the same problems at school districts all over the state. For example, in the district where Beebe sits on the school board the district has created a task force to study the cuts that will be required with reduced state aid. He admitted to the audience that the task force is “just a formality” before going to referendum. The residents of his district will be thrilled to hear that.

Beebe blamed the current school aid equalization formula that distributes aid based on property value per student. He said it’s “equalization that isn’t equalizing” when a comparison is done of districts based on income.

He also said the state’s revenue cap on local districts was part of the funding problem, too. The combination of state aid and local property taxes are limited to 2.1%. WAES estimates the mean annual increase of the “cost to continue” of the current levels of education services is really 4.2%. Even that would not be enough compared to the “adequacy model” of school funding supported by WAES.

Beebe also said the problems local school districts faced are the result of what he said was “the two-thirds funding” myth.

The state of Wisconsin under former Governor Tommy Thompson put in the revenue caps with a promise that the state would provide two-thirds of the funding for local schools. Under Governor Jim Doyle, that percentage has dwindled to 62.6 percent.

Beebe said the number is even lower at 49 percent. WAES calculated the amount of school funding by excluding $900 million in school levy credits.

The Penny for Kids tax increase is meant to address in the short term what Beebe said was a school funding crisis. Beebe said to the audience, “Hell yes, I’m proposing we raise taxes.”

Do not be under any illusions that the proposal is to offer any property tax relief. According to a chart Beebe provided, the increased sales tax would raise $856 million. I confirmed with Beebe after the meeting that the money is not intended to be property tax relief but an increase in state funding.

Even if the legislature passed the Penny for Kids, WAES would be back asking for more money for their “adequacy model” of school funding. The Penny for Kids is only considered a stop-gap measure.

When an audience member asked Beebe if there was any evidence that taxpayers would be willing to support higher taxes to fund schools. Beebe conceded that any evidence he had was anecdotal. After asking if there any Tea Partiers in the room, he said that he thought even members of the Tea Party movement would be willing to support more money for the schools but they aren’t willing to trust the legislature with the extra money.

Beebe should attend a few Tea Party rallies. While he’s correct that they would not trust the legislature with more money, they understand that Wisconsin can’t tax its way out of its current financial mess.

When it came time to discuss how such a plan could be implemented, reality intruded. Beebe said the Penny for Kids did not have one member of the legislature willing to be the author of such a bill. He said WAES thought that one member was willing, but backed out under pressure from leadership in the Democratic Party.

Blewett told the audience he will be introducing a resolution in his committee to have the school board in Milwaukee go on record as supporting such a plan, but that it would have to wait until after the district’s budget is completed.

If Beebe wants to understand why he might be finding it so hard to find legislators who would support nearly a billion dollar tax increase, it’s because the legislature just raised taxes by $5 billion and there is still a gap in the state budget. As one audience member pointed out, the state is broke, and they may have to look for a different solution.

At one point in the presentation, Beebe complained that it isn’t the legislators’ job to lower taxes. However, when taxes and spending keep going up and the appetite of the government keeps growing, as Wisconsin becomes even more uncompetitive, it is the responsibility of the legislators to figure out how to bring the state’s finances under control without raising taxes.

That is something the Tea Party activists understand, even if Beebe does not.

By James Wigderson
Special Guest Perspective for the MacIver Institute

Tags: Taxes, Wigderson
Posted in mi perspectives | May 10, 2010 | | 1 Comment

Everyone, including owners and employees of Harley, pays when taxes are raised

With the news from Harley Davidson last week that they need to find $54 million in cuts to their costs, the debate renewed over just how bad Wisconsin’s taxes are for business. Attention is now focused on combined reporting, the corporate tax increase passed as part of the budget reconciliation bill and the last state budget. Of the $54 million, Harley Davidson is facing $22.5 million in increased taxes as a result of the new combined reporting requirement.

Combined reporting requires corporations to combine income from all subsidiaries regardless of where they are located and lump it together with the corporate entity based in Wisconsin, with some allowance for the amount of actual business conducted in the state. It is supposed to be more “fair” in that it prevents corporations from paying their subsidiaries based out of state for services in order to avoid paying Wisconsin taxes. Never mind that the Department of Revenue already had the power to go after companies that did such transfers with the sole purpose of avoiding Wisconsin taxes.

Liberal special interest groups, such as the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future, might claim it was a matter of fairness, but they saw it as a way of increasing state revenue from the corporate income tax without raising taxes. They claimed it was merely closing a loophole that could be used to fund all sorts of state spending.

That supposed “closing a loophole” raised corporate income taxes $1.2 billion, money that could have been better spent in the private sector creating jobs and retooling for the post-recession economy. That $1.2 billion is how much less competitive Wisconsin businesses are compared to businesses in other states.

At the time combined reporting was passed, business groups warned of the consequences. The Coalition to Save Wisconsin Jobs, a group of manufacturing and service industry companies, prophetically said,

Combined reporting creates a significant disincentive to invest in and grow Wisconsin business because it will inevitably lead to taxing income earned from entities without nexus in this state. Taxing the significantly reduced income of employers will certainly do nothing to “stimulate” the economy; on the contrary it will make Wisconsin less economically attractive than it is at present.

That is the burden Harley Davidson faces today. While Governor Jim Doyle may say combined reporting is not an issue for Harley Davidson, as he did on Friday, but the $22.5 million in combined reporting taxes is hitting their bottom line like a farm combine slices through a corn field.

Wisconsin now faces the burden of doing what it can to prevent another large manufacturer from leaving the state. While Harley Davidson so far wishes to handle this as an internal cost-control issue, will the state find itself creating financial incentives to keep Harley Davidson from leaving? Would it not be easier than riding to the rescue of these companies and their employees to just have a business climate already in place that fosters the economic conditions for growth?

If the goal is tax fairness, as the supporters of combined reporting claim, how is it fair that a company needs to be drowning under the Wisconsin tax burden before they can seek any sort of relief, and then it’s just more exceptions carved out the state tax code?

Aha! The supporters of higher taxes will say. The state tax burden isn’t so bad according to them, and they point to a study released just prior to the close of the legislative session saying Wisconsin’s tax burden is about average, 24th overall.

The problem with the study is that the numbers they are using are from 2006-2007, prior to the current budget in place, and even prior to the state budget fix passed last year, too. It’s from a time when Democrats were only in control of the Governor’s mansion and responsibility for the state’s tax policy was shared between the two parties.

In the 2009-2010 biennium, under complete Democratic control, Wisconsin had one of the largest tax increases in the country (see here for a snapshot on the detrimental budgetary moves of the last two years). Only six other states had a higher percentage increase. That increase includes the new combined reporting tax burden on corporations.

Defenders of the combined reporting requirement, like former Commerce Secretary Dick Leinenkugel, like to point out that Wisconsin is one of 23 states (out of 45 that tax corporate income) that now have a combined reporting requirement. We might not have been on the cutting edge of new taxes, but that hasn’t prevented Wisconsin business from bleeding.

State Representative Leah Vukmir has called for a special session to put an end to the combined reporting requirement so Wisconsin businesses can once again be competitive and thrive. It would certainly beat the fire drill method of helping businesses in the state now.

When the state legislature adjourned with many bills still on the agenda, one of them was recognition of Harley Davidson as the state’s official motorcycle. We’re lucky it didn’t pass, because it might have been a good-bye present to the company as they rolled production out of here.

By James Wigderson
Special Guest Perspective for the MacIver Institute

Tags: Economy, Jobs, Taxes, Wigderson
Posted in mi perspectives | May 3, 2010 | | 6 Comments

The Bad Ideas Are Hard to Kill

When playing football against Zombies, don’t reach for the celebratory Gatorade bucket until all the time has run off the clock.

Blame it on a combination of the lack of sleep as a result of monitoring late-night legislative sessions and a healthy cynicism from two decades of working around the Capitol in Madison, but that sentence made complete sense to me as I wrote it this morning.

What’s of primary concern to our readers/viewers/followers/friends/fans today?

The Global Warming Bill
The Elections Fraud Facilitation Act
The Madison Educational Bureaucracy Empowerment Plan
The establishment of non-elected Regional Taxing Authorities for transit

As of this writing, all four of these proposals are on life support. But they are not dead yet.

As my colleague Brett Healy pointed out in his instant classic on the Silly Season, anything can happen in the waning days (and especially hours) of a legislative session. Most of the action takes place behind the scenes and it will be weeks, if ever, before the citizenry of Wisconsin know exactly what deals were cut and why they were made.

The horse trading, deal making, ego stroking and amendment drafting could be fierce today.

Supporters of each of those aforementioned bills will be pursuing every plausible and many improbable avenues to get their ideas passed by both houses today. While it is possible that all four proposals could stall and die today, it’s also possible that all four could be in the mix with other pieces of legislation (like the wage lien bill) and that Democratic leaders could strike a massive deal behind the scenes at any point in the next few hours.

So, it’s a scary thought but entirely possible that all four proposals could pass in both houses, in rapid succession, over the course of less than an hour. The majority party has extraordinary parliamentary powers to limit debate, and we’ve seen these powers abused on more than one occasion.

At the same time, the Senate could whip through just their publicized calendar and adjourn by 1pm, before the Assembly ever gets to the floor today. The only certainty in Silly Season is uncertainty.

Today, the last day of the regular legislative session, has dawned. We’ll continue to track the zombies here and on our Twitter feed and Facebook page. If something happens today, we’

ll let you know.

The center-right coalition, the fiscal sanity caucus and others who are hoping to limit the damage coming out of Madison must forget about the victory celebration until the final gun sounds. The defensive coordinator must remain vigilant and shouldn’t get the Gatorade shower when the undead are on the field and there is time left on the clock.

Oh, and did I mention that even then, it may not be over? There is a limited floor period scheduled for May wherein bills that have passed one house may still be considered, with a little maneuvering*.

Taxpayers need a break, and I clearly need some sleep. Hopefully we can catch a little of both today.

Until it’s over, though, we’ll stay awake. You stay tuned.