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5/29/2009
Taxpayers, did you know the budget mess is your fault?
At best, Rep. Penny Bernard Schaber (D-Appleton) is sugar coating the fiscal realities of the state budget. At worst, she’s being truly disingenuous. In an e-newsletter 5-26-09, Bernard Schaber (PBS) tried to explain away the drastic problems that demand drastic actions.
PBS Claim: “Over the course of 14 years, from the 1995-97 biennium through the 2007-09 budget …. [i]ndividual income taxes were cut by over $13 billion….”
Fact: Individual income taxes collected in 1996 totaled $4,183,600,000. Individual income taxes collected in 2008 totaled $6,713,700,000. Tax rates decreased (thankfully!) during some of these years, but total taxes collected increased. (Some of that is what economists call The Laffer Curve. As tax rates decrease, individuals and corporations are more motivated to produce income – and the total taxes collected actually increases. Imagine that.) Individual income taxes collected over the period from 1996 to 2008 have absolutely not decreased. Absolutely not.
PBS Claim: “… and [during the same period] property taxes [were cut] by $785M.”
Fact: Property taxes collected in 1996 from you and from me and all others in the state totaled $5,263,400,000. Property taxes collected in 2008 totaled $8,449,100,000. Property taxes collected have absolutely not decreased over the period from 1996 to 2008. Absolutely not. Any claim to the contrary, as with income taxes, is just plain wrong.
Claim:” …it is not spending that caused the original shortfall; it is over $12 billion in net tax cuts. Since 1995, we have radically reduced Wisconsin’s revenue stream.”
So, dear taxpayer, it’s all your fault. You supposedly received “net tax cuts.” It isn’t the state’s spending that has resulted in a $6.6 billion deficit, it was lower tax revenues. Tell me, my fellow taxpayers, did you pay lower taxes in 2008 than you did a decade ago?
No. Emphatically No.
The claim of a “radically reduced… revenue stream” is nuts. Absolutely nuts. No way of sugar coating that. Ok, you can make numbers say anything you want, but to talk of radically reducing Wisconsin’s revenue stream is just plain wrong.
Fact: State taxes and fees in 1996 totaled $9,847,900,000. State taxes and fees in 2008 totaled $15,409,300,000.
Now just how is that a “reduced revenue stream?”
Claim: “It is not my job to defend the Governor’s budget.”
Fact: For not defending the budget, Ms. Bernard Schaber spends a large percentage of her newsletter defending the budget. Nevertheless, the mess of this budget - myriad radical policy changes and extensive tax and fee increases is something I’d be ashamed to defend too.
Claim:” …there is no general income tax increase unless you make over $300,000 a year. There is no general sales tax increase or payroll tax increase.”
Fact: Disingenuous in the extreme, in failing to mention the accounting tricks, fund raids, and tax and fee increases on everything under the sun.
Increased taxes on garbage
Increased taxes on cigarettes
Increased taxes on phones and small businesses.
An oil franchise fee that absolutely will be passed along to the consumer
Increased auto liability minimums
Increased fees for background checks, certain DNR permits, court appearances
New Hospital Tax (as of today, increased still further)
Higher seniors’ bed taxes
… and the list goes on
This is a bad budget. An absolutely indefensible budget. It’s an original budget that increases spending 7.7%. On the cusp of billions and billions in deficits. And increases taxes and fees and borrowing on the backs of our kids and grandkids to pay for those spending increases.
It’s a bad budget. And to be less than honest about it is a disservice to all taxpayers.
Jo Egelhoff, FoxPolitics.net
Tax data are taken from The Wisconsin Taxpayer, October 2008, and November 2006, published by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance.
COMMENTS
Let's stop tossing numbers out of context. What's the real impact on the individual taxpayer today versus a decade or more ago? It would be considerably more helpful to speak about taxes per individual (e.g. raw number amount or percent of income) rather than gross tax amounts. What is the tax amount per person today versus fourteen years ago; for example are more people paying taxes today than in 1996? Also it would be important to adjust for inflation. A certain amount of gross tax revenue increase may possibly be attributed simply to higher incomes and property values today. Once we can get past the oversimplification of data analysis, then we can begin arguing about the real taxation issue: quality of life, i.e. what we get as a society for what we pay.
Dennis (Fri May 29 08:01:00 2009)
She, (and you) are right. to the extent that taxpayers are also voters, WE are responsible, because WE put idiots like PBS in office.
I am very proud of the fact that "I" am not part of "WE." Usually.
Ken Van Doren (Fri May 29 08:03:47 2009)
Do you want a personal tutorial Dennis?
I'll try to find time to get those per capita numbers - as a percentage of personal income - posted. Have them right here in front of me. But rushing to get to meetings. Just so many numbers that can be included in one piece. Until then, just try to get the gist of the numbers. It's not that tough. Oh - and then wait until you get your property tax bill next December. And when you see contracts reopened in municipalities and school districts. And finally, health insurance contracts renegotiated. That's where the rubber will meet the road once again, seeing the real impacts of this horrendous budget.
Jo (Fri May 29 08:14:23 2009)
Excellent commentary Jo! The State of Wisconsin will be crushed by the governors indefensible and irresponsible budget. In fact, it's not a "budget" at all. A "budget" by it's very nature is a tool that reflects living within one's means. Individuals are being forced to make hard choices and live within their means. It's clear that our State government, and our Federal Government, don't get it!
Everyone knows we're in this economic mess because we've spent money we don't have, borrowed like there's no tomorrow, and live like the bill will never come due.
And now for the governments answer to this economic mess; spend money we don't have, borrow like there's no tomorrow, and live like the bill will never come due. Brilliant!
Ric (Fri May 29 09:56:03 2009)
The fault lies with the people we have sent to Madison, who created and
approved the "budget". In speaking with various of our spending lawmakers, suggestions for things like abolishing unneeded offices, trimming personnel in departments overloaded wtih excesses,
and many other cost cutting items, have all met with "we talked about it at
various times,BUT -and this came from
a long time representative in a recent radio discussion. Raising fees, and then telling me they are not taxes is an insult to the integrity of the taxpayers, as well. Several years ago
when I questioned one of our elected
people about that, they stated those
are "fees" like I was the idiot. The
various state agencies purchasing property and then it becomes nontaxable
is another waste, to say nothing about
the capital outlay for property to give
them more control. Lastly, there is the
traipsing around to sign a bill in
numerous locations. Don't we have pens in Madison? The mess is the making of
the people we elected. PERIOD.
(Fri May 29 10:56:06 2009)
Jo,
Your words and examples upset me. I wonder what kind of State I live in. Jo I pay much higher taxes (in real dollars) than I did 10 years ago.
I wish I could find how much State taxes were deducted from the closed paper mills in Port Edwards and Kimberly every month before the mills shut down?
The real place to start includes the Schools. It is my understanding that School budgets are greater than County and City budgets. How much can we spend? Smaller and smaller class sizes cost "mega dollars". Do the math. The SAGE program is so expensive. It not only takes extra teachers, it takes double the room of regular classrooms, making more buildings necessary.
Jo, We could go on and on.
David (Fri May 29 13:43:19 2009)
WI's deficit is 6.67 billion, the fourth-highest in the nation. Doyle's popularity is only 35%, despite his boundless arrogance. We need to STOP him from doing further damage to the state.
Elections are for hiring, recalls are for firing! Go to www.recalldoyle.com and help us make history!
emily matthews (Sat May 30 16:00:57 2009)
Dennis
What you obliquely refer to is another tax-the inflation tax. The banks and the Federal Reserve create money out of nothing, which deteriorates the value of the dollar. And generally, the middle class and the poor, who have less opportunity for inflation hedges, are hurt the most by this. Inflation is the mechanism by which the Federal government in particular, can postpone paying its debt by having the Federal Reserve create the money to "buy" unsold Treasury bonds. And ultimately, it is possible that inflation will undermine the economic vitality of the entire economy.
See www.mises.org, search for "Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve" for a movie which is quite possibly the best investment of the next 42 minutes of your time.
As to quality of life, let ME decide which investments will best advance my life. It should be obvious from the present big government caused economic meltdown that Big Government jeopardizes rather than ensures "quality of life."
Ken Van Doren (Fri May 29 22:23:38 2009)
Someone emailed me this link todaY. I've spent some time over the past decades trying to understand the Soviets, and their military thinking. As we now have this tax/spending discussion in our own country, isn't it ironic that the Russians, once subjects of despotic Marxists, now laugh at the foolish Americans who dug a hole, and now knee-deep in it, can't crawl out again?
Who wants to give me odds on Diamond Jim getting reelected?
Duke (Sat May 30 15:20:05 2009)
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