Government Shifting the Burden
One of the most overused phrases today by our political leaders is that we are living in unprecedented times. Although the economic cycle regularly goes from prosperity to recession, we're being led to believe that recessions are not only avoidable but their origins have specific points of blame. Many of these points of blame can be directed to people. Governments and the media would have us conclude that these decision-makers can and should be eliminated and we will live happily ever after.
Problems have to be dealt with by people. We have to direct efforts to our problems to cause solutions. This is what political people do. When things go well, they centralize credit, and when things go bad, they diffuse blame. There have never been better examples of this going on than there is today. At the state level, we have seen six years of gross mismanagement of the state budget. Having the exact same amount of time to make things better, Jim Doyle continues to screw things up. It would be easy for him to point fingers at the mismanagement of the past six years, but he would have to point them at himself. He has initiated efforts to largely extend the role of government at the state level that has wound up having to put a larger burden on those who pay taxes. Like the president, he thinks he can stick it to the rich and business entrepreneurs and they will like it.
Filling the holes with the federal stimulus money is a shortsighted idea. It is probably just as bad or worse than selling the tobacco settlement for pennies on the dollar which was done by Scott McCallum. Although this time it does not even do the job. There is still a large deficit that is trying to be filled by doubling fees, increasing others, and sticking provisions into the budget that are going to cost citizens more. And of course, most of this is being done without a lot of publicity and fanfare because Jim Doyle lacks the backbone to be straight with the citizens of Wisconsin.
When mandates are sent down in the funding ends, who gets stuck with the rest of it? Local governments. So now, by Doyle trying to look like a good guy, he is shifting the funding of programs to local governments. So now, Tony governments, cities and villages across the state will now have to make up for this by increasing property taxes. Local governments generally do not have that many sources of tax revenues. And of course, there is definitely not a need to give them more sources for revenue. Hotel taxes, county sales taxes, stadium taxes, etc., all add up. Yet, there seems to be a charge to keep Wisconsin at the high end of taxes for everything. Fees, property taxes, excise taxes, sales taxes, all have to be at the high end here in Wisconsin. Perhaps next year, we can elect a governor that knows how to curtail some spending.
Apparently, politicians only believe that the economy works when campaign contributions are being increased. The Republicans generally gets a bad rap for being the party of special interests. But here in Wisconsin, special interests who make a campaign donation to Jim Doyle get priority to have their requests for legislation buried deeply into the Wisconsin budget. If you don't believe me, ask a union member.
This site uses Facebook comments to make it easier for you to contribute. If you see a comment you would like to flag for spam or abuse, click the "x" in the upper right of it. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use.