Friday, February 22, 2013

Don't Back Up That Brinks Truck For Walker's Tax Cuts

Ever since Scott Walker gave his campaign speech disguised as a budget address, the right wing squawkers, blarghers and other propagandists have been faithfully been echoing the talking point that Walker put in an income tax cut in his 2011-13 budget.

But don't back up that Brinks armored truck to haul off your share of the wealth.* You won't even need your kid's piggy bank for it:
For example, a family of four with taxable income of $25,000 would see their state income tax bill go down by $6. At $50,000, the savings is $54; at $100,000 it’s $138; and at $200,000 the savings is $270.

"At first blush, the proposed tax cuts sound like they will help moderate-income families but the primary effect is to help the wealthy,” says Jon Peacock of the Wisconsin Budget Project.

Peacock notes that more than half of the projected $172 million in income tax cuts annually would go to the upper 20 percent of state residents.

“This just exacerbates the problem that the rich pay a much lower percent of their income for state and local taxes than lower-income Wisconsin families,” he says, noting a recent national report on that issue.
That really pales in comparison to what Walker did for his corporate sponsors in the current budget:
Actually, Walker’s 2011-2013 budget did use tax credits to target a specific group: factory owners and their investors. A domestic production tax credit that kicks in this year will deliver an estimated $360 million in tax savings to manufacturers over the next four years and some $130 million each year thereafter, according to the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
Considering that the median household income is about $50,000, that means most of us might save a buck a week. Hoard up those savings for a full month and you might, just might, be able to buy a gallon of gas. I say might, because under Walker's reign of economic terror, incomes keep dropping.

It should be pointed out that Walker's tax cuts are so lopsided it does next to nothing to help the poorest of the poor, who were punished for their poverty in Walker's first budget:
Last summer, the state Legislature reduced the amount of money low- income families can receive in tax credits by $56.2 million.

That places Wisconsin among only a handful of states that will effectively raise taxes on their poorest residents in 2012, according to a recent study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit think tank.

"At a time when low-wage workers are already struggling, this makes it that much more difficult (for them) to feed their families and pay their utility bills," said Jon Peacock with the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, an advocacy group that opposed the changes
Likewise, it offers no relief for the fees that Walker raised through the roof in the last budget and wants to rise even higher in this budget.

Another thing that the Walker apologists are touting his that Walker is proposing a freeze on property tax rates. That should scare the bejeebers out of you.

In Walker's current budget, he touted he cut property taxes. But like the majority of Wisconsinites, our property taxes had actually gone up. They would have probably gone up even higher, but Walker's policy of lowering our quality of life included lowering our property values.

Since my taxes went up by some 9% with Walker's tax cuts, I can't even imagine how much they'll go up with a freeze - 20%? 25%?

I wouldn't mind my taxes going up so much if we had something to show for it, like a decent education system, public safety, assistance for our neediest and most vulnerable citizens or even some creation.

Instead we have nothing to show but some of the most generous corporate welfare giveaway that do nothing to help our state.

But no one should be surprised. This is just a remake of his failures in his last budget, for which we didn't need that armored car either.


*Since Walker's make-believe surplus, which is actually a deficit he's not admitting too, which he is using for these tax cuts come from the money he took from public sector workers, isn't that socialism - forced sharing of the wealth?

15 comments:

  1. Up here in Rhinelander we just voted for a school referendum which will raise our property taxes by at least $400.00 if not more. Without it passing, two schools would have closed, forty teachers would have been laid off, music, art and foreign languages would have disappeared and class sizes would have been over thirty. And the old people who voted for this ass were just a bitching....blaming the high paid teachers, the misuse by the schools of funds, yada, yada. You can't take 1.6 billion out of our public schools and expect everything to run like before even with those great "tools" John Doe gave them.
    When is this man going to prison? I hope it's before he ruins what's left of this once great state.

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    1. God help you up in the Rhinelander area! Just think...you could have TeaBot Kim Simac in your classroom teaching kids that Muslims are hiding behind trees in the woods, or sharing her Christian spouse-swapping family-values, or pushing guns in the hands of babies or... I feel for ya. Keep up the good fight!

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  2. Same in our district, our prop taxes up about $300. And this new budget means that our school district will have a $3 million deficit next year and a $5 million one the year after that.
    Act 10 worked but just for two years. He needs another trick pony or we need a new guv in two years. We can't afford it and our kids really can't afford it.

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  3. So let me understand, Walker throws away $4.3x billion of our federal taxes by rejecting the Medicaid funds, then claims he is giving us a "tax break" by cutting our yearly income tax by some paltry amount? Don't forget two years ago he gave our taxes to other states so they could build rail infrastructure. How is he cutting taxes for Wisconsinites?????

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    1. Walker is actually taxing Wisconsin voters TWICE. First, by throwing away Federal tax dollars what we've paid. And AGAIN by taxing us for his boondoggle projects that will only enrich his corporate donors. Ugh. I think people are finally catching on to him.

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  4. A once proud WisconsiniteFebruary 22, 2013 at 11:00 AM

    We are reaping what we sowed when we kept this idiotic sociopath in office.

    The one comfort for me is I didn't buy his BS and lies from moment one and get great glee from watching him step on the throats, one by one, of all the morons that support him.

    First the came for the teachers and the unions..... they will soon be getting to you.

    Spend your tax return wisely while watching your communities slowly lose services.

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  5. I like the fact that he's borrowing $1B to pay for what increased spending he proposes. What could go wrong there? If it worked for Greece it can work for Wisconsin. In the future look for Republicans to express shock and alarm over the state debt load, while proposing more austerity cuts to basic services.

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    1. Yep. They'll do that with Gov. Kind's first budget in 2015. Very much like how GOPs in Congress complained about "Obama's debt" when it was built by Dubya's disastrous tax cuts and war spending

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  6. He's lying about the surplus. His own DOA calculated a $2.2 billion defict using GAAP]Generally Accepted Accounting Principles] the method that Walker once promised was the only correct way to analyze budget figures. The DOA examined his new budget with GAAP and finds the deficit grows to $2.644 billion. The man doesn't have an honest or decent bone in his body. Illegal and unethical symbolizes our Republican controlled legislature because they worship this fool. Lord save us!

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  7. WOW, the hypocrisy! I love coming to liberal blogs to get a good laugh during my lunch. Usually I just chuckle and move along, but this was too good today! A few days ago you criticized a TMJ blogger (if I remember correctly) for citing an aritcle from 3 months ago. However, the two that I clicked on from your blog (the dropping income article and the defecit article) are both from well over a year ago! Then you critcize Walker for, what, not providing enough of a tax break to make a difference. Let's just hypothetically say the cut was larger. I am sure you would have cried then as well. What about not a cut, but a raise in taxes equivalent to the proposed cut. I bet that would have been disaster for all! Then you talk about how your taxes have gone up. Could it be due to MPS not utilizing Act 10? What percentage of that 9% increase was public education funding?

    Anyway, thanks for the laugh. I will be back Monday to see what else I can chuckle at.

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    1. Chuckle while you can Corey. Your property taxes are going up, your average wages are going down and what you get from any income tax cut won't cover what you've lost. You'll be poorer with Walker.

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  8. All Walker wants or needs are the sound bytes. "I cut taxes". "I increased education spending"...

    Anything more than 3 or 4 words and he gets in trouble.

    Campaign talking points like, "I cut taxes mostly for the richest 20%" and "I increased education spending only after I had cut it by $800 million" won't help him become President Skippy.

    It is always a campaign. Walker is always looking to advance himself. Whatever damage he causes on the people that he is elected to actually help is of no concern to him, as long as he can move himself along.

    Step 1. Ruin Milwaukee County to become Governor of Wisconsin.

    Step 2. Ruin State of Wisconsin to become President of the United States.


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  9. I would characterize this tax cut as a political move for future reference.

    I would characterize this blog as hating anything Walker does, even if it's a tax cut.

    Piss in your own soup, liberals. That what it smells like...

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    1. Some of the people in Wisconsin would rather have our kids go to good schools than get an 80.00 a year dollar tax break. We don't mind the tax break, it is the cost to our kids' schools that bothers us.
      Long term it is better to have good schools than a tiny tax break. It is important to invest in the future. Think about it.

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    2. Your characterizations are irrelevant.

      The fact is that the tax cut was a political stunt, more soundbite than substance.

      This blog is for telling the truth, even if it is painful for some.

      You have a right to be a sheeple. You don't have a right to try to hurt anyone else on your way to self-destruction.

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