Scott Walker’s Manufactured Crisis…aka Remember the Balloon Boy?

Do you remember the balloon boy?

The balloon boy was the young boy that was allegedly thrust into the air by a large helium balloon. The media went wild. Everyone was on alert to save the boy. However, when the balloon landed, the boy was nowhere to be found. Instead we later found out that the boy had been hiding at home, instructed by his father to lie low as the family basked in the media attention.

Fast forward to today. The Wisconsin budget is $3.6 billion in deficit according to Governor Scott Walker. We are in crisis! 200,000 children will be kicked off of Badger Care and 6,000 employees will be laid off! Call the National Guard! Dissolve the unions!

But are we really in that severe of a financial crisis?

We found out yesterday after our briefing with non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the $3.6 billion deficit in the next budget that Governor Walker and the media has been repeating is a MANUFACTURED CRISIS. The number is based on $3.9 billion in new spending requests by agencies, a 6.2% increase. I don’t think there is a member in the legislature that would vote for that. In fact, I asked Director Lang when was the last time we gave agencies exactly what they requested and was told he couldn’t think of one and he’s been here decades.

Further, the budget forecast for the next biennium projects $1.5 billion in additional revenue something we would have loved to have last session.

And, the most recent national rating shows Wisconsin number 23 of 45 for deficits in proportion to our budgets, a far cry from last session.

The budget needs balance but there is NOT the crisis being manufactured. Yet Scott Walker is loading every radical special interest idea into a plan to “fix” the budget crisis.

Every crisis needs a hero. And that is the role Scott Walker wants. However, I think he will ultimately be cast as the balloon boy.

Wisconsin Open for Duplication?

Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. But copying Ohio? It appears that Governor Walker has turned Wisconsin’s progressive tradition into an unmistakable pattern of regurgitating hard right-wing ideas of conservative wordsmiths like Frank Luntz.

Walker's actual Tweeted ham sandwich.

First, his brown bag slogan is a rip-off of a previous Ohio gubernatorial campaign.

Then, Ohio Governor John Kasich proclaimed Ohio “Open for Business” (as usual) as well.

And, Kasich is even working on his own privatization of their commerce department with no government oversight, just like Wisconsin is now attempting.

With all this copycatting going on, doesn’t this make you wonder which Ohioan first tweeted a picture of their ham sandwich?

Walker Woos Mainway, Inc. to Wisconsin

For months, Scott Walker campaigned on creating a special session of the Legislature to put Wisconsin back to work.

Now we know one of the cornerstones of Walker’s job creation agenda: tort reform. Most people find that laughable. Well, not Mainway, Inc.

While business leaders around the state are trying to figure out how this is going to help them create jobs, I’ve done Commerce Secretary Jadin’s job for him. I’ve found the perfect company to woo to Wisconsin. I’d like to introduce to you to Mainway, Inc. You may be familiar with Mainway Inc. because of their now famous toys Bag O’ Glass, Johnny Switchblade and Chainsaw Teddy.

Tort reform practically killed this American company. But Walker might single-handedly bring them back. One step closer to 250,000 jobs I guess…

Walker’s bill will change Wisconsin law to require plaintiffs to prove a company was “practically certain” their product would result in injuries. Exactly how tort reform is going to woo companies away from making their shoddy products overseas where labor is cheaper and materials used can be deadly has not been made clear to me. But, since Republicans aren’t the least bit concerned, I guess neither am I. As long as companies are required to include disclaimers like: "Kid, be careful, broken glass", I’m sure nobody will get hurt ever again…

Walker stopping holiday tree lighting?

Dear Exiting Gov. Jim Doyle,

I am writing to respectfully ask you to delay the Capitol holiday tree lighting scheduled for this Friday. In light State of Wisconsin’s current fiscal condition, I want to address several concerns about the tree.

First, the holiday tree was selected in secret (i.e. I wasn’t asked), potentially behind closed doors (or at least doors that close) and someone might have been smoking in the room (hence it could have been smoked-filled). I think the public deserves a much more open process for tree selection. I know the tree is already cut, placed and being decorated, but talk radio in Milwaukee has already made this an issue, thus my hands are tied.

Further, to bind the will of the future governor by pre-selecting ornaments, lights and tinsel is ignoring the will of the voters who spoke loud and clear in the last election - they do not want a lame duck governor and legislature decorating the taxpayer tree. I, along with the newly elected legislature, should make this and all decisions next year regardless of how much sense that directive makes.

While returning the ornaments freely donated and created by Wisconsin school children for our tree might initially seem foolhardy, the future maintenance and storage of these decorations could potentially cost the taxpayers a smidge of a part of a fraction of a percentage of our operating budget. I need the flexibility in the final months of the biennium to see if we can outsource this to the private sector, as I plan to have most state workers on furlough by then.

Finally, there is the matter of the train running around the tree. It must be stopped. It goes nowhere. It does not go there fast enough. Not enough people are riding on it. It is a boondoggle. I ask that you use it to fund roads and to reduce the deficit. Send it to any other community. Just make sure it no longer reaches Madison.

I realize that waiting until I am sworn into office on Jan. 3, 2011 to make these decisions means that we will have a bare space in the rotunda for the holidays and that school children everywhere will be saddened. But these are extraordinary times that demand extraordinary measures…that is to say, my measures.

Thank you for your consideration of this request and for understanding that my sole motivation for sending this letter is to create 250,000 jobs in Wisconsin. And in the spirit of the holidays, April Fo….ah Merry Christmas!

Sincerely,

Gov.-elect Scott Walker

I found this letter on the printer in 309 East. Yes, it is December 1 not April 1, but since all decisions are being moved up anyway...what the heck! Don't take it too seriously anyone, ok? It's the holidays!

The tooth fairy or GOP’s claim of an employer tax?

Question: Which is a more credible: The tooth fairy or the Republicans' claim of an employer tax increase?

Answer: The tooth fairy. More than 1.4% of people in Wisconsin see action from the tooth fairy.

I received an email recently from a woman who lives in Sturgeon Bay asking me, as co-chair of Joint Finance Committee, about a “new 11% employer tax” that her representative had vowed to repeal.

It is going to be tough to repeal something that does not exist.

From what I’ve been able to discern, her representative is talking about repealing combined reporting.*

The only problem is that combined reporting is NOT an employer tax. And it only impacts a tiny number of companies that had been dodging Wisconsin taxes.

What it does is close the Las Vegas Loophole. It ends accounting gimmicks that huge, multi-state corporations used to avoid paying taxes in Wisconsin. Some were splitting their corporations into separate entities or using a PO Box in a state that has little or no corporate tax to shelter their profits.

According to initial Department of Revenue estimates, only1.4% of companies in Wisconsin saw a tax increase due to combined reporting. Those few had been using Las Vegas Loophole game or other gimmicks to avoid paying Wisconsin taxes.

Because we closed this Las Vegas Loophole, the rest of Wisconsin businesses and families are no longer left to pick up the burden.

Republicans who want to get rid of combined reporting for their big corporate buddies had to give it a new name like “employer tax” because when middle-class, average people or small business owners hear combined reporting explained, they enthusiastically support it.

So when a politician talks about repealing combined reporting – or a falsely labeled employer tax – what they are saying is that they want huge corporations to be allowed to hide their profits out of state. And the rest of us in Wisconsin can foot their bill.

I supposed they’d like us to pay for it with money we get from the tooth fairy.


* Because we closed tax loopholes, in fiscal year 2009/10 these corporations paid $75.6 million in taxes under combined reporting. An analysis done in January 2009 by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimated that corporate taxes overall for that time period would be $700 million. So combined reporting tax fairness accounts for 10.8% of that estimated number. We assume that must be where they got 11%.

The Five Billion Dollar Lie

For the past year Republicans have been tossing out numbers in the billions of tax increases they attribute to the past budget. The numbers bounce around wildly, as if they are pulled from some hat. But a frequent fave is claiming we raised taxes by “$5 billion” in 2009.

So it was satisfying to see PolitiFact Wisconsin call out a candidate who used this fake number and put this claim to its “Truth-O-Meter” journalism test. This Pulitzer Prize-winning operation came up with a resounding answer: This number is FALSE.

And the researchers over at the Journal Sentinel, which staffs Wisconsin PolitiFact, didn’t stop there. Using analysis from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, and other sources, they broke the argument down step by step so readers get the full picture of how Democrats balanced the budget when confronted with a $6.6 billion recession time deficit.

To get to this phony number Republicans included more than $130 million in “enhanced collection measures,” which as the article noted is primarily the hiring of 30 more state Department of Revenue Employees. (Collecting unpaid taxes!) And, they note, there is no tax increase levied on residents, rather it would “lighten the load on those who are already paying up.”

Republicans also included a guesstimated $1.5 billion in property taxes, which as the Journal Sentinel notes, are levies set by local taxing bodies.

And how about the rest of that number: The $1.22 billion increase in the budget adjustment bill comes from tax fairness measures like combined reporting (making large corporations who hide profits out of state pay up) and the hospital assessment, which was supported by the Wisconsin Hospital Association and others because it leveraged $1.2 billion in additional federal revenue for Wisconsin.

And the remaining $1.92 billion bienniel budget number, well PolitiFact chalked that piece up to “taxes on cigarettes, high-income earners and capital gains investments.”

So back to what we’ve been saying all along -- we balanced the recession budget with:

• No increase in payroll tax


• No increase in sales tax


• No increase in income tax for 99% of Wisconsinites (It went up only for the top 1% wage earners)


• Even the state impact on property taxes was lower than the average of the last five years of Republican governors Thompson and McCallum.

Thanks for putting this lie to rest. Let’s see if Republicans will take note or continue to deal in falsehood and fear instead of facts.

Davis calls for “immediate end” to “ill-advised program” he approved

In a press release today Rep. Brett Davis calls for “immediate end” to an “ill-advised program” that he "learned" about today ... and just happened to vote for in 2007.

The program Rep. Davis says he recently "learned" about is the Wisconsin Department of Corrections paying for driver’s licenses or state-issued identification cards for prison inmates who are being released as part of their re-entry package so they have identification needed to apply for jobs, among other things.

Here is a quick refresher on its origins. The 2007 budget included a bipartisan Corrections package authored by Rep. Scott Suder and yours truly, which passed Joint Finance on a unanimous, bipartisan vote. It went to the Assembly floor in the budget (Act 20) where Rep. Davis was one of 23 Republicans who voted yes, putting the following into state statute:

301.286 State identification upon release from prison.

Before an individual is released from prison upon completion of
his or her sentence or to parole or extended supervision, the
department shall determine if the individual has an operator’s
license or a state identification card under ch. 343. If the individual
has neither, the department shall assist the individual in applying
for a state identification card under s. 343.50. The department
shall determine if the individual is able to pay all or a portion of
the fee under s. 343.50 (5) from the individual’s general fund
account. The department shall pay any portion of the fee the individual
is unable to pay from the individual’s general fund account.
History: 2007 a. 20.