Sunday, November 12, 2006

Lasee's Reminder

Frank Lasee still gets it:

...According to the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, we have already lost nearly $5 billion in net worth from businesses and high net worth individuals moving out of state.

Wisconsin has NOT always been a high taxing state. In fact, in 1961 (45 years ago) Wisconsin’s taxes ranked 18th highest in the nation. And for many decades prior, our taxing rates were in the middle of the pack.


The donkeys-with-tails here are the locals and the school districts (specifically, the City, School District, and County of Milwaukee--recall that the Milwaukee Dems ran the show in the early 1960's):

Following record increases in the sales and income tax in order to provide property tax relief -- the Badger state’s low taxing trend ended abruptly in 1964 when we became the highest taxed state in the nation. Wisconsin has ranked among the top ten taxing states nearly every year since. In fact, we have been among the top five most taxed states 25 out of the last 40 years.


That would be about 40 years' worth of built-up and built-in "spend, spend, spend." And yes, Folkbum, Tommy Thompson accounted for almost half of that. He was wrong, too...

The problem is that unlike most states which choose to spend more on one government program and less on another (more on higher education and less on prisons or more on Medicare and less on roads) in Wisconsin we spend more on nearly everything government related. If a state does it, then Wisconsin does it, and it is likely we spend more on it than most other states.

Instead of prioritizing our spending, we spend more on nearly every government service offered. And we offer more government services than most other states.


For instance,
we are one of the top three states for rails and trails. I like them. But, do we have to lead the nation?

Well, the trails replace all those nasty factories! Makes us 'green,' if bankrupt...

Lasee cites a national (CNN) poll:

When asked about the role of government, 54% of respondents said that our government is “doing too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses.”

Here, the number should be higher.

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