Wisconsin Taxpayers' Alliance reports that the big money left the State of Wisconsin between 1995 and 2000. No Runny Eggs publishes other data from the Census Bureau that agrees with WTA's assessment and amplifies it; Sykes also covers the story.
Unfortunately, Sykes and Eggs are pointing out the terrible legacy of Big Government Republicans--specifically, Tommy Thompson and the RINO Pubbies who occupied minority/majority leadership posts during that period of time.
Thompson was perhaps the Nightmare-Come-True for Conservatives--a position which GWBush and Tom DeLay also occupy, mutatis mutandis. Tommy increased the size of the State's payroll by 150% during his reign, and obviously also increased the tax burden, whether directly or not. (Can you spell SeligStadium?) Yet, because he pasted 'picture postcard' legislation such as School Choice and Welfare Reform over the cancer of his horrific tax/spend nature, he was virtually unbeatable.
And what Conservative would vote for Ed Garvey? Chuckie-the-Criminal Chvala? or the other wacko lefties that ran against Tommy?
In the meantime, the smart money was leaving, fast.
And we'd venture to guess that a good part of that "smart money" was Republican.
It's not really surprising when the RPW considers conservatives the RINOs, and is more comfortable with 'Rats Russ el-Slimeroad and Nobody's Senator as Wisconsin's representation to the Senate than Pubbies like Mark Neumann, John Gilespie and Tim Michels. It's also not surprising considering the Assembly Pubbies, then considered to be the more "conservative" of the two groups in the Legislature, cut Scott McCallum off at the knees when he proposed ending shared revenue and getting rid of 60% of state spending.
ReplyDeleteNever forget who heads the RPW--
ReplyDeleteLawyers are very comfortable with more laws and more Gummint.