Political Heat

Tax cuts to end up in the hands of Walker's favorite people: his donor base At first, Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed income tax cuts for the state seemed like such a good idea. Even the most hardened liberals had to admit that lowering the rates for the bottom three income tax brackets while keeping the top two rates intact made sense. Such a move, at first glance, seems like a progressive form of taxation. Unfortunately, that’s not how Wisconsin’s tax system works . When you cut the rates of the bottom brackets, it results in not just a tax cut for the poor and middle classes, but a tax cut for the wealthy as well . Any income earned, whether it’s earned by someone making $50,000 or $500,000, up to the top income threshold of that third bracket (up to $214,910) sees a reduction in taxes. So the first $214,910 of a person earning half a million dollars annually, for example, is also taxed less. The result is that everyone in the state, not just the incomes in the bottom th...

Plan would take what little funds remain for many districts affected by Walker budget cuts to subsidize private schools It is unfathomable, unconscionable, and irresponsible for Gov. Scott Walker to propose expanding the student voucher program in Wisconsin . The program, begun in the early 1990s in Milwaukee, has allowed students in lower-income families the ability to select different education options for their children through vouchers to attend private schools. Such a program, it was thought, would allow children to have a better education in what was considered a more desirable option at presumably better schools. Yet the academic results those children have had, in more than 20 years of the program’s existence, have been less than stellar. As I detailed late last month , Milwaukee Public School students who had similar economic backgrounds fared better than those in the voucher program, sometimes significantly so, in subjects like Math, Reading, and Science. In other wor...

The fight goes on against a governor who has radically changed Wisconsin Two years ago, we learned of a proposal by Gov. Scott Walker to dismiss five decades of precedence, of recognizing workers’ rights in the state of Wisconsin. We’ve seen a lot more from our governor since then -- unconstitutional changes to our voting rights; shorting our state’s public schools by over a billion dollars; planned cuts to Senior Care and environmentally unsound mining legislation (both of which, fortuitously, failed to come about); and an unsuccessful bid to unseat Walker himself from office. The divisive governor, who pretends to be nonpartisan but in practice acts in in a highly partisan manner, talks himself up every opportunity he gets. On jobs he claims his reforms have made Wisconsin better; yet Wisconsin’s numbers rank among the worst in the nation , among the slowest states in growth, and in the top ten states people are fleeing . When confronted with these facts, Gov. Walker bl...

Shift in sales tax would burden the poor and middle class A lot of talk about increasing the sales tax in Wisconsin happened this week. First, it was revealed Tuesday by Department of Administration head Mike Huebsch that Gov. Scott Walker had been toying around with the idea of raising the state’s sales tax , eliminating the income tax altogether in favor of a consumption rate of 13 percent. That would raise Wisconsin’s current sales tax by more than eight percentage points. After word about this got out, Walker went on damage control , assuring everyone that his upcoming budget wouldn’t include such a hike. But Walker didn’t outright say that such a plan wasn’t imminent. Indeed, his spokesman Cullen Werwie stated , “[Walker] will review the impact of tax policy on job growth in other states as he considers future reforms.” Translation: it’s still on the table for the future .

Limitations exist on all natural rights One of the deepest criticisms I receive, especially as of late, is that I continually and consistently attack the Second Amendment. The “right to bear arms” doesn’t seem to be my favorite of the Bill of Rights, as I’ve posted regularly on the need to restrict certain weapons that were originally designed for military use but have since seeped into civilian use as well. I don’t take these criticisms lightly, defending my position constantly in the heated (but mostly cordial) arguments on the rights of citizens. I look at the Second Amendment in a literal sense: and, if we read deeper into the second clause of it, I don’t think that my views necessarily conflict with the intent and meaning of the law.