Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Taxation By Corporation

As I had mentioned in my previous post about the Mercury Marine situation, the tax payers in Fond du Lac were going to take a double whammy in the process of keeping the company from moving to Oklahoma:
The store owners and business people of FdL are counting on the workers going out and spending freely again. This is not a likely scenario, as that even if the current workers do get to keep their full wages, they are probably going to be too gun shy to make anything but the absolutely necessary ones. The new workers or recently rehired workers will also not be able to do much to support the local economy as they are paying off bills that they accrued during their layoffs, especially for the ones of whom have been laid off for several months. Their ability to dig themselves out will only be hampered by the fact that they also will be collecting 30% less money.

Not only will the people of FdL have to deal with the shrunken money flow, but they are going to get hit twice as they lose services and/or pay higher taxes due to the money the city and county will be dishing out to sweeten the deal for MM.
Sure enough, in this morning's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is the story that Fond du Lac County will be raising the sales tax a half-cent to pay for the incentives given to Mercury Marine:

Fond du Lac County would levy an extra half-cent sales tax for each dollar spent on such things as dining out, household goods and clothing as part of a proposed package of incentives being offered to Mercury Marine Inc., officials said Tuesday.

Some of the sales tax proceeds would cover the cost of credits the company would earn for retaining and creating jobs.

The incentives are the first announced publicly in what has become an intense effort to keep the Fond du Lac-based manufacturer - and the thousands of jobs at the plant and those with other area businesses - in Wisconsin.

Up to $50 million will be available in the form of a low-interest, performance-based loan from Fond du Lac County, according to a joint statement issued by the city and county Tuesday.

Basically, the sales tax is going to go completely to benefit one corporation.

Zachary Wisniewski at Blogging Blue also noted this sales tax and asked the question:
So here’s a question for my conservative readers: those higher taxes in Fond Du Lac County are definitely a good thing, right?
I would take that one step farther: If people are OK with Fond du Lac County raising their sales tax by a half-cent to benefit just one company and maybe save a couple of thousand jobs, why is Scott Walker promising to veto a half-cent sales tax to help scores of companies and save tens of thousands of jobs?

Again, it is just a sign of Walker's hypocrisy and his continued pattern of putting his own personal and political aspirations before the good of Milwaukee County.

7 comments:

  1. I think increasing the tax in Fond Du Lac just to keep Mercury is totally off the wall. I hate corporate welfare. I think Mercury should have simply said "screw you" to the union and left for Oklahoma. There are plenty of people down there who would have been quite pleased with those jobs.

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  2. The tax Fond du Lac County is akin to the various stadium taxes for Miller Park and Lambeau Field. It's corporate welfare, plain and simple.

    The Recess Supervisor had a great post the other day on this subject when the idea first surfaced.

    Anything akin to what you're trying to do w/ Walker is your classic conjecture Chris.

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  3. Umnnnhhh....

    It's up to Fond du Lac to make decisions about Fond du Lac, and up to Milwaukee County...same way.

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  4. Didn't Milwaukee have some sort of tax for the Stadium? Also, if they did, has it expired yet? I'm curious. Brown county has it's own sales tax, for the Packers, I believe. I know BC's won't go away, but did Milwaukee's, and will Fon du Lac's?

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  5. Nick, You're finally catching on. :P

    Kevin, no conjecture. Unlike you and Aaron, I back up my stuff.

    Dad, MKE CO did vote, and approved it, but Doyle and Walker will not recognize the will of the people.

    Bill, Miller Park tax will never go away. I doubt FdL's will either.

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  6. Well, hey, so........

    If Walker vetoed it and the Board over-ruled, so be it.

    Doyle's a (D), remember?

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  7. Walker has threatened to veto the tax hike when it comes across his desk, despite the will of the people.

    And so what of Doyle? Are you saying Dems can't have flaws?

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