Thursday, February 27, 2014

If Reelected, Walker Says Taxes Will Go Up

In an effort to avoid those pesky questions about the John Doe investigations and the document drop from last week, Scott Walker did the political equivalent of yelling, "Squirrel!" when he made a campaign pledge to hold property taxes " in check."  However, he won't say how he would do it, either by raising other taxes and fees, slashing services and/or increasing the deficit by a few more billion dollars.

But lest we forget, the last campaign pledge Walker made was to create 250,000 jobs by the end of his term.  Right now, with ten months left in his term, he has created about 20% of that goal - even less if you subtract the jobs created by Governor Jim Doyle's budget and policies.

Given Walker's phenomenally high level of failure regarding his first campaign pledge, I reckon that property taxes could quadruple, at least, if Walker were elected for a second term.

16 comments:

  1. How can Walker control property taxes? Property taxes are determined by local government entities. Does that mean Walker will take control of Wisconsin's local government entities?

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    1. Walker can control property taxes in a number of ways. One way to do so would be eliminating state income taxes, which Walker has stated an interest in. The elimination of state income tax will hit low- and middle-class wage earner hardest, as more of the tax burden shifts to property taxes, which historically have been the most important revenue source for state and local governments.

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  2. Ours are up each of his first three years in office, and, we have a spring referendum to fund school district operations that have a huge budget hole because of state funding cuts. Promise is already broken.

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  3. Walker has done two things to affect property taxes and local government. 1.) He has cut aids to local government and school aids. 2.) He has placed limits on how much the local units can raise and for what purpose.

    So this makes the locals look like the bad guys when taxes go up, either due to county, municipal or school levies. And it leaves walker with the ability to say he didn't raise taxes. Voters need to pay attention to this switcheroo.

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    1. Correct. In addition to this largely being Walker talking out of his *ss to the Realtors, the only ways this really could be done is:

      1. Massive privatization and selling off of local government services (probably to campaign contributors)

      2. Huge increase is sales or income taxes to make up for the lack of local taxes.

      It sounds like a combination of a shell game and BS. Sounds like the media should press Scotty for details (after following up on his John Doe non-answers)

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    2. Or a complete State takeover of public schools and/or community colleges? Walker and his cronies have been undermining local control in so many ways over the last two sessions with nary a peep from conservatives who used to claim to be local control advocates (back when the other party was in charge) -- why not just grab the brass ring now and put those "inefficient" school boards out of business? I'm sure there are plenty of private school companies out there that would be more than happy to mis-educate out kids for half the cost, and by the time we even notice that our children isn't learning they'll be off to Florida with the profits.

      As for community colleges, there already seems to be an unfortunate tendency within the Walker administration to regard them as nothing more than training centers for all those wonderful companies flocking across the borders and/or donating to the GOP campaign coffers. Formalizing that status with some contracts and payments -- and getting rid of all those unprofitable programs that merely improve the students' lives (sill students! the State Legislators know so much better than you do what you want and need!) -- would no doubt provide a couple of bucks worth of property tax relief to those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

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  4. Walker and cronies have done a great deal to strip away local control when it threatens (or could threaten) their agenda.

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  5. Please let me know if I have this right.

    Scott Walker can stop increases of property taxes levied by counties, cities, townships, school districts, etc.

    But Scott Walker cannot stop the looting of veterans funds that he controls.

    Is that right?

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  6. There is a State of Wisconsin tax levy on the real estate property tax bill that I am familiar with. It is less than 1% of the total.

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  7. But, hopefully only on Poor People as supply-side jesus intended as Pdoyle216 pointed out, right?

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  8. The same way he does it now. Place levy limits on local government. Makes him look good, makes your city, county, town, and school district squirm to balance their budgets. Your pathological lying piece of shit Governor finds this a win-win because he takes away local control while pandering for votes.

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  9. This is nothing but bait-and-switch. Reduce $$ sent to local got't and make the local gov't look like the bad guys.

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  10. I hope when Walker finally gets tossed in prison, Bubba and the welcoming committee give him a nice homemade tattoo with WEASEL across Walker's forehead to remind everyone who sees him what he really is.

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  11. There have been talks of an increase in Wisconsin sales tax. The figure I read was 15%..Will he bill this as a 'shared sacrifice' and stick it to the working poor. Again.

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  12. You people are idiots

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