Sunday, May 25, 2014

State Tax Revenues Lagging? Gee, I Wonder Why!

News broke at the end of last week that Wisconsin's tax revenue is projected to come in much lower than expected.  Both the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Mary Burke's campaign were quick to tie it to Scott Walker's $500 million tax cut scheme (showing that his internal polling is just as bad if not worse than the publicly announced polls):
Gov. Scott Walker and GOP lawmakers passed a more than $500 million tax cut bill in March and the effects of those tax changes are already starting to hold down how much income tax is being withheld from workers' paychecks.

Joe Zepecki, spokesman for Walker's Democratic opponent, Mary Burke, said that the latest numbers showed that Walker should have left the state with more of a financial cushion. He said the figures were being released before Memorial Day to avoid drawing attention to them.

"Mary Burke was right, Walker's election year spending spree based on rosy assumptions was irresponsible," Zepecki said.
Without doubt, Walker's campaign tax stunt has a lot to do with the projected deficit, but ironically, it is Walker who brushes up to the truth in his defense:
Walker said he's watching the numbers but not concerned. He said the tax cuts could help to stimulate the economy.

"Individual taxpayers as consumers will use more of that to make purchases to help fuel the economy," he said.
I saw my tax cut at the beginning of the month. It accounted for a whopping six dollars a week.

That is a pale comparison to the hundreds of dollars taken out of each check.

As I have explained repeatedly before, when Walker passed his Act 10 bomb, he took billions of dollars out of the economy. This had the predictable ripple effect as public sector workers cut way back to adjust for the draconian cuts to their pay. This in turn forced private businesses to suffer and lay off thousands of workers. And those that were lucky enough to keep their jobs or find one of the few handful of jobs that were created saw their pay cut from where it used to be.

And the downward spiral continues.

And try as they might, Walker and company cannot tax what we do not have.

Sadly, with Walker and Burke being the apparent two major candidates and both of them embracing austerity, claiming that public sector workers needed to pay more for their benefits, for which they were already paying more than the private sector, I don't see things getting better anytime soon.

I also see whoever gets elected to use this self-inflicted deficit as an excuse to cut even more services and cut workers' pay even deeper.

Because it's been working so well so far.

2 comments:

  1. We are left to wonder what our state would be like today if Act 10 had been left to gather dust. He did accomplish two things with this stupid bill. He killed our economy and he killed education. Teacher's can't spend in their local economy what they no longer have and those still teaching or who had just started their career have no chance of their income rising above 1% of inflation. So good old Scotty's Act 10 has a continuing killing aspect on the economy. The man is pure and simply an economic wizard!

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    1. your posting more tickle-down/piss-on-you trash. Teacher spending DOES NOT drive the Wisconsin economy!

      It it was stooooopid for ronnie raygun to proclaim he was going to urinate on the public, it is just as stooopid for you and capper to do it.

      Milwaukee Public Schools SUCK and each and very teacher there should be given a pink slip and that goes ditto to the folks in the administration.

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