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January 23, 2008

Wednesday Update

Wisconsin Club for Growth  January 23, 2008 Volume 2, Number 4 The Wednesday Update  In This Issue 1. Highway to Tax     Hell  2. Nothing to See 3. Bottled Idiocy 4. Move to Canada 5. Ignore That     Pledge Make a Donation today! Keeping Free Marketers Current on the Issues   Thanks for your support of Wisconsin Club for Growth! We hope you enjoy the newsletter. Our goal is to be brief, informative and bit provocative. We welcome your feedback. Please feel free to contact us anytime by emailing staff@wifg.com , or come visit us on the worldwide web. Wisconsin Club for Growth Website  Back to top Highway to Tax Hell To the average citizen, "national security" means fighting back foreign threats to our safety.  Not so, says Wisconsin Secretary of Transportation Frank Busalacchi.  According to Busalacchi, we can only achieve "national security" by raising gas taxes another 25 to 40 cents a gallon for Wisconsin drivers. Busalacchi, who sits on a national board to figure out how to raise your taxes, says he could easily do so if it weren't for those darn meddling legislators who might resist such a change.  After all, the legislature has actually been moving toward lowering gas taxes, not the other way around.  Busalacchi said, "Legislators get sensitive about taxes, understand that and with elections coming up, it's hard to talk about." Even Busalcchi's boss, Jim Doyle gets sensitive about taxes when it gets close to election time.  That's why he signed legislation eliminating the automatic gas tax at the end of 2005. Incidentally it's those pesky "legislators" who are actually "elected" by the "people" who tell their government what they want.  It's easy for Busalacchi, an appointed bureaucrat with no ties to the real world, has every right to try to convince people they need to pay higher gas taxes when gas prices are at an all-time high.  And to keep from bursting into laughter when he does. The real tragedy of the latest pitch for higher gas taxes is that much of the alleged need for more revenue is due to the fact that Governor Doyle raided the segregated Transportation Fund in two successive budgets to plug holes in state finances.  Between 2003 and 2007, Doyle took $1.1 billion out of gas tax and vehicle registration revenues and back filled it with bonding, which has to be paid back with interest.  Thus, Doyle generates a crisis, and then sends his flack Busalacchi out to beg for more cash. Back to top Nothing Here to See With an increasing number of economists predicting an economic slowdown, Wisconsin remains astonishingly unprepared in the event of a recession.  In fact, Wisconsin remains near the worst in the nation in setting aside "rainy day" funds for an economic slowdown. In the meantime, Governor Doyle is preparing his agenda for the upcoming year.  This week, Doyle addressed the possible shortfall, saying that state spending could be "pinched" if revenue shortfalls occurred. Keep in mind that this is the same Governor who proposed over $1 billion in new taxes in the last biennial budget, with virtually no funds set aside for fiscal emergencies.  The more revenue the state takes in with increased taxes, the harder the fall will be during a recession.  But apparently now there's spending that can be "pinched," while during the budget Doyle argued that every single penny of spending was vital.  It would have been nice to know which spending wasn't a priority during the budget, before all the money went out the door. This is an issue we will be keeping a close eye on, especially with Doyle's State of the State speech coming up this week.    Back to top Bottled Idiocy If you are one of those wacky "personal freedom enthusiasts," be grateful you don't live in Madison these days.  Predictably, the Madison City Council has sent another patchouli-scented smoke signal to the rest of the nutty liberal cities of America, to show it hasn't lost its capacity for abject lunacy.  And the first of the new -year is doozy! Having already solved the small problems like crime and racial injustice, the city council has moved on to banning bottled water and plastic bags.  This goes to show that the council's capacity to enact useless legislation exceeds the normal human's ability to actually think this goofy stuff up. . Back to top       Erpenbach: I've Been Told to Move to Canada Government-run health care advocate State Senator Jon Erpenbach took his traveling dog and pony show to Manitowoc this week, where he tried to convince citizens that the same people who want to ban bottled water are perfectly capable of making health care decisions for them.  The audience wasn't entirely receptive. According to the Manitowoc paper, a local business owner told Erpenbach it would be more productive to help reduce health-care costs by reining in personal injury attorneys and the practice of defensive medicine with unnecessary tests. Erpenbach conceded that health care costs are going to double in the next ten years, but "the economy isn't going to," which will lead to "small companies looking at 30, 40, 50 percent premium increases for no particular reason."  Actually, the reason will be because of the increased health care costs, which no government program will be able to contain without severe rationing of care and loss of specific services. Instead of giving businesses the flexibility to deal with increased costs (higher co-pays, changing companies, pooling with other small businesses), Erpenbach would rather mandate a tax of up to 12% on every employer in the state to pay for universal health care.  And if health care costs do rise as much as Erpenbach anticipates, those same employers will be on the hook for the increased costs, which would cause the state to hemorrhage jobs. Erpenbach also maintained his opposition to heavy drinkers, smokers, and people who make other un-healthy choices paying more for health care, despite leading lives full of risky behavior.  Instead, he would have you believe people should be able to lead consequence-free lives and have the rest of us pick up the tab. Erpenbach seems to wear opposition to his plan like a badge of honor telling the paper, "I've been called a communist, a socialist, and told I should move to Canada." Don't let us keep you! Back to top Bar Members to Judges: Ignore Pledge Not every member of the Wisconsin bar is on board with the notion that a self-appointed group of lawyers and political activists should tell the rest of us what kind of speech is or isn't appropriate in a judicial campaign.   This guest editorial makes a very eloquent case against the State Bar in the role of arbiter and urges judicial candidates not to sign the WJCIC pledge.    Back to top