Resurrecting Rail
 Everybody knows Jim Doyle is not running for another term as Governor. What we can’t claim to know is whether his actions exemplify the kind of political risk he now feels free to undertake, liberated from the need to preserve a re-election base.
Take the September 8 proposal for an “umbrella” regional transit authority comprising “sub-RTAs” in Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee Counties. This looks like a recipe for lots more of the mutually destructive warfare that erupted between Doyle and legislative Democrats over transit issues in the 2009-11 state budget bill.
We can only hope. The alternative would be more expensive.
This latest iteration of Doyle’s KRM dream would superimpose a half-percent sales tax over a series of county-based authorities collecting taxes of their own. The scheme which includes RTA’s and sub-RTA’s with a combination of shared and independent taxing authorities, is completely convoluted:
Basic RTA Structural Principles
Two-level approach to regional transit – RTA structure will consist of an umbrella RTA responsible for KRM commuter rail planning and construction. The umbrella RTA will continue KRM planning efforts already underway. Independent local sub-RTAs will be responsible for local transit. Over time, the sub-RTAs will merge with the umbrella RTA.
Local revenues remain local – Sub-RTA revenues will fund transit within their jurisdiction.
Umbrella RTA representation – Representation on the umbrella RTA board will be proportional to population. Full representation on the board will be contingent on revenue commitment and transit outcomes.
Transit dedicated 0.5% sales tax for Milwaukee – Funding for the Milwaukee sub-RTAs may come from a 0.5% sales tax, which has already been approved by referendum in that county. The Milwaukee RTA may also use any option on the menu of revenue options provided to Racine and Kenosha counties.
Menu of revenue options for Racine and Kenosha County – Sub-RTAs created in Racine and Kenosha counties may be funded through a combination of currently authorized local revenue. New transit revenue sources not authorized under current law are subject to referenda requirements.
Maximum revenue commitment – The maximum amount of revenue commitment of the RTA will be based on local transit needs, including funding necessary to construct and operate the KRM commuter rail link.
Incentive funding – A pool of funding will be created to provide an incentive for local governments to create sub-RTAs. Incentive pool may consist of rental car fee revenue, funding from the transportation fund or some other source of funds.
Federal Transit Administration approval – The transit authority will be crafted with the intention of strengthening the KRM commuter rail project New Starts grant application with Federal Transit Administration
To expect the sub-RTAs will remain at peace while the funding demands of a common project inevitably grow, is either wishful thinking on Doyle’s part or a calculation that he will be safely out of town by the time reality sets in.
It would be better to address more immediate concerns.
The Governor could have assigned a higher priority to addressing the problems of Milwaukee County mass transit. Instead he wants to blow $50 million on new trains that, under present circumstances, might as well be delivered straight to the National Railroad Museum.
And there is the question whether area voters are really on board for this, as the administration claims.
State Rep. Robin Vos (R-Caledonia) has been calling for a new referendum, pointing out that Milwaukee County voters said yes to a proposal that included funding for emergency medical services and parks as well as transit.
Laying on a new sales tax now will be just the first step to bigger tax subsidies later on, Vos says, criticizing the administration for choosing to expand government’s transit commitments instead of fixing an immediate transit problem.
“The tax increases will continue to get bigger as the projects get bigger,” he warns.
Do You Know What a Lie is?
—James Mason, The Verdict
 No doubt President Obama has been reading the stories that say Americans like him better than they like his policies. That might explain why he increasingly feels the need to address the nation and persuade us that those policies should be as popular as he is.
If his objective is equal popularity between policy and personality, he should remember this can be achieved in two different ways.
The less preferable way involves further demonstrations that the President thinks he can say absolutely anything and demand we believe it, even to the extent of making contradictory statements days, minutes or even seconds apart.
For instance, in last week’s address to a special joint session of Congress, the President labeled Medicare “unsustainable” and said “our health care program is our deficit problem.”
But then he said an $880 billion expansion of federally-financed health coverage won’t add “one dime to the deficit.”
He called Medicare a “sacred trust” which, nevertheless, would be targeted for half a trillion dollars in cuts, to do away with the “waste and abuse” that now occurs because we've bungled efforts to honor the sacred trust.
Even if you believe any of that, you can’t help but notice that $880 billion is more than $500 billion, so hack away at the “waste and abuse” and you still have 3,800 billion dimes added to the deficit.
The President’s solution to the $380 billion problem is an independent commission the President says will ferret out even more waste and abuse. Which inspires this suggestion: If savings that exceed the cost of a complete health care overhaul are available by eliminating $500 billion in waste and abuse the President has already identified, then hop to it! Why wait for an overhaul that might not happen?
The uninsured and the elderly who we’re told are shortchanged by the current system might be grateful.
Tort Reform on the menu?
 The outcome of the child’s bet that someone can’t go ten seconds without thinking of the word “rhinoceros” is never in doubt. Just so, it’s impossible to think about reducing health care costs without thinking of cutting back the costly practice of defensive medicine by adopting reasonable tort reform. But that would run counter to the wishes of trial lawyers.
So it borders on the comical to watch the Obama administration ignore the rhinoceros under the rug and plow ahead with health care initiatives that will force doctors to run up even higher expenses, or take their turn as the target of entrepreneurial litigation.
Wisconsin Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner recognizes an opportunity falling by the wayside. Following the President’s address to Congress last Wednesday, Sensenbrenner said he’d send Obama a letter “offering my help with medical liability reform, as this is a needed way to improve the health care system while cutting costs.”
“If the President is truly serious about working across the aisle and listening to ideas, I hope he’ll accept my assistance,” Sensenbrenner added. “We passed tort reform several times when I was the House Judiciary Committee Chairman, only for it to be killed in the Senate. Now is the time to make it a reality.”
The administration’s version of reality is to direct Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (executive director, Kansas Trial Lawyers Association, 1977-86: Wikipedia,) to undertake test projects. We are experiencing a level of suspense roughly comparable to that involved in the rhinoceros bet.
Mason’s Millionaire Tax
 Count State Rep. Cory Mason (D-Racine) among those still curiously susceptible to the notion that higher taxes mean more jobs.
Flanked by State Reps. Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee) and Kim Hixson (D-Whitewater) at a Capitol news conference last Tuesday, Mason proposed what he calls the “Wisconsin Jobs Initiative.” The proposal, Mason said, “will train and educate at least 40,000 Wisconsin residents and give employers the skilled workers they need.”
We’re all for that. How to make it happen?
Simple: Soak the rich. Rep. Mason proposes to hit up Wisconsin taxpayers with incomes above $1 million for one additional percentage point. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates this would raise $145 million annually.
And it sounds so reasonable. Just one percent. How could millionaires quibble over one, lousy percent?
The bad news for Rep. Mason, et. al., is that at some point they do quibble, and even worse, they’re capable of doing something about it.
Maryland is far from unique among states that have persisted with self-destructive taxation, but it does provide one of the more recent and more pertinent examples.
As The Wall Street Journal reported at the end of May, a special millionaire tax bracket created last year to fix Maryland’s out-of-balance budget yielded $100 million less revenue from the targeted fat cats than they paid at their previous, lower tax rate.
It seems one-third of the millionaire tax-filers in Maryland simply disappeared from one year to the next—a phenomenon the Journal rightly observes is substantially related to the recession.
But it would be folly to overlook one very important point: People with million-dollar incomes—who tend to be disproportionately responsible for job-creation—are typically able to clear out and create those jobs someplace else when they tire of being plundered by governments that lack the discipline to control their expenses.
Rep. Mason says the extra revenue would boost support for Wisconsin’s technical colleges, help the state qualify for matching federal funds and prepare people for “21st century jobs.”
Swell. Only two things need to happen: There can be no Maryland-style surprises when it’s time to collect the revenue, and those 21st century jobs need to still be here after yet another round of state punishment for job-creating activity.
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