Does Neumann Understand His Own "Tax Cut?"
We’ve tried hard to understand how Mark Neumann’s property tax “cut” proposal would work, but the only thing we can say with reasonable confidence is that he probably doesn’t understand it either.
Neumann appears to believe the only effect of skipping an entire year’s property tax collections would be an economic boom fueled by taxpayers spending their escrow accounts. He insisted to Charlie Sykes on his radio program that under his plan, “you do not owe any taxes for 2011, period.”
You decide: Neumann’s plan would let taxpayers keep the money they escrow in 2011 for tax bills due in January 2012, and instead make twelve monthly payments in 2012. That doesn’t sound to us like skipping a year; it sounds like making that year’s payments one month at a time. And shaazam! The money in your escrow account might come in handy for that. Even Todd Berry, President of the non-partisan Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance said it wasn't a tax cut. "The key point is all this does is change the timing when you pay your property taxes - it doesn't cut them," Berry said. "So the main benefit - if there is a benefit - is that it might free some escrow money for some people and that might have a stimulative value."
If anyone can credibly explain how this would save even one taxpayer even one cent, they’ll be doing a better job of it than Mark Neumann. His scheme looks like a money-loser for taxpayers, if for no other reason than the loss of their federal income tax deduction for property taxes paid.
We’ll elbow our way to the front of the line when it comes to calling on local governments to do more with less, but stiffing them for what they’re owed wouldn’t be the way to get there even if that was what this daffy plan did.
Another Election Year Conversion
As if someone had thrown a switch, last week congressional Democrats began jabbering about extending the formerly atrocious Bush tax cuts. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is evidently reading the same talking points.
Barrett says he is at work on a no-tax-increase budget.
As the Journal-Sentinel put it in a lead paragraph, “For the first time since he was elected, Mayor Tom Barrett is trying to craft a city budget that doesn’t raise either property taxes or major user fees—right in the middle of his campaign for governor.”
The Journal-Sentinel dutifully reported that the mayor and his people say their newfound frugality is not politically motivated.
Of course not. No one but a cynic would believe a mayor who’s never presented a budget without a tax increase would start now, just because his likely opponent has introduced eight consecutive no-tax-increase budgets for Milwaukee County and is on track to do so a ninth time.
Milwaukee County taxes have, of course, gone up, but only because the county board has overridden Scott Walker’s vetoes. The Milwaukee Common Council hasn’t had the inconvenience of a mayor who won’t voluntarily raise taxes, but the betting in City Hall is that a little shuck and jive in the coming weeks will make you forget all that.
And don’t sell the mayor short. The 2009 stock market rebound got the city off the hook for its 2011 employee pension fund contribution. None is required, so a $49 million obligation vanishes. Watch for masterfully targeted spending increases miraculously appearing within a budget that holds the line on taxes—for one year, anyway.
The Liberation of Bob Zigelbauer
In June, Representative Bob Ziegelbauer announced he’d seek re-election to the state Assembly as an Independent, saying he couldn’t be a “yes man” to the Democratic leadership and “go along with every tax increase or expansion of their power without the backbone to stand up for the people. That won’t work for me.”
What won’t work for Democrats is anything weakening their stranglehold on state government. In reducing the Assembly’s Democratic majority to 51 of 99, Ziegelbauer’s move has precipitated a faux-GOP candidacy contrived to drain votes from the popular incumbent and let another Democrat in through the back door.
Deposited like a foundling on the GOP doorstep was 26-year old Andrew Wisniewski, a purported Republican challenger to Ziegelbauer. Oddly, Wisniewski didn’t take the usual route of candidates personally filing their nomination signatures with the Government Accountability Board (GAB). Wisniewski’s documents were filed on the July 13 deadline by Jason Sidener, a political foot soldier of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), an organization not customarily seen facilitating Republican candidacies. Equally odd, when Wisniewski was subsequently disqualified for collecting too few signatures, it was Sidener who steered the GAB to 11 more, dragging Wisniewski across the finish line.
Economic literacy sets Ziegelbauer apart from many of his assembly colleagues. Last week, in his other job as Manitowoc County Executive, he suggested a 2011 wage freeze and other cost-cutting moves to avoid county employee layoffs. But some bargaining units have shown they prefer layoffs—60 since 2009—to conceding one inch of turf. Still wonder why AFSCME would gin up a “Republican” candidacy for a legislative seat held by Democrats since the ice age ended?
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