Commentary Update for January 13, 2003:Speaking of Doyle, The Graft Tax, Speaking of Taxes, Dubya's Tax Plan, Bowling for Columbine
Our April interview with then candidate James Doyle will continue to run this week as it has been getting a very favorable response. The Hamilton Consulting Group's Political Tidbits includes an excellent summary of Doyle team transition events.
In other news:
Speaking of the Guv: Just when you thought that Scott McCallum was the most intellectually challenged career politician ever to sit in the power seat, news broke late last week that Jim Doyle--a man with a reputation for being a strict "open government" type--asked everyone on his transition team to sign a confidentiality agreement saying that they would only share information with "authorized" individuals. The agreement form says that violations of confidentiality could result in dismissal from the transition team and "subject me to disciplinary action by my primary employer." A list of people who actually signed this nonsense can be found here. The Republican Party has asked Doyle for an explanation.
The Graft Tax: Today the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign released a detailed report identifying how much special interest tax breaks actually cost average taxpayers in the long run. The writers note that "The cost of these favors - in the form of tax breaks and loopholes, pork barrel spending projects, lucrative state contracts and more - considerably exceeds the size of the current state budget deficit." Something to think about as Doyle gets ready to propose significant layoffs of state employees.
Speaking of Taxes: Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance President Todd Berry told Jim Mather and I a few months back that Wisconsin's tax code is "basically progressive." However, a new study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy calls such claims into question. The major findings were:
The full study of Wisconsin can be found here.
Data for all 50 states can be found here.
The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign "graft tax" report is informative here in showing how corporate tax breaks have increased the regressive nature of the state's taxes. . The report shows that "Individual income taxpayers shouldered 42 percent, or $5 billion, of the $11.88 billion in state taxes and fees collected in 2002. Meanwhile corporate taxes accounted for 4.2 percent, or $503 million, of the total tax burden, according to the Department of Revenue and the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance. . . Corporations have paid an ever-shrinking share of the general state tax burden since corporate taxes peaked at 11.3 percent in 1979."
But What About Dubya's Tax Plan?: The conservative Wisconsin State Journal in a news report last week informed us that the state could lose over $100 million in revenues if the plan goes through. Speaking of Dubya', David Broder in the Washington Post yesterday wrote that "Two years after taking office, Bush is presiding over the biggest, most expensive federal government in history." If Bush Bashing is your thing, please be sure to check out the most current issue of John Lemberger's A Second Opinion.
See This Movie: I had the chance to see Michael Moore's "Bowling For Columbine" last week and found it nothing short of extraordinary. Moore's film explains gun violence in America as less the result of too many guns in society and more as a product of a general "culture of fear." He also makes connections between government use of violence to resolve conflicts and the population at large doing the same. Roger Ebert gives it three and a half stars.