Wisconsin Wednesday: Ixnay on the ABOR-TAY

Okay, before we can go on, you need to go into your bathroom and get a tube of toothpaste. Go on. I'll wait.





Got one? Good. Take off the cap and gently squeeze. Toothpaste comes out the end, right? Okay, clean that up.

Now, squeeze with one hand while you use a finger from your other hand to plug up the opening to the tube. What happened? It was harder for the toothpaste to come out, but some finally escaped. Clean up that mess, too.

Finally--and this is the last one, I promise--put the cap back on the toothpaste. Give the tube a good, hard, squeeze. Harder. Harder still. Whoa! Too hard!

Your toothpaste tube probably did not actually explode, since they make those things out of steel or something, but you can probably imagine the worst case scenario: The squeezing kept getting worse until finally the thing exploded.

Most of you are pretty smart (the ones of you who actually squirted toothpaste all over your house while reading this? Not so smart) and can see where I'm going here. Our little experiment is my latest contribution to the TABOR debate. And it encapsulates everything Republicans are doing wrong.

Look, I'm a regular guy. I have a job. I own a house. And I, you know, pay taxes, too. A lot of them. Sometimes, I feel squeezed.

The school district where I teach is also pretty squeezed, which explains at least part of the reason why I'm squeezed as a taxpayer. The fact that Wisconsin is among the top ten of all states in prison spending, transportation spending, and education spending is a part of that, too. What TABORites want to do is cap the tube of toothpaste. And they've been trying that, in one form or another, for more than a decade.

Think back, for example, to the first moves in this direction. In the early nineties, Wisconsin taxpayers and agencies were starting to feel the squeeze. So the legislature tried to put a finger over the opening of the toothpaste tube in the form of school spending changes: the QEO, revenue caps, and a commitment to find 2/3 of school costs from state coffers. That led to a near-immediate relief in property taxes, but costs at schools kept rising and the toothpaste started splurting out of the tube again.

In fact, every single Republican proposal to address the concerns of taxpayers has been an ineffectual finger over the mouth of the toothpaste tube, up to and including TABOR talk (support for which boggles my mind, as it cements in place the current unfair tax structure) and the "tax freeze" business. Let me make my position on this clear:

The problem is not that we don't have a cap on our tube. The problem is that no one is trying to stop the squeezing.

(This is my common complaint with Republicans: They're all about "responsibility" but they want to wait until there's a mess and force you to clean it up--think about Republicans' drug or abortion policies--instead of providing you with better choices before you make the mess.)

Even with an iron-clad cap like TABOR would be, the squeezing, without relief, only means that at some point down the road, the tube will pop open, and then there will be toothpaste everywhere. And I'm not cleaning it up!

This is, of course, what has happened in Colorado over the last decade. Sure, taxes are low and there is considerably less squeeze in that arena, but services were slashed, tuition skyrocketed, and infrastructure crumbled. Sounds like there's Colgate on the mirror, there.

Now, Wisconsin TABORites will talk about how adjustments to our TABOR would allow for greater flexibility than Colorado's law. Fine. But it still addresses the problem ass-backwards. TABOR only tries to cap the tube, not address the squeezing.

TABORites will also be more than happy to explain how TABOR does address the squeezing. "If their hands are tied," TABORites will say, referring to those lousy elected officials who can't control themselves when it comes to spending, "then they have to stop squeezing!" Problem is, those elected officials are being squeezed, and that's why there's a problem in the first place!

Do you really think Milwaukee Public Schools--I'm being local here, I know, but this is the situation I know best--really wants to hit the revenue cap every year at the same time it's laying off staff and closing schools? Of course not! And if anyone tells you that the board members--many of whom I know personally--are just unable to control themselves, then clearly they've never been in that position. The corollary to my position above:

We are being squeezed because no one is doing anything to address the cost side of the issue!

In almost every sector of government, the cost of doing business is increasing faster than inflation, wages, and population growth. This is in part due to items that the state could very well step in and control if they had the political will to do it. It's things like repealing truth in sentencing, which has ratcheted our corrections budget way up. Or like doing something about the spiraling costs of health care or prescription drugs. Or making sure we get full reimbursement from the feds on Medicare and school funding. Or cutting the sacred gas tax cow.

And, look, I'm not saying Democrats have exactly been blazing the trail on this the way they should be. But if the only thing the legislative leadership wants to talk about is putting their fingers or some kind of band-aid over the opening to the tube, something's going to blow up eventually. And it just seems smarter to stop the squeeze first.

(Sorry this is late and link-less; I was home sick today and still spent the better part of the afternoon reading Julius Caesar essays. I may get it gussied up for a post over at Fighting Bob where, like Stacie and Jason, I'll be doing some guesting for the near future.)