Taxes, Lies and Videotape

by capper

Well, since Jay went ahead and stole most of my thunder, I will settle for pointing out how the local Faux News (WITI-TV) disproves the notion of liberal media with their cheerleading cover of this story.

The Faux News sends their intrepid crew to the Tosa Home Depot to cover Walker's grandstanding. They repeat the Tosa Ranger's talking point by saying that if the sales tax were to pass (failing to mention that it was only a referendum), that consumers would only have to "go across the street" and do their shopping in Waukesha County, which has a lower sales tax.

There are two faults with this argument. One is that Waukesha County already has a lower sales tax, and that apparently hasn't hurt local merchants.

The other is purely logistics. Unless, Home Depot, and every other store would build a store immediately across the street from their existing stores, it wouldn't save the consumer any money, except for very large purchases, like a car.

Gas has just went up to over $3 a gallon in most locations. Now, I live within a mile and a half of the Milwaukee-Waukesha border. Let's say that I need a loaf of bread, which sells for a dollar. Would I go to the local store, a mile away, and pay the extra penny, or would I want to drive 5 miles extra miles to save that penny. Now, even though my vehicle gets good mileage, the cost of the gas, not to mention wear and tear on the car, would be much more than a penny.

The government standard for mileage reimbursement is 48.5 cents per mile. To drive that six mile round trip, the proposed cost would be $2.91. To break even on the penny sales tax, that means I would have to spend almost $300 dollars.

But the best part of the report is when they show Walker himself repeat the party line, "We're already taxed too much, we need to do a better job with the money we already have."

Here's a news scoop for you, Mr. Walker. You were the one in charge of the money we already have, and you were the one that blew it.