TABOR update

Last week I wrote about TABOR, the inaptly named Taxpayers' Bill of Rights, and how it was bad, bad voodoo (scroll down to Wednesday May 5). Today, we get word from Madison that GOoPers are abandoning any hope of reaching consensus on TABOR as a constitutional amendment, and instead they're planning to re-introduce their idiotic property tax freeze legislation. That's the bill that was vetoed once by Governor Jim Doyle already, less than a year ago.

Today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has the poop. And I do mean poop. Because once again this legislature, which has repeatedly refused to address both cost controls and tax fairness, is once again ass-backwards in trying to control property tax rates first.

IF the legislature would attempt to bring increases in health care costs in Wisconsin--and particularly here in SE Wisconsin--to closer to the rate of inflation (instead of three or four times it), then we can talk about freezing the property tax.

IF the legislature would allow Gov. Doyle's school finance panel to hammer out a fair, equitable new school-funding formula that (I hope) does not rely almost exclusively on the propetry tax, then we can talk about freezing the property tax.

IF the legislature would address the fact that homeowners' share of the property tax revenue is nearly two-thirds, while the taxes paid by business keeps falling, then we can talk about freezing the property tax.

Even if all of these "ifs" were true, the property tax freeze, like TABOR, is still based on the asinine assumption that elected officials are greedy bastards who don't know how to control themselves when it comes to spending. State Assembly speaker John Gard, theoretically from Peshtigo but who owns a house outside of Madison and is barely ever in Peshtigo, demonstrates both this rude attitude toward local elected officials as well as his own blind spot toward state spending. Consider (from the link above):

Hundreds of local governments voluntarily limited their property tax levies to the guidelines GOP legislators pushed last year, according to a study by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

Those communities proved that a property tax "freeze" is reasonable, Gard said. [. . .] A strict limit on property tax levies beginning with this December's tax bills, and in the following two years, is needed so local officials don't go back to their high-spending ways, he said. [. . .]

Gard said some pockets of Wisconsin are climbing out of the recession, but "there's a whole lot of people still that have not the same level of disposable income in their pocket as a year ago. Look at gas prices out there, that's eating up a sizable chunk of people's income."

Hm, folkbum wonders. Why are gas prices so high? Well, of course, there is that unpleasantness in Iraq. But is the something else? Oh, yes:

Since 1985, motor vehicle fuel tax hikes have been made under an indexing adjustment provision of Wisconsin law. The non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates that the automatic indexing of the state’s fuel tax rate each year results in approximately $3.2 billion in additional fuel tax revenues from 1985 through 2004. Out of the projected April 1, 2004 tax rate of 29.1 cents per gallon, approximately 10.1 cents is the result of such automatic indexing, and the cumulative change in the motor vehicle fuel tax rate due to indexing will result in approximately $340 million in additional revenues to the transportation fund in 2004. [. . .]

Almost a year ago, [State] Senator [Tim] Carpenter introduced Senate Bill 43, which would eliminate the automatic indexing provisions of Wisconsin’s motor vehicle fuel tax, and would require the legislature to authorize, by vote, any increase of this tax.

God forbid we should do anything to cut spending on roads (or prisons, but that's another show). But roads, check this out:

In his first year as Assembly Speaker, John Gard raised more large individual contributions from powerful special interests outside of his Assembly District than any previous candidate for the Legislature, a Wisconsin Democracy Campaign analysis shows.

Gard raised $248,925 from individual contributors in 2003. Of that, $232,663 came in large individual donations--contributions totaling $100 or more in a year from the same contributor. Most of these large contributions--$227,708 or 97.9 percent--came from outside his district. [. . .]

Special interests contribute to legislative leaders, and especially Gard, to get the pet projects, perks or state spending they want, or items that they oppose shot down.

For instance, Gard received $30,350 in 2003--more than any other legislator--from road builders and transportation interests who benefited handsomely from Gard’s leadership role. Earlier this year Gard killed a legislative proposal that would have ended automatic annual increases of Wisconsin’s gasoline tax, which is one of the highest in the nation at 32.1 cents per gallon. The measure had the support of Democrats and Republicans but was opposed by road builders because the gasoline tax pays for the ever-growing list of multi-million contracts they receive to build roads.

Sometimes I still have it in me to ask how Republicans think they can get away with this kind of crap. Sometimes I just can't wait for November when we have a chance to vote their hypocritical selves out.