Wow! In the span of an hour or so, Governor Doyle gored so many oxen it is likely the rest sought cover in the really deep weeds!
I wrote earlier of the impending certainty of tax increases when we’d elected our Governor for a second term. There were constituencies needing rewards for getting out the vote, making significant campaign contributions, frightening away enemies in the other camp, etc.
In my wildest imagination…make that nightmare…I couldn’t have begun to find so many oxen asking to be gored! Congratulations Governor Doyle. Certainly, this must be a record. $1.7 Billion in new fees and taxes that we know about and some fund raiding thrown in for good measure.
First, there was a promise by the Governor to not raise our property taxes. When will we learn that such promises, from any politician, need be viewed with skepticism? When will we learn that, if we’re not capable of parsing words with the best of them, we probably are jumping to wrong conclusions?
Second, how does this affect Germantown? Let me count the ways.
He may not raise our property taxes by signing his name to such a bill, but he most certainly will have raised them by virtue of opening the flood gates and letting our local governments, school districts and unelected commissions have their way with us lowly taxpayers.
The Governor has requested that our legislature raise the cap on municipal expenditures to 4%, or more if local growth has been greater than 4%. We predicted that.
The Governor has begun the mantra of repealing the law that capped pay and benefit cost increases for our teachers at 3.7%, even though several school districts have found themselves exceeding that cap over the recent past based on their own initiative. We predicted the demise of QEOs (qualified economic offers).
The list of “fees” he requested be increased covers the gamut. Those are not taxes, technically, but the funding for those fees comes from the same pockets that fork over the taxes, namely ours!
“Big tobacco” got its chops whacked. Hundreds of millions of dollars are going to come from the pockets of cigarette and cigar smokers, and other equally bad people. Days later, a Federal push to bring tobacco under Federal Drug Administration jurisdiction was announced. What might that do to this apple cart?
“Big oil” came in for a licking, too. Except that price tag will find its way to the pumps in spite of the Governor’s statement to the contrary. “Big hospital” got kicked, too. Except that the
