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Off The Editor’s Desk – 4-29-2015

“WISCONSIN IS THE THIRD WORST STATE FOR TAXPAYERS”

According to a report from WalletHub, Wisconsin is the third worst state to be a taxpayer.

When Jim Doyle was governor of Wisconsin, he borrowed millions of dollars, which was funded into the state’s schools. It was a promise he made to the unions and when he found out that he could not raise that money from taxation, he borrowed, most of which was from the federal unemployment fund.

As far as I can see, those borrowed funds had no effect on the education of our children. It did, however, affect any business in the state that had an unemployment account with the state and that is every privately owned business including the business that I run (this newspaper).

As a business owner, I got a bill each year for my part of the interest on the money that Doyle borrowed. It was just around a couple hundred a year, but I worried about how I would pay my share of the principal as a business owner. I could have not been happier when I learned that the state legislators found a way to pay off that loan without taxing private business.

I recently read a news release from UW-Stout out of Menomonie, which was lashing out at the Governor Walker’s proposed upcoming budget and how it might hurt the university system. As much as I would like to feel for Stout, I can’t. They and the rest of the university system schools need to make it work with what they have.

School expenses, and all the other government programs have drained the state taxpayers. Now, that brings me back to the WalletHub report that Wisconsin is the third worst state to be a taxpayer.

According to their report, the only bright spot for taxpayers in this state is the vehicle taxes. The report puts Wisconsin at number one, which is the best, meaning we pay the least.

As for sales taxes, we are at number thirteen and 42nd with our income tax rate. But, there are only two states that have higher real estate taxes than Wisconsin does. My thought is where is the money going to come from to keep spending more on higher education? Plus all the other services that we have come to depend on.

Thanks for reading! — Carlton