Off The Editor’s Desk – 1-30-2019
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During Christmas (or is it Holiday) break from school our seven-year-old grandson was visiting us and ask to watch a movie on the DVD. He picked out the “Little Rascals” movie. I watched that 1994 movie with him and Donald Trump played Richie Rich’s father.
After that was done he found a 30-year old tape of our 25th wedding anniversary that was held at our home, mostly out in the yard. I had trouble explaining to him that those young kids were his dad and uncles and even harder time explaining the great-grandparents.
Near the end of the tape, it films most of us in the house with family members opening cards. He stated, “That’s the room in your house out there.” And, then he quickly inquired, “Did you have lights back then?”
I watched the State of the State address by our new governor, Tony Evers, last week. I was not surprised that most of his energy will be focused on spending more money for education.
Evers stated, “We are a state forged by the Wisconsin idea – the notion that education forms our public policy and that knowledge should embrace the communities we’re called to serve. But today, we are also a state among the worst to raise a black family, and we are a state that’s spending more on corrections than our entire UW System.”
I found out later that spending on corrections is not more than what is spent within the UW system.
He continued, “We are a state that once cultivated new technology from typewriters to automobiles, we’ve led the nation in innovation. But today, we are a state that’s behind on broadband expansion, and we trail the country in start-ups and small business creation.”
He did not indicate how he would propose to help small businesses get started and why did those industries that cultivated new technology leave the state. The left wing socialists of a hundred years ago started a program called “Wisconsin Forward.” That program, ruled, regulated and taxed those businesses right out of the state.
A two-line statement he made, which indicates to me that his administration will be comfortable with the unemployment rate going higher. He said, “But there is more to an economy than counting job creation. And the state of our state is more than just an employment rate.”
We can look forward to an increase in our states taxes to fund his initiatives. He proposed increasing state aid to three-quarter per student and funding $600 million more dollars to special education.
Evers stated that he would cut state income taxes by ten percent on families making less than $150,000 annually but would be capping corporate tax credits. Those corporations are the firms that create new jobs and taxing them will only make them move to a more favorable tax climate.
One tax I heard about after his speech is he would like to bring back taxes on manufacturing and agriculture. Fifty or more years ago the state taxed machinery that was used in the manufacturing of goods and wears in the state and taxed cattle on the farm. I remember back in the sixties that we printed a small booklet for the county. That booklet contained the number of cows and pigs on each farm in the county by township. Those animals were then taxed as personal property. The same was for the manufacturing machinery including the printing presses in our office.
Today, those cattle and that manufacturing equipment is not taxed. Our former governor proposed to remove all personal property taxes in the state, as it cost more to collect those taxes than was gathered as income for the state. Evers may change that, but I am sure that we will see more taxes in this state.
Finally, he ended his 30-minute speech with, “I have no doubt that there will be issues on which we disagree. I have no doubt that there will be times when we will be frustrated by the deliberative process of democracy. But we will engage civilly. We will have discourse and dialogue, but it will not devolve into disrespect.”
There will be no disrespect only if he and his party get their way. I remember just a few years back when there was a fight over Act 10, and the Democratic Senators of this state fled to Illinois and closed down the halls at the state capitol because they did not get their way.
If you think the happenings in Washington D.C. are a mess, just wait for a couple of months and that might be happening in our state.
Thanks for reading! ~Carlton