County Cuts Taxes - And Taxes Keep Rising

Do I have to say something nice about Sauk County’s budget?

I might – and nobody will be more surprised than me. I will, of course, reserve the right to take it all back.

The headline from today’s Baraboo News Republic: Committee Recommends Tax Decrease.

If the County Board follows a recommendation from its finance committee, Sauk County's levy rate could decrease for the first time since 1999. The County Finance Committee approved a draft budget calling for a 2005 levy rate of $4.70 per $1,000 of assessed property value, down from last year's rate of $4.94.

The committee recommended a total levy of $23,123,509 -- a 4.33 percent increase from last year -- but the board may decide to add to the amount. Last year, the committee called for a property tax levy of $20.5 million and a levy rate of $4.58, but the board restored money to several departmental budgets, raising the total levy to over $22 million -- a 14.5 percent increase.

Note the repeated caveats: “If the County Board follows a recommendation…” and “but the board may decide…”

The reporter remembers last year, when the Finance Committee spent three agonizing days trying to fit the county’s budget into a state-shrunken hole, only to have the full board put spending item after spending item back.

This year’s finance committee is, on paper, more liberal than last year’s. That led me to wonder if they would be more likely to spend more, even if it meant a tax increase.

Then the state Department of Revenue announced that property values increased by nearly 8.5% statewide, and by 10.2% in Sauk County. That sealed it – I was sure the committee would spend up to that increase, at least.

Well, what a nice surprise – at least for now, the spending increase is quite modest, at only 4.3%. The tax rate will go down.

Ironic, isn’t it, that all five members of the Finance Committee are on record opposing the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, yet their spending increase falls easily within TABOR’s limits?

Now, the budget picture isn’t all wine and roses. For one thing, the full Board could do this year just what they did last year: add more spending to the budget.

But I think there’s less danger of that this year. First, the budget situation has stabilized: the county has already absorbed the cuts to our budget that followed the state’s recent deficits and budget cuts. We’ve also already absorbed the increases in personnel costs that came with the new jail.

Second, I think this finance committee will get a better reception from the full Board than last year’s did, in an “only Nixon can go to China” sort of way. The Finance Committee has some of the Board’s more liberal members on it this year, which may lube the gears for them. They’ll be less vulnerable to questions about their “commitment” to “helping people” or other such twaddle.

But even if the budget does sail through as is, it isn’t going to provide much relief for the county’s taxpayers. Assessments have gone up, too – by 30%, average, in the City of Baraboo. This means that, even at the lower tax rate, we’ll all be paying more.

This year, the owner of a $100,000 house is paying $494 in county taxes – that’s the result of the 4.94 mill rate. At next year’s rate, the same house would be taxed only $470.

But next year, that same house will assessed at $130,000, average. Instead of declining to $470, the taxes on this house will go up to $611 – a 23.7% increase.

Tax cut? What tax cut? And that’s just the county’s taxes. There’s still the city and the school district to consider.

Now, the county can’t be held responsible for increases in assessed value – they didn’t do it, the city did.

Still, I wonder how many families won’t be able to afford it? Even those who don’t have to move out – how many dinners out, movie rentals, trips to the Dells will have to be postponed? How much less will we all spend at Christmas and Easter?

I know, that’s selfish of me, right? Some would say so. Those are luxuries, after all.

Perhaps you call them luxuries, but I call them somebody else’s living. Somebody pays their bills by selling us movie tickets, wrapping paper, soccer balls. That’s called economic activity.

And that economic activity is going the way of the dodo, unless we can somehow get taxes under control.

The 80% Minority

When is a majority not a majority?

When the majority does something conservative.

That’s how it always seems, anyway. Certain things – issues, people, ideas – have been defined as extreme, right-wing, ultra-conservative – far from the mainstream, no matter what contrary evidence may come to light.

For example, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Nearly three-fourths of Wisconsin voters support constitutional spending limits in Wisconsin, according to a recent poll.

To hear the establishment tell it, of course, that means three-fourths of Wisconsin voters don’t know what they’re talking about. TABOR, they say, will be disastrous. Just look at Colorado.

Oh, but in Colorado, where TABOR has been law for a decade, 60% say keep it. Another 16% say keep it with changes. Only 15% want to dump it.

Yep. TABOR supporters are extreme.

Take another example. In Wisconsin’s most-watched primary of the year, a staunch conservative, Glenn Grothman, beat a more moderate but far more powerful opponent, Senate Majority Leader Mary Panzer, by a 4 to 1 margin – 79% to 21%.

That’s not just a blowout. For a back-bench Representative to challenge and demolish one of the highest-ranking members of the State Legislature at all, much less by that margin, is entirely unheard of.

Yet the media treats Grothman’s victory like they would react to a drunken uncle at the annual family dinner. They avert their eyes, uncomfortably hide their faces, not quite believing that anyone could embarrass themselves like that.

Take this Journal Sentinel editorial entitled “Smaller tent for GOP?”

“Grothman’s victory, as impressive as it is, raises concerns that the state Republican party may be moving farther to the right…Panzer got it right when she said, ‘You don’t govern from the extreme, you govern from the center’…A party loses something when it consciously makes its tent smaller.”

From the Sheboygan Press: “Grothman’s victory will likely mean a veer to the right for the state GOP…”

And from the Oshkosh Northwestern: “By promising a vote on TABOR (new Senate Majority Leader) Fitzgerald has stroked the ego of his party’s ultra-rightists who intend to vote on the concept until it becomes law.”

Of course, I wouldn’t accuse these fine publications of taking orders from the state Democratic Party, but it’s funny just how much their reactions sound like the DPW press release:

“The Republican Party took an extreme turn to the right yesterday, when moderate incumbent legislators in both houses were defeated by right-wing conservative sin the Republican primary election.”

Finally, saving the best for last, consider these paragraphs from the far-left writer Joel McNally, published in the Shepherd Express:

“We all could enjoy the gang fight going in Wisconsin right now between the far right Crips and the extreme-right Bloods if we didn't have to worry about getting caught in the crossfire. Paleolithic Republican Rep. Glenn Grothman took on Mary Panzer, the Neolithic Republican majority leader of the state Senate, to prove that the party wasn't ready for such newfangled ideas as using stone implements to carve out their right-wing legislation.”

Extreme. Ultra-right. Right-wing. Knuckle-dragging (to paraphrase McNally). Get it? Thanks to Grothman’s victory, the Legislature is about to go off the deep right end.

Deep breath. Now, let’s go over a few facts:

Glenn Grothman won barely less than 80% of the vote – a vast majority.

And this wasn’t just a handful of pitchfork-wielding Buchananites. Turnout in this election was far higher than election officials expected. Nearly 35,000 people cast ballots – almost as many as in two other heavily contested Senate districts, the 4th and the 16th , combined.

Polling places had ballot shortages. One city even had to resort to using photocopies, to accommodate all the voters.

In a Republican primary, you know the hard conservatives are going to vote. The big right-wingers will cast their ballots. In a low-turnout election, that can decide it.

This wasn’t a low-turnout election. This wasn’t just the ultra-hard-core conservatives coming to vote. This wasn’t just the traditional conservatives. It wasn’t just the average conservatives. Turnout this high means moderates and even liberals were coming out to vote, too.

This is the electorate that gave 80% of its votes to Glenn Grothman. The electorate that put their stamp of approval on a pro-TABOR and pro-life candidate.

The extreme, ultra-right, pre-stone-age electorate.

Which brings me to the question: when do conservative values become mainstream values?

Any answer that requires more than 80%, well, I’d call that answer extreme.

The Progressive Myth

Progressivism: fact or fiction?

In one way, it’s an established fact. As it’s defined today, progressivism is really nothing more than a wing of American liberalism or (dare I say it) socialism.

But as a political movement of its own – to that, I say fiction. And I believe its leaders know it.

Exhibit A: Ed Garvey.

Garvey has become Wisconsin’s leading Progressive, curator of the progressive weblog, fightingbob.com.

Last week, Garvey (and several others) tried to define what, to them, a Progressive is. Here’s part of his answer:

“Most important of all, it requires a belief that the powers that ought to be can prevail over the powers that be. Progressives must be less concerned about a single election than with the philosophical framework within which the candidates operate and support those who believe in economic and social justice.”

The principle above the practical. Victories in individual elections, Garvey says, aren’t as important as furthering the overall goal.

How, then, to explain his support for John Kerry, over Ralph Nader?

There are two possibilities for Garvey: he’s either a card-carrying member of the radical Bush-hating left, or he’s a calculating Democrat partisan who attacks the other side in order to attract the radical Bush-hating left.

Either way, he’s doing a good job. Check out this line from his most recent column:

“They (Kerry and Edwards) must talk about the inability of the Bush administration to stop the 9/11 attack, the assault on our environment, the challenge to our civil liberties, the proven lies used to justify the invasion of Iraq and the fact that we have lost that war.”

Senator Feingold? Congresswoman Baldwin? Care to comment on this?

This is loony left demagoguery, sure to appeal to the ultra-liberal base, but just as sure to turn off anybody more than a finger’s length to the right of Michael Moore.

That’s Garvey’s intent – he’s not trying to be mainstream. He’s trying to attract the super-liberal.

Later in the same column, Garvey dismisses Ralph Nader’s presidential run this year, while excusing it in 2000: “In truth, it remains unclear why he is running (in 2004). While no one expected Nader to win in 2000, many were determined to help the Green Party gain strength.”

That, according to Garvey’s definition, is just what a good Progressive should do. Support the third party, the non-establishment party. Sure, you’re going to lose this time. You’ll lose next time. But you’ll slowly gain strength, until…what?

It goes without saying that a stronger Green party would only weaken today’s Democratic party, but in Garvey’s definition, that doesn’t matter, as long as the Green party sticks to the principles.

Ah, but what a difference four years makes. Read the rest of his column. Getting rid of President Bush is far more important than supporting progressive principles.

Kerry voted in favor of the Patriot Act. His campaign is being bankrolled by a handful of multi-billionaire activists. He comes not only from money, but from the closest thing America has to an aristocracy. He is one of the pampered, powerful, privileged.

Oh, and he supports the war in Iraq. Or opposes it. Wants to get the troops out. Or put more troops in. Thinks Saddam Hussein was a danger and a threat. Or not.

Not exactly a shrine to Progressivism, is it?

Yes, I know, Bush is evil, controlled by Cheney and Halliburton, and John Ashcroft wants to replace the Constitution with the Bible. To judge by his writings, this is Garvey’s standard answer.

But, Mr. Garvey, why should a Progressive vote for Kerry?

I’m not suggesting there isn’t any reasoned, Progressive argument in Kerry’s favor. I’m sure that a lawyer of Garvey’s experience and education is more than capable of making that case.

So why doesn’t he? Tell us about the legislation Kerry has championed. Explain how a Kerry presidency would further Progressive principles. Back it up with examples from his Senate career.

Most of all, explain why it was important to support a progressive third-party candidate four years ago, but this year it’s akin to liberal treason.

Of course, I don’t expect him to answer these questions. I don’t expect that he can.

Because Garvey’s purpose isn’t to advance Progressivism – it is to gather those voters who are otherwise too disaffected, too radical, too anti-establishment to support a corporate dinosaur like the Democratic Party, and then to galvanize them with anger at the President.

Progressivism is nothing more than a tool. A tool Garvey is using quite well.

Fightin' Bob Fest!

This weekend is a bit of a conundrum for me. Has been for the last three years.

Why? Because I live in Baraboo, where the Sauk County Fairgrounds are. And that has become the annual site of Wisconsin’s “Progressive” political festival, Fighting Bob Fest, named for Robert “Fightin’ Bob” LaFollette, Wisconsin’s most successful politician.

Fightin’ Bob is the patron saint of today’s Wisconsin progressives. Why? Because, over a century ago, Fightin’ Bob broke with the Republican Party that dominated Wisconsin politics. He accused the Republican establishment of being ruled by big business and big money, and began his own pseudo-wing of the party, the Progressives.

Of course, that’s not the whole story. LaFollette was just as accomplished at political warfare and inside trickery as any other major politician of his day – no better, and no worse. But such is the American way of myth-making.

Anyway, the Progressive movement and its attachment to LaFollette’s populism is especially attractive to those who enjoy accusing today’s Republicans – and, yes, today’s Democrats – of exactly the same thing: being in the pockets of big business.

This does cause some amusement, which I’ll expand on a bit later.

The whole idea behind “Progressivism” and Fightin’ Bob Fest is to give the “politically homeless” – those who don’t feel at home in either major party – a political home. As you might imagine, the lineup of speakers at past FBFs has been a lineup of far-left Democrats, including Dennis Kucinich (twice), Tammy Baldwin, John Nichols, and this year, former Iowa Governor Tom Harkin.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with progressivism being entirely populated by liberals. Conservatives who are disgruntled with the Republican Party have other places to go, too, and liberals likely wouldn’t be comfortable at a Libertarian or Constitution Party meeting.

But, boy, sometimes it seems like “progressivism” is just a convenient front for the Democratic Party.

Take, for example, a recent letter, written by a group called United Progressives for Victory: “An Open Letter to Those Considering Voting for Ralph Nader.”

The letter gets a great start. “This election is about ending the reign of George Bush.”

A second Bush term will demolish our already-weakened environmental and consumer protections, decimate our public education system and civil liberties, eliminate a woman's right to choose and medical privacy, ship millions more jobs overseas, and drain programs that help the poor and working families to give tax breaks to the very richest among us...

Conservatives understand power and they want to keep it. They will continue to use whatever means are necessary...

We cannot let the right wing win. We cannot let our democracy be stolen again.

Side note: Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager is among those who signed the letter. I wonder if she would knew what it said before she agreed to sign.

Now, compared to some of the far-leftie ranting you can find on the Internet, this letter is actually pretty tame. The upshot is: they’re asking potential Nader voters to vote for John Kerry.

But isn’t there something odd about that? After all, the progressive movement is a place for those who despise big money politics. Thanks to McCain-Feingold and the creation of 527s, there’s more big money in Kerry’s campaign than there is in Bush’s.

Progressives are for the little guy – the working family, against the monied aristocracy. But Kerry was born to privilege, the grandson of two wealthy, aristocratic Boston families, owns several homes, and married not one, but two heiresses worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Progressives want to protect civil liberties and despise the Patriot Act. Yet, they’re supporting two Senators – Kerry and Edwards – who voted for it.

And, having perused the fightingbob.com website, I take it that “progressives” are against the war in Iraq. What’s Kerry’s latest position on that? Has anybody checked recently?

Now consider how Ed Garvey, the unofficial leader of Wisconsin’s progressives, answered the question "what is a progressive?"

"Most important of all, it requires a belief that the powers that ought to be can prevail over the powers that be. Progressives must be less concerned about a single election than with the philosophical framework within which the candidates operate and support those who believe in economic and social justice."

So, which is it? Do progressives stand for beating George W. Bush, despite Kerry’s obvious failings? Or do they really stand for the rock-solid principles they claim as their own? It can’t be both.

And somehow, I doubt this week’s Fighting Bob Fest is going to clear it up.

Democrats Wonder: Why Won't Doyle Stop Talking?

Everyone seems to agree: the economy is posing a real conundrum for Governor Jim Doyle. My question is: why?

Wisconsin’s economy is doing well. Well enough, in fact, that some of our neighbors are wishing they were us. So far this year, the state has picked up 64,000 new jobs. That’s 2.3% growth – more than double the national growth rate. Manufacturing jobs are being created at an even faster pace: 3.3% growth in that segment since January 1.

Everyone is quick to point out that we’re not out of the woods yet: although our overall job numbers are higher than they were three years ago, we’re still showing a net loss in manufacturing jobs.

But the fact remains, Wisconsin is among the national leaders in the economic recovery, which, as I’ve written in the past, puts Doyle in a bit of a bind.

Last week, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel agreed. The headline: “State’s job recovery puts Doyle on spot.”

“Wisconsin is a strategic battleground in the Democrats' push to unseat President Bush, and while Democratic nominee John Kerry keeps harping about the queasy state of the economy, Wisconsin has been recovering jobs better than the other swing states and the country as a whole.

“The puzzle for Doyle, then, is how to tout his state's economic performance while maintaining the party line that the economy is not up to par.”

How can Governor Doyle, Wisconsin’s CEO, take credit for the improving economy while his own party’s nominee for President is counting on a poor economy to make the voters kick Bush out?

Well, he’s doing it by crediting his “Grow Wisconsin” plan – a bureaucratic maze of government grants and tax credits, which by the way hasn’t been law long enough for the state bureaucracy to finish wrangling over how to administer it, much less to have a positive effect on the economy.

He’s also taking credit for balancing the last budget without raising taxes, (fees, yes, but taxes no). To a much lesser extent, he’s taking credit for cutting taxes – he signed the single sales factor law, which reduced the tax burden on businesses – and for reducing the regulatory burden.

I could quibble over details, of course, like the fact that tax cuts and regulatory reform are mainstays in Republican agendas. Without the Republican-led Legislature, I doubt those bills would have gone anywhere.

And of course, if that really is why the economy is growing, then President Bush also deserves credit. After all, his tax cuts were much bigger and further-reaching than Doyle’s.

Thus the conundrum. Take the credit you’re due, and you also give credit to the President. Talk up the growing economy, and you’re undermining your own party’s talking points.

Hmm. I wonder why those talking points are so easily undermined.

Here’s a thought, although I know this flies in the face of what I’ve written in the past: why can’t Governor Doyle just stop talking about the economy?

It’s not as if Doyle himself is running for re-election. He’s got another two years in office. After November 2, no matter who’s in the White House, he’ll have plenty of time to talk up his own economic record. Can’t he just shut up about it for the next two months?

Or, even better, can’t he spin the numbers somehow? Downplay the good, play up the bad? Wisconsin’s economy is on the upswing, but we’re not completely in the black quite yet. A polished political team should be able to spin things around whichever way they want.

That is, after all, what the Kerry/Edwards campaign is trying to do: use the bad news, ignore the good news. Hit the President with whatever seems to be at hand.

So why doesn’t Doyle? Why does he insist that Wisconsin’s economy is good, even though that hurts his own party’s chances of winning the White House?

Perhaps this career lawyer/politician is just too honest, and can’t bring himself to spin away the facts like that. Or perhaps I’m giving him and his team too much credit for political aptitude.

Or perhaps Governor Doyle simply isn’t willing to give up whatever short- and long-term benefits he can gain from touting his own role in our growing economy. Perhaps he sees what some of us have already surmised: that the Kerry campaign isn’t up to the challenge.

After all, a liberal Senator from Massachusetts isn’t much help to a Midwestern Governor. If that’s all Kerry will be two years from now, why sacrifice yourself to help him?

Structural Deficit: Bad, but Only On Paper

The state could be in another billion-dollar hole next year.

Well, not really, but two state senators are worried about it, anyway. I’m not, as you can tell, but that doesn’t make them wrong. In fact, I hope they get what they’re asking for. Just for different reasons.

The two state senators are Dale Ellis (R-Neenah) and Rob Cowles (R-Green Bay). They’re concerned about the “structural deficit” which could be a billion dollars the first day of next year’s legislative session.

That billion dollars comes from projections made by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau – the Legislature’s accounting firm. Those projections show that spending will outstrip revenues by over $700 million over the next two fiscal years (beginning on July 1, 2005, and ending June 30, 2007). Add in the current projections on Medicaid shortfalls, potential losses of gambling revenues, and a few other things, and that number could reach a billion.

Now, before we all give ourselves headaches from shaking our heads and muttering crossly about our nincompoop state government, there’s something we all have to know.
The “structural deficit” isn’t really a deficit at all – it’s an imaginary number, made up by the Legislature’s accounting firm, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. It’s meant to provide a budgetary yardstick. It doesn’t mean we’ve really got a deficit.

There’s no way to eliminate structural deficits. Not while the LFB does the numbers like they do.

They do try to estimate how much money the state will need, because the Legislature’s already committed us to spending it – school aids, for example. The state has to pay a certain percentage of school spending – that’s going to go up, and we’ll have a good idea how much by the end of this year.

They don’t try to predict what new spending programs the Legislature might start up. They also don’t factor in revenue increases. The state will spend over $12 billion this fiscal year. In their projections, the LFB assumes the state will spend the same $12 billion next year, and the same $12 billion the year after that.

We all know that won’t be the case. Tax revenues have grown an average of about 5% per year over the last two decades. Even if they don’t reach that average – if they grow by 3% per year – it will wipe that structural deficit right out.

Why don’t they factor in revenue increases? A couple of reasons. They like to be as factual as possible, and revenue projections are always a bit of a guessing game. It’s also useful for the legislature to see this: bare bones estimates of what the state is already committed to, against the money we know we’ve already got.

As long as they continue to do things this way, we’ll never be rid of the structural deficit. We’ll always have another one coming up.

That’s not to say a $700 million structural deficit can just be waved off – that’s a significant gap, even before adding requests for new spending. But, things aren’t quite as bad as Cowles and Ellis make them out to be.

And yet, I’d love to see them get what they want.

I said a few paragraphs ago that we’ll never be rid of the structural deficits – that’s not entirely true. We can be rid of them, if we’re willing to do what that takes.

One way to do it would be to make LFB include revenue projections – but that defeats the purpose. Another way: require that the state reduce spending to keep the gap as low as possible. And a third way: don’t promise anybody any more money in the coming fiscal biennium.

That is, after all, why the structural deficit exists: because the state is already committed to higher spending in the next two years.

Stop doing that. Don’t let the Legislature promise any increases beyond the current fiscal year. Even better: don’t promise any program any money at all past the current year. Instead of assuming every program will get at least what they got last year, make them all start every budget from nothing. That’s called zero-base budgeting.

Of course, this is silly. Passing laws doesn’t restrict the Legislature: they can simply add a “notwithstanding state statue….” Clause into any bill, and thus ignore the rule.

But, it’s either that, or pass a constitutional amendment limiting government spending. Ellis opposes that. Cowles supports it, but in lukewarm fashion.

So I guess the two Senators will simply have to go on hoping. As will we all.