Taxing and jobs
To the Editor:
It has recently been noted by Matt Pommer in a recent Review article that Gov. Jim Doyle is in favor of a constitutional amendment to allow the Legislature more freedom on taxes. The intent of this amendment would be to change Wisconsin’s law requiring uniformity in the collection of property taxes. The near-term result would likely be to raise the proportion of property taxes that business would pay and decrease the proportion of taxes that homeowners would pay. That sounds nice, but it creates problems.
It is no secret that when you tax something, you get less of what you are taxing. If you tax luxury boats, there will be fewer sold; if you raise the tax on gasoline, drivers will log fewer miles; if you raise the tax on cigarettes, fewer cartons will be sold. As we continue to raise taxes on businesses, we will get less of that too. When you get less business, you get fewer jobs.
Recently the Democrats in our state passed a bill that taxes the profits of out-of-state subsidiaries of Wisconsin corporations. That is a job-killing bill and will likely add to the 160,000 jobs that were lost this past year in Wisconsin. You don’t need corporate welfare to keep jobs in Wisconsin; you just need to keep business taxes reasonable and red tape minimal.
Every attempt by politicians to make business pay for their gross spending habits results in discouraged entrepreneurs and destroyed jobs. In contrast, Scott Walker, who is a candidate for governor, has a common-sense approach to government spending and business taxation that won’t chase jobs out of the state, and he has a track record as Milwaukee County executive to prove it.
Dennis Gasper,
Plymouth
