With a Democrat in the governor’s seat and Republicans in charge of both the state assembly and senate, and given the current national political environment, it is inevitable that there would be a fight around taxes in the biennial budget discussion.
Coming off the current fiscal period that saw a $7 billion surplus it was also inevitable that Gov. Evers would want to increase support for education in the state and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and his GOP cabal would want to lower taxes. So Governor Evers presented his budget proposal to the legislature and before he could walk across the rotunda to his office, Vos stripped out 500 items. And then the Assembly essentially wrote their own budget bill without using the governor’s plan as a guideline.
Now the Governor of Wisconsin has a wicked authority when reworking a budget. Their line item veto power includes removing letters or punctuation to alter the meaning of items in the budget. And Gov. Evers did just that and by removing a pair of numbers and a hyphen, changed 2024 – 25 to 2425 and setting up an annual shared revenue item to be in effect for 400 years rather than two. Of course that won’t last and I don’t think the governor really expects that it will.
But the funniest part of this is how the GOP is crying foul. Considering that they cut the aforementioned 500 items from the governor’s budget and then completely rewrote it…the irony vs hypocrisy variable is off the charts.
But now onto the GOP tax cut. As always the GOP cut taxes at the top…the top bracket essentially disappears. So instead of a top bracket of 7.65%, the new highest rate is 6.5%. And to obfuscate just a bit, they tout a 15% tax reduction…well it is…a 15% change in the rate. But do wage earners in that bracket need tax relief? Hell NO…my previous view. Well, Gov. Evers vetoed the change and rightly so.
The Republican plan would have reduced all four income tax brackets and focused relief on the state’s wealthiest residents. The top tax rate of 7.65% would have reduced to 6.5%, which amounted to a 15% reduction for the top earners in the state who earn as a married couple $405,550 or more annually. The second-highest rate, which covers married filers who earn between $36,840 and $405,550 annually, would have been reduced by about 17%, from 5.3% to 4.4%. Evers vetoed both changes.
The governor kept in place reductions for the third-highest tax rate which covers those who earn $36,840 and less as a couple. That rate would go from 4.65% to 4.4%, or a 5.4% reduction, and the bottom rate would slightly reduce from 3.54% to 3.5%.
So why do people like Brook Lopez get a tax cut that they don’t need? I am not going to get into the exorbitant salary of sports stars…but if anyone can afford to pay Wisconsin income taxes it is people like Mr. Lopez. I don’t think he’s gonna miss that $276,000.
But the total tax cut package was valued at $3.2 billion…I think those at the base of the economic pyramid could make better use of a significant tax cut like that and would be the most likely group to put that money back into the economy. So Rep. Vos: actually help the constituents that count and not that those who have accountants.
Recent Comments