In This Issue:
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1. Memorial Day Massacre
2. State Sponsored Scam
3. Tax the Sick - Feed the
State
4. Cap and Trade
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Dirty Dozen's Memorial Day Massacre
This weekend, while most Wisconsinites were watching parades, playing horseshoes and eating bratwurst and potato salad, the 12 Democrats who control the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee were holed up in the State Capitol.
Concerned that their actions might not go over well with the public, Wisconsin’s very own Dirty Dozen set out to hike taxes and jack up state spending over the holiday weekend.
As you were enjoying the sights and sounds of the Middle School marching band, your leaders were busy:
Increasing spending to implement a new UW Genomics Initiative;
Increasing spending for the WI Institute for Discovery;
Increasing spending to give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants;
Increasing the cost of home health care through unionization;
Increasing wages on public and private construction projects which could lead to higher property taxes;
Doubling the garbage tax from $5.90 per ton to $13.00 per ton; which will cost municipalities $63 million, and likely result in higher property taxes;
Increasing taxpayer costs by providing insurance benefits for domestic partners of state employees;
Adding several costly health insurance mandates;
Requiring family health care policies to cover children under age 27, unless the child is married, has other coverage, is employed and his employer offers coverage, or coverage of the insured through whom the child has coverage is discontinued.
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State Sponsored Scam
During his 14 years as Governor, Tommy Thompson reformed Wisconsin’s traditional welfare system through a variety of initiatives. Thompson’s Wisconsin Works, or W-2 program, became a national model for overhauling the welfare system that paid out billions of dollars to individuals with no job or any incentive to find one.
Thompson recognized that Wisconsin had become a welfare magnet as people from other states moved here to take advantage of Wisconsin’s more generous benefits. He also understood that the traditional welfare system created a perpetual cycle of poverty by providing a hand out rather than a hand up.
Thompson's W2 program reduced the amount of time people could receive cash benefits under the program. The program required welfare recipients to find work or get an education, at the same time providing support to facilitate the transition to work. And W-2 provided a safety net through child care, health care, transportation and training assistance. Within months, welfare rolls in Wisconsin dropped and people found work.
In recent years, Governor Doyle has rolled back regulations in the W-2 program designed to put W-2 clients to work. Doyle's latest budget expands the amount of time W-2 clients can receive benefits from 2 years to 5 years, and it relaxes education requirements, thus moving Wisconsin back to a more traditional welfare system. Policy expert David Dodenhoff suggests the state wants to expand W-2 program limits to make it easier for state workers to track W-2 cases.
If anything, the state's social services programs need much closer scrutiny, and right away!
A recent investigative report by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed that millions of tax dollars have been paid to a central city scam artist with a long history of prostitution and possession of illegal weapons. According to the report, Shalanda Lock collected over $1.5 million from state taxpayers to operate a bogus child care center, even after she was caught breaking the law.
Shalanda Lock, too, had her license revoked in December 2007 once the state learned of pending criminal charges. And, like Brown, Lock was allowed to continue operation while her appeal was pending.
She remained open even as regulators realized in August 2008 that they never should have licensed her in the first place. Child welfare workers in Milwaukee had determined in 2002 that Lock had abused or neglected her children.
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration raided her home and found a machine gun with bullets sitting on the kitchen counter along with a live hand grenade. Both were accessible to the children. State licensors didn't catch the abuse because Lock went by the name of Shalanda Mason before she was married.
Once again the Doyle Administration rears its ugly incompetent head, and state taxpayers and our most vulnerable citizens pay the ultimate price.
Imagine what they would do if we put them in charge of our healthcare system.
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 Tax the Sick - Feed the State
On April 15th, hundreds of thousands of taxpayers turned out at Tea Party rallies across the country to protest higher taxes and to tell government officials that they've had enough.
Governor Jim Doyle, intent on spending ever increasing amounts of our money, ridiculed Wisconsin’s tax watchdogs during a Capitol rally.
Doyle said that those at the Madison rally were "protesting against the biggest middle-class tax breaks that we have seen in decades in this country.
And at the state level, despite the horrendous economy and the situation we're in, (under) the budget I proposed, if you make less than $300,000 a year, you're not going to face any kind of tax increase."
Of course Doyle's assertion is contradicted by the facts. His budget would raise taxes on everyone who drives a car, owns a home, smokes, pays tuition to the University of Wisconsin, lives in a nursing home, or talks on cell phone, just for starters.
Earlier this year, the Governor signed a new $400 million sick tax into law. Doyle claimed the tax would help lower health care costs for consumers by increasing the state Medicaid reimbursement rate to hospitals. Yet before the ink is dry on his new sick tax, the Governor is raising the tax again in order to keep state spending high.
Following is a summary of the new budget plan prepared by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce:
The new budget agreement will increase the recently-enacted hospital assessment by 20 percent and use some of the money to support other government spending. The $165 million in hospital assessment changes the administration cites appears to be a combination of more diversions of assessment revenues and other, unspecified Medical Assistance changes. Earlier this year, Governor Doyle signed into law a new hospital assessment. For 2009, the assessment was to be nearly 1.3 percent of gross patient revenues. The assessment was projected to generate, over the 2009-2011 biennium, $650 million from Wisconsin hospitals and attract, over the 2009-2011 biennium, $635 million in new federal Medicaid dollars to Wisconsin in order to increase hospital Medicaid reimbursement rates. The state was planning on diverting $225 million of the assessment revenues and using these dollars to pay for other government spending.
Full details on the new hospital assessment have not been released. It appears, under the new agreement, the assessment will be in the range of 1.5 percent and 1.6 percent of gross patient revenues. WMC has been told the proportion of the assessment dollars going to increase hospital Medicaid reimbursement rates and the proportion of the dollars going to support other spending will not change. By this calculation, the assessment is now projected to generate, over the 2009-2011 biennium, $780 million from Wisconsin hospitals and attract, over the 2009-2011 biennium, $760 million in new federal Medicaid dollars to Wisconsin. Under the new agreement, it appears the state will divert $270 million in assessment revenues and use these dollars to pay for other government spending. When actual figures from the administration are released, WMC will report them to you.
While final details of the plan are not yet available, one thing is clear: the Governor’s new sick tax will mean higher health care costs for Wisconsin families when they can least afford it.
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Cap and Trade -- The Ultimate Triple Play
Ronald Reagan once said, "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
Last week the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill completed Reagan’s ultimate triple play. First the bill regulates and taxes carbon emissions, driving up the costs of manufacturing and every other activity. Then, when these new taxes and regulations result in job losses, the bill provides a subsidy for displaced workers. The section of the bill entitled, Climate Change Worker Adjustment Assistance:
Establishes a program to entitle any worker displaced as a result of the Title VII of the Clean Air Act to be entitled to 156 weeks of income supplement, 80 percent of their monthly health care premium, up to $1,500 for job search assistance, up to $1,500 for moving assistance, and additional employment services for skills assessment, job counseling, training, and other services.
In other words, the authors of the bill are openly admitting that their “cap and trade” schemes are job killers, but just how many lost jobs are anticipated?
The Heritage Foundation estimates at least 1.1 million per year as a result of the cap and trade scheme currently being pushed by Congressional Democrats. Yet cap and trade author Henry Waxman seemed surprised when asked about the specifics of his job-killing legislation saying “I certainly don't claim to know everything that's in this bill.”
We should at least give Waxman credit for anticipating the plight of all those people who will be unemployed as a result of his bill.
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