Smarmy Wisconsin Republicans Fondle Taxpayers

Not knowing when to drop the seduction, Wisconsin Republicans once again offer up the same old TABOR under a perfumed moniker the Taxpayer Protection Act.:

GOP brings back its tax plan

On Thursday Republicans raced to bring out a plan to tamp down taxes by writing limits into the state's constitution, proposing that most governments in Wisconsin hold growth in taxes and fees to increases in inflation, population and the partial value of new buildings.

The constitutional amendment - a tweaking of GOP lawmakers' previous plans to hold down taxes by limiting government spending - would make changing the amendment different from all other changes to the state constitution...

...Republicans tried to distance their plan from spending limits such as those Colorado voters chose to temporarily suspend last year, saying their tax-side proposal offered more flexibility.

"We need help from the Legislature to hold down taxes. We need fewer state mandates. We need health insurance reform. We need employee bargaining reform," said Rich Eggleston, spokesman for the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities. "Do that and you don't need a magic formula..."

...Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, has opposed spending limits in the past and vetoed a similar GOP plan last spring, saying it would hurt education....

...Economist Andrew Reschovsky of UW-Madison's La Follette School of Public Affairs said the measure would likely substantially downsize government over time. If the proposal had been put in place 20 years ago, and without passing any referendum, the $15.5 billion the state collects in annual taxes and fees today would be about 20 percent lower, he said. (emphasis added)

"We could eliminate the UW System completely and we would still have to cut more. It's a big number," he said.

That $3.1 billion reduction is about how much the War in Iraq will cost every Wisconsinite by the end of the Spring.