Friday, July 3, 2015

State Budget Finale: Tax Breaks for the Rich, Potholes for our Roads and Secrecy for Politicians

MADISON – The Joint Finance Committee (JFC) was back in action today on Governor Walker’s 2015-17 state budget, after over a one month hiatus.  For almost five weeks, legislative Republicans bickered behind closed doors about how many transportation jobs to cut and wages to slash in their attempt to find enough votes to pass the budget. 
 
Despite a media backlash when Republicans previously announced more tax breaks for the wealthy, the GOP proceeded ahead and cut taxes for individuals who make more than $200,000 a year, resulting in a total loss of roughly $60 million over the next four years. 
 
“While they slash and burn our public education and higher education system, they just can’t resist giving more tax giveaways to fortunate people who don’t need them, rather than fund our public schools.  No doubt about it, that is their priority,” said Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison). 
 
On transportation, Republicans made $450 million in cuts to Wisconsin’s infrastructure, resulting in the loss of 5,850 Wisconsin jobs, according to the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.  This comes on the heels of another bad month of job news, with Wisconsin once again at the bottom of the barrel in Midwest job creation losing 6,100 jobs in May. 
 
“For months we’ve listened to the GOP talk about ‘making the tough decisions’, yet today they refused to propose a sustainable way to fund our transportation system,” Rep. Taylor said.  “Towns are going back to gravel.  Our roads were recently ranked 3rd worst in the country.  As we’ve seen all along, just like Governor Walker, JFC Republicans only care about one place and it starts with the letter ‘W’.  It’s not the State of Wisconsin as it should be, but it’s the White House.” 
 
To finish off the day, Republicans rolled out a truck load of harmful policies including broad legal protections for themselves against having to publicly disclose most communications and a wide array of most documents.  This type of broad disclosure protection was previously reserved for the most private communications between spouses, medical providers and their patients, and between attorneys and their clients.  They also broadly exempted themselves and the Governor from complying with state open record laws.
 
“You can tell a lot about people by what they do when no one is looking.  On a holiday week at 9:00 p.m., Republicans showed that when no one was paying attention, the only backs they protected were their own.”
 
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Office of Representative Chris Taylor
306 West – (608) 266-5342
PO Box 8953
Madison, WI  53708

4 comments:

  1. Walker has taken Wisconsin to Mississippi and now to Russia .Majority 12 are insane.

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  2. We know that Walker is behind all of this. He tells Vos and Fitz what he wants and they in turn tell Nygren and Darling to put it in the budget. Then the 12 Republican sheep on the JFC all vote for it. When the sheep are asked who proposed denying access to public records the 12 sheep say: "I don't know." Vos and Fitz say they don't know where it came from. So that leaves only one left as the one who knows and the one who requested the changed policy. Walker needs this policy to run for president as he can't afford John Doe1 and 2 to surface nor any related investigations into his actions. Walker will attempt to keep in protections for himself but the people of Wisconsin are demanding a total elimination of this new public records policy. The budget cannot be passed with this in it. Something must be happening behind the scenes for Walker to take this desperate action prior to announcing his presidential run. There must be information that he doesn't want uncovered and it must be something that he cannot walk away from if exposed!

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  3. Where is Blaska's post in support of increased opacity in Government?

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  4. Time for another recall of Walker and his teapublican puppets as well as demonstrations against these people who are turning the state into a dictatorship for Walker.

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