The Walker Budget Keeps On Working! Part CXLIII

Remember during the recalls how Scott Walker and the Koch News Network affiliates kept telling us how Walker balanced the budget without raising property taxes?

Me neither.

Not only was the claim a lie at the time, with it being proven that Walker not only raised property taxes, but did so on the poorest of the poor.

Now we are seeing the real economic climate that Walker has created with his ALEC-based policies and budget:

In a disturbing sign the state economy remains in crisis, property values in Wisconsin have fallen for the fourth year in a row and showed the largest one-year drop in decades.

This news accompanies a surprising jump in the state unemployment rate announced on Thursday. The jobless rate rose in July to 7.3 percent, up from 7 percent in June, with the state losing an estimated 6,000 private-sector jobs for the month.

Meanwhile, figures released this week by the Department of Revenue showed total property values in Wisconsin down 3.2 percent for 2012, the largest drop in 50 years. That includes a 4 percent drop in residential property and a 1.5 percent decline in commercial property values.

The roughly $2 billion in new residential construction was more than offset by a $15.3 billion erosion in the value of existing homes. (See attached report.)

Overall property values in the state -- which includes residential, commercial, manufacturing and agricultural uses -- are now down 8.4 percent from their peak in 2008. Total values are estimated at $471 billion, down from a peak of $514 billion four years ago.

Todd Berry of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance says the drop again in values, especially on the residential side, came as a surprise since most observers thought the real estate market had bottomed out last year.

They're saying that the reason for this continuing bottoming out is due to personal income levels not rising as fast as real estate values. Now, who was it that "dropped a bomb" in the form of Act 10, slashing the salaries of tens of thousands of Wisconsinites immediately and causing a ripple effect throughout the state?

It should also be noted that the only area of the state that is doing well with real estate values are the ones in western Wisconsin. You know, the ones that are close enough to Minnesota to ride their economic coattails.

I can just hear the Walker apologists now, "But capper, property taxes went down!"

Did they? Not really:

Falling property values do not mean that property taxes will go down, however. Local units of government may have to increase tax rates to make up for the difference in property values, Berry says.

What can happen, Berry says, is that taxpayers whose property has risen in value may end up paying a larger percentage of a community’s taxes than an owner whose home value has fallen.

“That is where you can see a shift in the levy,” he says.

It's working, my ass!