While Elon Musk Is Rummaging Around In The IRS Sub-basement, Maybe He Could?

publish Donold Trump's tax filings from 2016 through 2024. Trump promised to publish them on many occasions but with his challenging PGA schedule, he obviously hasn't gotten around to it. 

Inquiring minds do want to know.

Cathy Myers - Tax Cheat

Early in her campaign, Cathy Myers had to float a loan of $30,000 to herself to keep her campaign's finances above water.  When this was revealed in her campaign finance report, I, among many others, thought it must be nice to have that much money laying around to squander it like that.

But now we have learned how she could afford to do it.

She is a tax cheat.

Myers is constantly pointing out that she is a teacher, something that she should be proud of.  But what she doesn't tell people is that she is a teacher in Illinois, where she used to live and still owned a house for a few years after moving to Wisconsin.

And it is that house in Illinois that has people raising their eyebrows in alarm.  Even though she no longer lived there - or in the state - she was taking a $6,000 a year tax deduction on it, apparently illegally (emphasis mine):

Myers, a Janesville School Board member, moved to Wisconsin by 2009 and began voting here in the spring election that year. She contributed to the state Democratic Party two years later, listing Janesville as her home.

An owner-occupied exemption, also known as a general homestead exemption, is meant for someone who owns and occupies a property as a primary residence as of Jan. 1 of the tax year in question, according to the website for the Rockford Township Illinois Office of the Assessor.

Property taxes are a major source of funding for schools, municipal and county governments, technical colleges and sewerage districts.

Thomas J. Walsh, supervisor of assessments for Winnebago County, Ill., said his review of the records confirmed that Myers took the tax break from 2009 to 2012.

Property owners can receive the exemption if they submit a valid lease agreement with a renter at the beginning of each tax year. He said Myers did not do this in 2011 or 2012. Records for previous years, he said, have been disposed of.

Myers is saying she filed her taxes based on the advice of an unnamed tax attorney. Somehow, I sincerely doubt that said attorney, if there was indeed one, had told her that she did not need to file the required forms in order to take this generous tax break.

One of the things that really stands out is the fact that these taxes she cheated on would have gone to pay for the things she holds near and dear to her heart, like schools and teachers' salaries.

But what makes this whole affair especially appalling is that Myers had the audacity to constantly attack Randy "IronStache" Bryce by poor-shaming him due to money troubles he had when his medical bills pushed him into bankruptcy.  The thing is, even though he did have money problems, like so many of us have had at one time or another, he kept his word and made good on his debts.

That's more than Myers can say.

Yeah, but Act 10.....

By Jeff Simpson 

We hear often that Scott Walkers signature bill, ACT10, has "saved Wisconsin taxpayers $5 billion dollars".  according to a study done by Bradley funded, right wing no think tank, MacIver Institute.

We at CogDis pointed out, that ACT10 did not save taxpayers $5 billion dollars but instead took $5 billion dollars of demand, out of our supply and demand economy, leading to tragic consequences.  

Under Scott Walker, and one party WisGop rule, we have more businesses closing than starting.

John Lettieri, EIG cofounder and senior director for policy and strategy, said the number of new companies formed in the state lagged behind those that closed, even as figures like employment and GDP began to rebound.
"Wisconsin has a really low startup rate – in fact it has the 48th lowest startup rate in the country over the course of the recovery," Lettieri said. "That’s a concerning starting point. It gets worse when you look at the closure rate, the death rate of firms."

Ouch....we are also seeing that in retail as malls, and stand alone stores are closing all over WI.  

Why is that?

Is it because people have so much money they cant figure out where to spend it all, or is it because with wage decline, austerity and bills like ACT10 taking money out of the pockets of consumers that people are broke and have no money to buy things?

If you chose option B as in Broke, you would be correct:

Retail stocks have slumped this year.
While many chalk up the declines to competition from online retail behemoth Amazon (AMZN) , famed market expert Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, doesn't agree.
"Amazon has been here for a long time - this is the worst year for retail - it's worse than 2008 and 2009," he said. "This is because consumers are broke - they have lousy jobs, they're loaded up with debt and they can't afford to buy stuff."

For some reason the ACT10 "savings" never actually made it back into the pockets of consumers.

Which is why everytime you drive around our once great state, and see a for sale sign on a super club, or a going out of business sign on a big box retailer, or can no longer get that cool item from the local unique store you like to shop at ....you can thank ACT10 and Scott Walker.  

 Unfortunately, no help is on the horizon either.   The GOP top "policy wonk" and Speaker of the House, Janesville's own Paul Ryan (R- Wall St.)  has made it his mission to "reform the tax code" ( even overlooking treason and out and out racism by the President(but that's another blog)).    

The problem, when this numbers guru(who is scared to show his face in WI), wanted to push his far right agenda, he went to Seattle, WA to speak about his "ideas" at the Boeing plant.  

“For Boeing, we are taxing this business, these planes, your jobs in this country at a much higher tax rate than our foreign competitors tax theirs,” the Republican said. “You know what the tax rate here is? Thirty-five percent! “
 Gesturing at the activity in the plant, he added: “I’m just in awe that in spite of all that, you’re still doing so well.”

Umm Paul....what I am in awe of, is the fact that you do no research and are continually thought of as a legit candidate and not the fraud you continually prove yourself to be.

The actual facts:

Facts are for suckers these days, but c’mon. Not only is Boeing gushing cash, but its own financial documents show it has actually paid an average federal income tax of just 3.2 percent of profits over the past 15 years. That’s less than one-tenth the figure Ryan cited.

It doesn’t even count the largest tax break in U.S. history granted by the state of Washington, which reduced the company’s state business tax burden in 2015 nearly to zero.
 “The question with Boeing isn’t whether high taxes are hurting them, because that’s ludicrous on the face of it,” says Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington, D.C., outfit that tracks the taxes companies pay. “The question with Boeing is: How much lower could their taxes possibly go?” 

“Corporate profits are gangbusters right now. Corporate taxes as a share of the economy are, in the past 10 years, as low as they’ve ever been.”
 While the listed rate is 35 percent, hardly any company pays that due to extensive loopholes, subsidies and deductions that lower the burden. As we know around here, Boeing is especially skilled at feeding at this corporate-subsidy trough.
In a recent study, Gardner found that of 258 profitable Fortune 500 companies, 100 paid no taxes in at least one year out of the past eight (for Boeing, it was four of those years.) Eighteen companies paid nothing over the whole period, despite booking $177 billion in profits.

Simple mistake I guess, Speaker Ryan was only off by a few hundred million dollars.  

The moral of the story is, while James McNerney makes $29 million a year as CEO of Boeing, you and I are getting our take home pay slashed to "help the taxpayers", while our taxes go up to pay for essential services, corporation taxes are freefalling and we end up with less money, crumbling roads and larger class sizes.

We can continue listening to the spin of the Scott Walker and MacIver's of the world, or we can just pay attention when we drive around our local areas to the state of the roads, the crumbling of the buildings and the business that the "For Sale" and "Closing" sign makers are getting!  

We can change our course in 2018.  We MUST change our course in 2018!

Is There a "Good" Tax

By Kathleen Vinehout

"Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society,” Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said ninety years ago.

Taxes pay for much of the goods and services we take for granted, such as roads, fire and police protection, consumer protections, schools, parks, and our social safety net. Taxes make up the largest part of the revenue in our state budget.

Taxes are a part of our daily lives, through the money we pay in sales tax or a deduction in our paycheck for income tax. Once a year, property owners send in a check to their local government for property taxes on their homes and farms.

Property tax is probably the most unpopular tax. A subset of this tax, the personal property tax, came under fire at the recent Senate committee hearing.

“When the tax bill came, I always viewed this tax as a penalty.” Quentin Schultz of River Falls told our committee. He joined dozens of business owners who traveled to Madison with hopes of getting rid of the personal property tax.

About three percent of the property tax paid is for things that are not land or buildings. Our committee heard from a diverse group of businesses who asked for things such as the equipment to bake bread or their ski lifts at a ski resort to not be taxed.

Over the years, business groups advocated for loopholes or “exemptions” to the personal property tax. In a January 2017 paper, the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) listed 18 pages of “exemptions” to the personal property tax. The list includes many common items from A to Y: from animals to youth hockey.

Business owners at the committee hearing gave many examples of how difficult it was for them to know what was and was not taxed, and how expensive the tax was for them to keep records. Many complained the tax on them was unfair, calling it a “bad” tax.

But is there ever a “good” tax?

To answer this question, I turned to the teachings of many economists I learned from over the years. Recognizing that all taxes have negative effects, a “good” tax is broad-based - it affects everybody. It has a low rate and does not have loopholes. When a tax is broad-based and has a low rate, everyone pays something but no one pays too much.

A “good” tax is easy for taxpayers to comply with and easy to collect. Finally, a “good” tax causes little change in normal economic activity. The personal property tax fails this standard on many levels.

Lawmakers following the wisdom of “good” tax policy would choose a reform that gets us closer to these standards. To be revenue neutral, any lowering of the state’s revenue should be made up somewhere else.

The “somewhere else” or how the lost revenue would be made up was never discussed in the committee hearing. The cost of this personal property tax change would be about $520 million. For comparison, that is about that same amount the Governor put in his budget as a “per student” increase for all public schools.

Lawmakers who support eliminating the personal property tax said they planned to add state money to offset the loss to local community. They also said, without that additional state money, homeowners would pay higher property taxes. Some communities would see a much higher increase in property taxes. For example, the City of Blair in Trempealeau County receives 22% of its property tax revenue from personal property taxes.

The proponents of the bill suggested the money lost to communities like Blair would be made up in more state aid. However, no one could answer my question of where this money would come from.

I applaud my colleagues who want to get rid of a “bad” tax. However, we must have an honest discussion about how we are going to pay for local services upon which people depend.

History shows us that local government bears a heavy burden to make up for cuts in state funding. Eliminating the personal property tax increases that burden. If promises to make up for the loss of revenue are not met, it will affect local programs and local taxes.

If we are going to eliminate “bad” taxes, we must consider the consequences and discuss either who pays more or what goods and services we want to do without.

If Reelected, Walker Says Taxes Will Go Up

In an effort to avoid those pesky questions about the John Doe investigations and the document drop from last week, Scott Walker did the political equivalent of yelling, "Squirrel!" when he made a campaign pledge to hold property taxes " in check."  However, he won't say how he would do it, either by raising other taxes and fees, slashing services and/or increasing the deficit by a few more billion dollars.

But lest we forget, the last campaign pledge Walker made was to create 250,000 jobs by the end of his term.  Right now, with ten months left in his term, he has created about 20% of that goal - even less if you subtract the jobs created by Governor Jim Doyle's budget and policies.

Given Walker's phenomenally high level of failure regarding his first campaign pledge, I reckon that property taxes could quadruple, at least, if Walker were elected for a second term.

Of Private Practices And Public Servants

There is very little doubt left that Scott Walker, Rebecca Kleefisch and the Teapublicans and Republicrats in the state legislature serve the will of the corporate special interests despite their empty rhetoric about being concerned about the taxpayers and working families.

To confirm this fact, Becky Kleefisch has been going around the state meeting with business leaders in order to get their marching orders:

In a closed meeting with Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, business operators argued — sometimes forcefully — for lower taxes and more financial incentives for commercial interests.

A recently released video of the Dec. 9 session at Beloit College shows Kleefisch and state Revenue Department Secretary Rick Chandler extolling state efforts to reduce taxes since Republicans took over state government in 2011, and saying they wanted private-sector ideas for another round of cuts.

“We want to know how we can love you more,” Kleefisch told the group of about 30 executives, managers, accountants and others during the 1-hour, 40-minute session.

The Beloit meeting was planned as an invitation-only affair so participants could speak freely without worries about divulging private financial information, Kleefisch said in an interview Thursday.

Gov. Scott Walker directed Kleefisch and Chandler to stage a series of “Tax Reform Roundtables” with state residents to find out how taxes affected “their businesses and their families,” and he said the Beloit session was a great start.

I find it ironic that the woman who compared same sex marriage to bestiality is willing to get some good loving going on with non-human corporations. I guess big campaign donations are an aphrodisiac.

The article goes on to report that Kleefisch was not only amorous to the corporate special interests, but a little bit voyeuristic, taking a video of the meeting.  The video was undoubtedly to make sure they got their orders correct, since accuracy is not a strong suit for this administration.

However, once Kleefisch learned that the video was subject to open records requests, she stopped videotaping her escapades.  Apparently, allowing the public to know what their public servants are doing is worse than the risk of getting the corporate demands wrong.

Side note: It's rather hypocritical that whenever a Democrat or a liberal (no, they are not always the same thing) says or does something the Teapublicans don't like, the first thing they do is run to see if the person signed a recall petition, but they don't want anyone to know what they are doing themselves.

Finally, as if there was any doubt about who the takers really are, the article includes this excerpt of some of the demands from the oligarchs:

They said the state should do more to attract new businesses and help existing companies, loosen restrictions on tax credits, simplify the tax code, cut commercial property taxes, consider lowering income and property taxes while increasing the sales tax, and issue more business loans that don’t need to be paid back in some circumstances.

Four of the 29 at the meeting are employed by Hendricks Holding Co. and its subsidiaries, including ABC Supply Inc. HHC’s owner is billionaire Diane Hendricks, who has been among Walker’s top campaign donors.

ABC’s tax director, Scott Bianchini, said the state should stop disclosing how much residents pay in taxes, saying the information is used for “sabotage.” Contacted Thursday, he wouldn’t say if he was referring to 2012 newspaper reports indicating Hendricks paid no taxes in 2010 because of a change in her company’s structure.

But my personal favorite was this one, also by Bianchini:

At the Beloit meeting, Bianchini told Kleefisch that tax credits for businesses are too stingy because some can only be applied to taxes owed to the state.

The state should pay the credits in cash to companies that didn’t earn enough to have tax bills, Bianchini said.

“That company needs that money that year,” Bianchini said. “This is going to require Wisconsin to take a chance on the people they are asking to come into the state.”

The gentle reader should keep in mind that Walker and the Teapublicans have already cut taxes for businesses so much that most of them, like Hendrick's companies, don't pay taxes at all. Now they are arguing that if they can't cut taxes anymore because they're already paying nothing, then these businesses should just be given taxpayers' money for no reason other than to make them even richer.

Because making sure that veterans have health coverage, kids receiving a good education or other needed public services are being provided are out of the question when there are CEOs that can't buy their third yacht or seventh limo out there.

A New Year's Resolution For Scott Walker

Scott Walker sent out a last minute please-give-me-your-money-before-the-end-of-the-year fundraising emails.  He's done such a Gish Gallop, I don't even know where to start:

Click on image to embiggen

To make it easier to read, here it is formatted to fit the blog:

Friend,

As we close the chapter on 2013, I can't help but reflect on all that we have accomplished together over the past twelve months.

Together we cast partisanship aside for results. In the past year we:

• Reformed the state's tax system so Wisconsin tax payers will see nearly $1 billion in tax relief for families and small businesses.
• Signed an additional property tax-cut relief bill that saves taxpayers $100 million.
• Helped Wisconsin's unemployment drop to 6.3% in November - the lowest it has been since December 2008.

In 2010 and 2012, your support made it clear that we are ready to move Wisconsin forward again. We stood up to the politicians, bureaucrats, and Washington interest groups that want to take us back to the days of Jim Doyle - days marked with rampant job loss and skyrocketing taxes.

As this year comes to a close, I ask you to join me again in this fight.  Despite our success in the last election, national special interest groups have already committed to spend tens of millions of dollars to defeat me next year. They will be watching to see how much support we have by the end of the year.

Our support comes from grass roots [sic] leaders in every corner of Wisconsin - that's why we need your help today.

The reporting deadline ends tonight and every dollar is vitally important to our efforts to keep Wisconsin in the hands of the hard working taxpayers. Please consider contributing to our campaign today. You've stood by my side over the past three years and look at what we have accomplished together.

Thank you for your unwavering support.

Your friend,

Scott Walker

Apparently "families" is code for the Koch Brothers and "small businesses" is code for the Bradley Foundation, because they are the only ones raking in that kind of cash. Most of the people I know have seen their taxes go up and their wages go down or get stopped altogether because of layoffs.

I would hope that the gentle reader also noted that he is staying way clear of his failed 250,000 job promise.  The most generous tally I've seen says he's only 42% of the way there, but this number is a lot smaller if one is honest and gives credit for a large part of those jobs coming from Jim Doyle's budget and policies.

And don't even get me going about that grassroots nonsense.  Not only can't he spell the word, he can't tell grass from astroturf.

I would strongly urge Walker to make one New Year's Resolution - Start telling the truth.

As it is now, I don't even know if he knows how to do that anymore.

Unintimidated is Unaccountable

 

By Jeff Simpson

The Steve nASS(R-I dont pay child support)  racist protection bill is sitting on the Governor's desk, he thinks! 

“I have nothing to do with it,” Walker said. “Other than that I have to choose whether or not I am going to sign it or veto it, it is nothing that I have advocated. In fact, all the while they were debating it I was asked at press conferences what I thought about it, and I would say, ‘It is not on my radar. If it is not about jobs, lower taxes, improving schools, it is not on my priority list.’”

Adding, “I don’t know exactly what I am going to do with it,” Walker suggested that he favored simply repealing the 2009 law and leaving the decision up to local school districts rather than signing into law the “weird hybrid” that passed this month.

Apparently, since Scott Walker only cares about jobs

But what didn't change is the fact that Wisconsin continues to be the worst economy in the Midwest since Walker and WisGOP came to power in January 2011. 

Lower taxes :

 Gov. Scott Walker's plan to shrink the state's BadgerCare program could end up costing the state about $250 million more by 2020, according to a Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo.

and improving schools:

 

The number of teachers working during the 2012-13 school year marks the first time in about 15 years the number of positions has dropped below 66,000. From 2000 to the 2010-11 school year, the number of licensed staff in public schools held steady around 68,000 with its peak during the 2002-03 school year when 70,079 teaching positions were recorded. In the last five school years, the state’s teaching ranks have decreased by about 3,000 positions.

“(Student) enrollment, over the last five years, has gone down by three-tenths of a percent,” said DPI spokesman John Johnson. “That’s about 3,000 kids, but we’ve lost about 3,000 teachers in the same time period. That’s almost a teacher per kid, which is unusual.”

 The three things that Scott Walker has made a "priority" he has failed miserably at all three.

When exactly, was the last "jobs" bill that Scott Walker signed?   I can not think of one! 

It's Working!

By Jeff Simpson

Remember Diane Hendricks, the star of this little movie:

The person who is Scott Walker's largest donor and skipped out on her 2010 taxes.

The person who flies Scott Walker to report to his Koch Brother bosses.  

Well it is WORKING for her!

 Diane Hendricks moved up almost 40 spots in the last year, on  America's richest 400 people list.

Forbes Lists

#103 Forbes 400

• #142 in 2012

#353 Billionaires

• #115 in United States

 

Corporate Tax Breaks: The US Government's Secret Subsidy Revealed

From AFSCME:



The fact is, this spending vs. taxes debate is largely meaningless. Watch our explainer video to learn about corporate tax breaks, the U.S. Government's secret subsidy program that some in Congress want to gut vital programs -- like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security -- to keep in place for their wealthy donors. Then, take action: http://www.afscme.org/stop-the-giveaways

Cartoon of the Week

You would think, but there are still Teapublicans who never stop complaining.  Some people just don't get it.

Why The Hell Wasn't This On My Tax Form?!

Really, why wasn't it? It would have brought in more money than Walker's campaign did:

Making An Ugly Thing Even Uglier

Horrible, inexplicable events like the bombings that happened in Boston are bound to stir strong emotional responses, regardless of who you are.

Fortunately, as there are some beautiful people out there - the ones that donate money, supplies, their homes, their blood.  The ones that first worry about the needs of the victims and their families.

And in balance, there are those who show the ugly side of their natures by trying to hurt through their ignorance and their hate.

The bombings in Boston are no exception.

The corporate media are in angst because President Obama didn't feed into their fear and smear method of "news reporting" by not using the word terrorism.

Then there is the Faux Noise contributor who is screaming for genocide.

Also spouting off are the usual teahadists who can't understand why we pay taxes.  Here's a nice reminder of how shallow that attitude can be:

And going deeper into the psychotic side of the pool, we have the expected reaction - Benghazi!  

And what would be any tragedy without the fools from Westboro having a field day over the deaths and injuries and promising to protest the funerals.

Thank goodness that the good people vastly outnumber the bad people.  Let it always be so.

Tax Day "Tea Party"

By Jeff Simpson

Cancelled!   H/T Blue Cheddar:

 This years Tax Day Tea Party Rally has been canceled. There was not enough time to get the event together and instead of looking bad because of lack of preparation, we have decided to not host it this year. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Apparently April 15th snuck up on them this year.  Or it could be that people get that under President Obama taxes, spending and the deficit are all lower than when President Obama first took office.    It could also be so simple an explanation as the "tea party" has long outlived it's usefulness and no one cares!  

Whatever the reason, all I could think of is:

Julia Taylor: Shut Up And Give Us Your Money

In Sunday's edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (motto: All the corporate propaganda fit to print) is an editorial by Julia Taylor of the Greater Milwaukee Committee in which she argues that the best way to create jobs is more corporate welfare.

But this time, so the argument goes, is just give the money to start up companies that are on the "cutting edge."  Sort of like the companies that they claim will want to come to the decimated county grounds, which is being "developed" by fellow GMC members.

To remind the gentle reader who Taylor is, she is also one of the people pushing the hardest to remove representative government from Milwaukee County and put all the power in the hands of fellow GMC member Chris Abele.

In other words, Julia Taylor is telling the taxpayers, especially those in Milwaukee, to shut up and hand over their money, because, y'know, they know so much more than the average citizen.

Is it any wonder that Taylor was an outspoken supporter of Tim Russell?

Yes, that Tim Russell.

The arrogance and elitism is simply breathtaking.

Um, Governor, Your Slip Is Showing...

Earlier this evening, Scott Walker's handlers made the mistake of allowing him to access his Twitter account:

Oh dear me!*  It looks like Walker had a Freudian slip! 

Obviously, the recent recommendation from his transportation commission, in which they recommended increasing the gas tax and raising fees through the moonroof, is weighing heavily on his mind.

On one hand, if he supports his commission's recommendations, he'll have to turn in his tea bags and be ran out of the state by his own supporters.

On the other hand, he needs to create a huge cash flow to the road builders who spent a lot of money in supporting his campaigns.  Furthermore, he'll need even more money for his legal cooperation fund.

What's a corrupt governor to do?

Well, one thing he shouldn't do is try to correct his previous mistake:

The lame attempt at trying to explain away the gaffe is bad enough, but what is really embarrassing is a governor that goes "LOL."  Well, at least it wasn't ROFLCOPTER or something like that.

*What kind of idiot waits until the end of January to put Sta-Bil in their gas tank?  And what kind of idiot does that to a Harley in the first place?

Michigan's Miraculous Babies

Another story pointed out by another one of our astute readers:

Children no longer are considered a deduction for tax purposes in Michigan, but some lawmakers think fetuses should be.

The state legislature currently is considering two bills that would create a tax credit for unborn fetuses that are 12 weeks or older. If the proposal becomes law, it would make Michigan the first state in the country to grant such status to the unborn.

Opponents of the measures claim the tax credit is just a sneaky way for abortion foes to establish a form of “personhood” for fetuses and eventually restrict women from getting abortions.

Republican Representative Jud Gilbert, one of the main sponsors of the fetus tax credit plan, said supporters merely want to help mothers with their taxes.

“You’re recognizing the fact that people have additional expenses, another person to take care of,” Gilbert told MLive. “Money saved there could be contributed to doctor's bills and all kinds of things.”

The proposal runs contrary to legislation adopted last year that eliminated a child tax credit deduction that affected 2.35 million children in Michigan.

In short, according to the Michigan Republicans, having a baby is expensive, but once the child is born, they are completely self-sufficient and/or cost free.

And to make this story complete, this is almost mandatory:

The Worst Kept Secret Ever: Walker/ALEC 2016

After Scott Walker won the special election in 2002 to be Milwaukee County Executive, he spent the first couple of years making good with the people that got him there. He gave lucrative contracts to his benefactors. He even went so far as to illegally offer office space in the Milwaukee County Courthouse to his goons at Citizens for Responsible Government.

Then he spent the next six or seven years campaigning for governor. He's pretend to be a fiscal conservative when all he was doing was kicking the can down the road for someone else to clean up later. He'd take his "Executive Rides," which were nothing more than campaign tours thinly disguised as tourism promotions. He gave out even more lucrative county contracts to campaign donors. He made circuit tours of all the Lincoln Day Dinners, just because he shared the same sediment.

Then, as the gentle reader is already sadly aware of, his friends at the Bradley Foundation and the Koch Brothers were able to buy the governor's seat for him in 2010.

And the cycle started to repeat itself.

Walker has spent the last two years paying back his benefactors. He gave hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to corporations that sponsored his campaign. He allowed businesses like the mining companies to write their own laws. He allowed businesses to pollute our drinking water, our rivers, our land and our air without restraint. He tried to take out the unions, the biggest defense against having a complete corporate takeover of the state.

After Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan lost their bid to buy and/or steal the election, I predicted that Walker would be ready to enter the next phase of his agenda:

The really bad news is that Romney's defeat means that Scott Walker is going to double down on his bid for the presidency.

We'll have to be girded for the fight against oddly termed "right to work" legislation, further raping of our environment (including the mining in the Northwoods and fracking everywhere else) and further attempts at voter suppression, anti-women and anti-LGBT legislation.

Walker's going to have to show the American fascists why he is the right tool for them.

And that, gentle reader, is exactly what he is doing.

On Friday, he gave a speech at the Reagan Library and Zombie Amusement Park, a traditional venue for right wing extremists to launch their campaigns. They love the symbolism of it, even though it shows their idiocy and ignorance. While they tout Reagan for his supposed fiscal conservatism, they ignore the fact that he raised taxes and blew up the federal deficit more than almost any other president, second only to George W. Bush.

Sidenote: Since the Reagan Library and Zombie Amusement Park is in California, is this Walker's big trip to Cali?

The speech was nothing less than the kick off to his first presidential bid, saying all the things that his corporate masters want him to say.

Walker started off by throwing red meat to the teahadists by talking about lowering taxes:

"We think if we want to continue the economic success we've had over the last year and a half, again one of the best ways to do this is to put money back in the hands of entrepreneurs, more money back in the hands of small business owners, more money back in the hands of our consumers," Walker said Friday during his hourlong speech, a video of which was posted on YouTube.

"So we're going to continue to lower our property taxes, and we're going to put in place an aggressive income tax reduction and reform in the state of Wisconsin because we believe we can continue to be one of the leaders in the country, not just in reform but ultimately in results."

One of the problems with this statement is the fact that he didn't lower the property taxes for most Wisconsinites, nor did he put more money in anyone's hands but the big corporations and the wealthiest of the wealthy, like Ms. Conquer and Divide herself, Diane Hendricks, who came along for the trip to California.

What the teahadists can't seem to get through their thick tea-hazed minds is that the reason their taxes are too high is because they are paying not only their share, but also the taxes that people like Hendricks should be paying, but aren't.

The other problem is that Walker's agenda has already had the predictable results - less jobs than when his policies took effect and a state that is at the bottom in regards to economic productivity. And this is while the rest of the country is growing and recovering from the Bush/Cheney driven recession.

So, in other words, since Walker's austerity measures has been an absolute failure, his answer is more austerity! Sadly, there are too many people that cannot see beyond their noses and will still buy into Walker's bunk, even as their taxes go up and their jobs go away.

Walker's other big promise has to do with the further desecration of our educational system:

Walker also said he wants to require the state's public schools, including the technical colleges and the University of Wisconsin System, to meet performance-based targets to receive increased state funding - similar to programs in Florida and Pennsylvania. The first-term Republican governor said he will push to expand the state's voucher program for private schools and further streamline the state's rules and regulations.

Here again there are two problems.

The latter one, the profiteering at the expense of our children's education, has been proven time and time again not to work. At best, school choice kids fare no better in grades as public school kids, and they do not gain the other intangible benefits that they receive from public schools.

The only thing school choice is successful at is siphoning off money meant to be used to educate our children and putting it in the pockets of the "entrepreneurs" who abuse the system.

And the whole business about the universities and schools being put on a "merit system" should sound familiar. Especially given how Walker was praising Jeb Bush, of all people.

It was Jeb Bush who got a quarter million dollars from the Bradley Foundation for his "hard work" at "reforming" his state's educational system. It was also the Bradley Foundation that published the Bell Curve, which was the use of manipulated statistics to argue that children from poor families, especially minorities, weren't worth trying to educate.

Florida is also famous for letting the Koch Brothers buy the rights to make hiring decisions at Florida State University.

Can the selling out of our children's education be made any more clear than that?

Now, if the gentle reader is like me, they are scratching their head and thinking, "WTF? Didn't Walker just see his friends Romney and Ryan get rejected for their corporate driven austerity campaign?"

Well, Walker did, but he is either so delusional, so stupid and/or so malevolent that he, like many other right wingers, cannot accept the truth laid out before him. Instead, he blames the messengers:

But in an interview with the Ventura County Star at the Reagan library, Walker was critical of Romney and his unsuccessful presidential campaign.

"Our future nominee needs to do a better job in articulating the views that we commonly hold as Republicans and to talk more optimistically about freedom and about prosperity, and the fact that we want every American to be able to live his or her piece of the American dream," Walker said. He continued, "I don't think (Romney) did an effective job, nor did his campaign of communicating that with the majority (of) voters in my state and others."

I would beg to differ. Romney and Ryan and even Walker himself had communicated their agenda very clearly. And that is why they were so resoundingly rejected.

And despite what Walker thinks, he is not a better communicator and his message will again be rejected. This is especially true when people can compare his extremism to the way Governor Chris Christie showed himself willing to work with President Obama.

On top of that, Walker won't be getting as many passes on the difficult questions - like the ones surrounding Walkergate - as he has gotten from the corporate media in Fitzwalkerstan.

And most significantly, it'll be awfully hard for Walker to run a campaign from a prison cell.

Pro-Romney Business Owner Hits Obama On Taxes, Forgets He Didn't Pay Any Taxes

Own Wisconsin Now has found another "Oopsie" moment from the pro-Romney camp:

A recent pro-Romney super-PAC television ad features Joseph Buechel of Wisconsin, who identifies himself as a small business owner, decrying the Obama Administration's tax policy. However, tax records obtained by One Wisconsin Now show Buechel's business, Natural Stone Veneers International, Inc., has paid nothing in state corporate income taxes in any of the last five years, and, based on his reported personal state income tax liability, it appears he, like 97% of small business owners, would not be affected by President Obama's proposal to allow the Bush tax cuts for those with incomes over $250,000 to expire.

One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross commented, "Mr. Buechel has a lot to say about taxes and the Obama administration for someone whose business hasn't paid a dime in state corporate income taxes for the entire first term of the President and who would almost certainly would not pay more by President Obama's proposal to ask millionaires to pay their fair share of taxes."

Information obtained by One Wisconsin Now from the Department of Revenue shows the business Mr. Buechel owns, Natural Stone Veneers International, Inc., paid no state corporate income tax between 2007 and 2011.

One Wisconsin Now also reviewed Department of Revenue records of the personal state income tax paid by Mr. Buechel between 2007 and 2011. The tax liability he reported appears to be based on an annual income far below $250,000, meaning he would not be paying any tax increase that could occur if, as President Obama has proposed, the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans were allowed to expire.

Gee, why is it that Republican arguments never hold up when you shed a little light on them?

Fundraising Season

With back to school time, brings fundraising season. After Scott Walkers record's cuts to public education, that means every group, club, sport, activity, will be out in the streets of your home fundraising trying to make up for all of the money they need but that is not available to them.

Some advice for those people in the 6th district of Wisconsin, should hit up their congressman! Republican Congressman Tom Petri should have some extra money he is willing to give, since he has NOT PAID TAXES in the last four years!

Wisconsin Department of Revenue records show that Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Petri did not pay any state income taxes from 2002 through 2005.

The records were obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press from the liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now, which requested them from the Revenue Department.

Petri is the only one of Wisconsin's eight congressional representatives who didn't pay any state income taxes over the past decade. He is running for his 16th term this November against Democrat Joe Kallas.

I am always amazed why people would vote for someone who does not participate in our society monetarily to represent us in government!

The voters of the 6th Congressional District can change that in November. Help Joe Kallas win and actually represent the people of Wisconsin!