As a result, many taxpaying citizens of this Wisconsin town leave and more across the state line. This allows them to pay less taxes, stay close to their birthplaces, and continue to work their jobs regardless of which state they work in.
The result is that more taxpayers leave and more tax consumers remain shifting an even greater tax load on those who choose to remain.
Nah, they wore red because they are commie pinko socialists... but that's just a guess ;0)
Okay, all you tax-paying "children," Doyle says you're all just too young and stupid to question his judgement.
Notice who was gathered to tell you how stupid and selfish you all are. Every single one of those people is on the government payroll, being paid with your money to tell you have no business trying to stop them from taking more of your money for themselves. This is the apex of a conflict of interest. Every single one of those "Uniformed emergency workers" should be immediately fired and have all of their benefits revoked. By attending this event, they ceased being "public servants" and have become policy wonks and political hacks.
"They stink on ice!"
The truth is often hard to take...
(remember this is an article about a LARGE group of tax-freeze supporters, and a much SMALLER group of tax-freeze opponents)
1. SIZE - The tax-freeze supporters (taxpayers) outnumbered the tax-freeze opponents (teacher's unions) at this rally. Yet the Journal/Sentinel prints a larger picture of the tax-freeze opponents than the tax-freeze supporters. The ratio in the printed paper's picture size is probably 3 to 1.
2. CONTENT - The larger picture of the tax-freeze opponents shows a bunch of happy faces, while the picture of the tax-freeze supporters is of (what looks like) an angry mob.
3. CONTENT - The smaller picture of the tax-freeze supporters features the view toward the armpit of one of the supporters (who is holding up a sign)
4. PLACEMENT - On the printed copy of this liberal paper, the larger picture of the tax-freeze opponents is placed ABOVE the fold on the front page, while the smaller picture of the tax-freeze supporters is at the BOTTOM of the page.
Even on the website there is the same liberal emphasis.
A PERFECT example of liberal bias (what you CHOOSE to publish, how you emphasize it, how you place the photos, what the tone is)
I have to emphasize again that it was the tax-freeze supporters that OUTNUMBERED, by at least 4 to 1, the opponents.
But, glancing at a liberal newspaper, you got the OPPOSITE IDEA!
Journalists = Objective?? HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!
Maybe that's why the Urinal/Sentinel chose to put a picture of the teachers' union above the fold on the front page which was three times the size of the below-the-fold picture of the pro-override group...
Liberalspeak for "I want everyone elses wages in my pocketbook."
Supporters of the tax limits wore blue because it signifies a freeze and represents blue-collar workers, Lisowski said. Those in favor of Doyle's veto wore red for contrast with blue support of their communist views.
Regardless of apparel color, the sentiments were fervent on each side.
Red to represent coveting their neighbors goods, Satanic doctrine. Blue for rightnousness, or "learn to fish". The war of evil against good.
"That means we'll need more schools and more staffing. How can we do that without raising money?"
Who will increase the teachers union pay and numbers? Where will they get facist money to buy politicians? Who will pay for homosexual lessons? The childrens abortions?
"We bought our home to live in in our retirement and to die there, and they're taxing us out of our home,"
DUH! That's the idea. You're to be herded into housing complexes. How can we live in a dictatorship if you don'y obey?
I love the smell of tax revolts in the morning. Good work, keep it up.
From one of the Recall propenents at the beginning of the process, I just wanted to say; you're welcome.
Sincerely,
California
The freeze seems reasonable. It even allows an increase for the schools
One freeper had a great line regarding taxation. It went "I see you have some money there. Give it to me."
I live in Massachusetts, Peoples Republic of, in the dreaded heavily liberal Northeast, Kennedy country (ick!). One of the redeeming facts about this state is that we are one of 24 that can adopt/repeal laws by referendum questions. It takes a fair amount of signatures and work but it can be done, as the following will show.
Many moons ago, we managed to pass Proposition 2 1/2, so called because it limited property taxes across the state to 2.5% per year. It can only be overridden by a vote of the taxpayers. That is rare, but it does occur. The pols have to really make a good case though! Goes to show you that even liberal weasels have a limit!! I suggest the fine folks of Wisconsin contact Barbara Anderson at the Citizens for Limited Taxation (www.cltg.org), and maybe they can give you some good ideas. CLT was directly responsible for getting Prop. 2 1/2 passed.
Even better, in the 2002 election, we repealed biligual education by a large margin (but the teachers unions and the pols are doing their best to gut the mandate from the voters. Best of all, there was a referendum question to, now get this, abolish the state income tax!! It got 45% of the vote! In Massachusetts. Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts. The pols practically wet their pants, and are deathly afraid to raise taxes, at least in any obvious way. We are now going through the tax cuts targeted at police teachers etc, anything to hurt the voters, to get the mood of the voters to allow them to raise taxes. Naturally, we are getting lots of AFL-CIO commercials blaming Republican Mitt Romney for the cuts, and commending the Democrat-controlled legislature for overriding his "Draconian" cuts. The dirty little secret is that the Dems control everything, and there is nothing Romney can do with, or without, their say so.
The bottom line is, if Wisconsin is a referendum state, it can be done. Otherwise, you are going to have to get conservative Republicans into the Governor's office and the rest of the state offices.
By the way, next door, in Connecticut, their property taxes are ridiculous. I am talking $18 - 35 or so per $1000 of value, and that was 7 years ago when I was looking for a home. Then add one of the highest gasoline taxes, and you have a pricey state indeed.
The political fault lines widened Friday over proposed local property tax limits, with both sides gearing up a weekend lobbying effort intense enough to draw comparisons to the down-to-the-wire haggling over the sales tax for Miller Park.The epicenter Saturday - Milwaukee's Serb Hall - is expected to play host to hundreds of people at dueling rallies in anticipation of Tuesday's scheduled state Senate vote on Republican-sponsored limits on local taxes. Smaller taxpayer rallies are scheduled in Antigo, Green Bay and other cities.
The rhetoric is ratcheting up, as business, labor, school, religious and political leaders - and ordinary citizens - join the debate in the days before senators pass judgment on Gov. Jim Doyle's veto of the limits.
"We have this giant force field around our state keeping people out," said Jim Pugh, spokesman for Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which continues a statewide radio ad campaign for the tax limits. "Businesspeople considering transferring here see a much higher total tax burden than in their states."
"It's really not democratic to take away local decisions and impose a uniform rule on every locality from Madison," said Thomas Mueller, a Milwaukee priest with a social-justice coalition opposing the limits. "Supposedly, Republicans are supposed to be against big government telling everyone what to do, but that's what they're trying to do here."
Pugh said the last issue to so consume the state's political community was the Legislature's 1995 decision to create a regional sales tax to fund Miller Park. A single vote decided that question.
"This has risen to that level," he said. "It's on everybody's radar screen."
Opponents of the tax "freeze" - it actually would limit property tax increases but not freeze them - tried to gain momentum Friday by highlighting the possible impact on education.
Two studies by school groups warned of deep classroom cutbacks if the Legislature musters the two-thirds vote necessary to override Doyle's veto.
In one, the Wisconsin Association of School Boards predicted that almost 4,500 teachers statewide could be laid off in 2004-'05 if the tax limits become law. The association used Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates and its own employee data to make district-by-district projections of layoffs.
Ken Cole, the association's executive director, said it was too late to expect teacher layoffs for the upcoming school year because contracts are already in place. He acknowledged his group's figures assume that all cuts would come out of teaching staffs, but he said there weren't too many options after a decade of schools being placed under strict property tax limits.
Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) said while there was no doubt school districts would have to make some sacrifices, the association's numbers appeared to be based on the worst-case scenario. She said the state has actually increased its spending on education despite fiscal difficulties.
"I can't imagine that they're going to have to lay off all those teachers," said Darling. "What is real, and what is a scare tactic?"
Michelle Nate, the director of finance for Milwaukee Public Schools, said the report assumes all of the cuts would come from the teaching ranks and would be in the form of layoffs, instead of loss through attrition, for example.
In MPS' case, officials would have to look at cuts in a variety of areas - not just staff - if the override goes through.
Meanwhile, the Southeastern Wisconsin School Alliance, which represents about 40 districts and 230,000 students, is mailing letters to all the lawmakers, calling on them to separate K-12 public school funding from the property tax limits proposal.
The alliance projects its districts would lose $81 million if Doyle's veto is overridden.
The $81 million is the equivalent of 1,600 teaching positions, the alliance said, cuts that would hinder the quality of education.
"We wanted to point out that as decisions are being made about a property tax freeze, schools have operated under revenue caps for the last 10 years," said Kathleen Cooke, alliance co-chairman and superintendent of the Hamilton School District in Waukesha County.
Senate Majority Leader Mary Panzer said school districts could find ways to reduce costs without merely slashing teaching staffs.
"I don't think it has to be just people in the classroom," said Panzer (R-West Bend). "We have administrators; we have a lot of consultants in this state. Every budget has different things in it."
Elected officials and school representatives from Milwaukee's South Shore communities strongly protested Friday the proposed three-year property tax limits and urged state senators to support the governor's veto.
Several people called the proposal a "phony" or "false" freeze and warned of its negative consequences on schools.
"What is being proposed in this tax freeze smacks of California," Cudahy Mayor Raymond Glowacki said at the news conference at South Milwaukee City Hall. "Has anybody thought of what is going to happen to the state in year four?"
California property taxes were capped in 1978 under Proposition 13. Critics say the result is that California public schools, ranked the nation's best in the 1970s, now sit among the worst.
South Milwaukee Superintendent David Ewald said his district has already cut $1.5 million from its 2003-'04 budget. Under current law, the district would lose another $400,000 in 2004-'05, and twice that amount under the Republican proposal.
Jeff Spence, president of the Milwaukee Public Schools board, said MPS already cut $48 million from the fiscal 2004 budget, and the proposed tax limits would squeeze out another $16 million.
"You can't take an oversimplistic approach . . . and expect people in our communities to survive," Spence said.
However, an organizer of a rally scheduled for Saturday in Milwaukee said the concerns voiced by school and municipal officials was nothing more than "a smoke screen."
"What we are saying to local officials is 'prioritize,' " said Chris Kliesmet, spokesman for Citizens for Responsible Government. "If they want the fire protection, education and the police protection that they're crying about in their doom-and-gloom statements, fund them first and find somewhere else to cut."
Kliesmet predicted that at least 500 people who support the GOP limits on taxes will attend a rally from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at Serb Hall.
"There's an outpouring of passion from people who are saying, 'Hey, we've had enough,' " Kliesmet said. "People are saying, 'Hey, if I scream about it loud enough, they'll know I'm serious now.' I think there will be a thousand people out there."
Outside the hall, a loose coalition of interfaith religious groups, teachers unions and other public-employee unions will leaflet and perhaps picket, said Michael Rosen, an economics instructor at Milwaukee Area Technical College and president of the American Federation of Teachers, Local 212.
The counter-rally aims to highlight concerns about how tax limits would hurt critical government services.
Milwaukee Fire Chief William Wentlandt Jr., who plans to appear with the anti-limits forces, called the GOP plan "arbitrary." It effectively would take away local management control of firefighting, he said.
Meanwhile, Doyle hit the road again Friday in support of his veto, stopping outside Madison and in Stevens Point and Green Bay.
Speaking at a groundbreaking ceremony for a construction laborer training center north of Madison, Doyle said the GOP plan would drive the state's economy "right off a cliff" by "putting the brakes on economic development and killing thousands of jobs in our state."
Doyle, who was in La Crosse and Chippewa Falls on Thursday, said he's getting mail and calls from people on both sides of the issue.
Doyle and Senate Minority Leader Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) both said they were confident the Senate would uphold Doyle's veto Tuesday.
If the Senate does override the veto, the Assembly, which Republicans control by a 59-40 margin, must do likewise for the GOP plan to become law.
Journal Sentinel reporters Nahal Toosi, Mike Johnson, Jesse Garza, Sarah Carr, Kelly Wells and Esther Chou, and correspondent Kevin Murphy contributed to this report.
But it's Ok for a bunch of idiots in Washington, DC, to tell every state what to do???????