The south entrance to the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison. (File photo by Pat Kreitlow)
Our tax dollars go a lot further when we invest in all 72 counties, not just one. The same can be said for tax cuts that benefit all income brackets, not just the highest ones.
When you look at how the Republican tax cut plan for the state budget was designed, the first thing you’ll notice are the very big numbers at the top—like a $1.8 million tax cut for each of the 11 filers whose adjusted gross income is $75 million or more—and the tiny numbers for the middle class, such as a $165 tax cut for folks earning close to Wisconsin’s median income of $57,934.
Look at the numbers long enough and it’ll hit you: They’ve Fox-Conned the tax cut!
Seriously. Their plans for tax cuts and business development simply beg comparison to Gov. Tony Evers’ proposals.
With a $7 billion surplus, there’s enough to make targeted investments and cut taxes for working families. Evers’ plan would have done that with a 10% tax cut for everyone with income of less than $100,000 per individual or $150,000 for joint filers. That would have brought relief to 1.9 million tax filers.
Do these differing approaches sound familiar? They should. Remember when Republicans wanted to give more than $3 billion to Foxconn? Lots of folks said it would have been better to spread state resources to small businesses across all 72 counties. That’s exactly what Evers did with the Main Street Bounceback Grants program, with a (nearly-met) goal of investing $10,000 in 10,000 small businesses.
At the national level, President Joe Biden is doing the same thing—growing the economy from the middle out and the bottom up. It works. Reaganomics, also known as trickle-down economics, has never worked to grow the economy. We’re not saying Republicans need to fully embrace Bidenomics, but the least they could do is not have a tax cut plan that’s so Fox-Conned. It is far from the best way to handle the opportunities this kind of surplus offers us.
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