Missing the Point
Craig Maher is a Wauwatosa alderman and an assistant professor of fiscal policy in the advanced degree program in public administration at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Whether it's on purpose or not, he misses the point of the WTPA. Completely.
1. WTPA is not aimed primarily at locals - locals are already under revenue restraints and are a minor part of the problem. WTPA's primary effect will be on state revenues, which can only be restricted by a constitutional amendment.
2. He points to cuts in things that are not "core services." That is, and will continue to be, a local decision. In the future local government may have to ask the taxpayers before they expend extras.
3. WTPA contains restrictions on cuts to shared revenue and school aids - if the state cuts their overall support for these revenue streams they have to reduce their own revenue limits.
4. WTPA contains incentives for the state to eliminate mandates on local governments and a specific prohibition on creating new unfunded state mandates.
5. Because WTPA limits revenue rather than spending or tax rates, it maintains flexiblity for the state to change the way local or state functions are funded.
6. Finally, the professor makes several references to a broader debate - no other proposal in the last 15 years has created as all inclusive a debate as what is being brought forward by this proposal.
I hope he at least reads the ordinances before him during tosa city council meetings. He clearly didn't read the WPTA bill before he wrote this tripe.
7 Comments:
You mean the law actually matters and you should read it? Seems unreaonable.......
I don't care what they call it. Cap spending, revenues, whatever. Just do it. C'mon Grothman. tick, tick, tick
Fraley misses the point. There is no need for TABOR or TP or whatever if sitting state legislators had the ability to do what they say they want to do: cut government spending without shifting the burden to local government. TABOR/TP is an admission that the Republican legislature has failed, crying "Stop me before I tax you more!" We don't need TABOR/TP, we need legislators with guts!
So the foundation of your critique of Maher's op-ed is that local governments aren't really impacted very much by this amendment?
Interesting. I wonder why local governments across the state including the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities, the Kenosha County Executive's Office, and the Lodi Mayor's Office (I'm sure more will be coming) have already made formal statements opposing the revenue restrictions amendment. Are we to believe they're all freaking out over nothing, too?
In fact, the only local government official who has come out publicly in favor of the amendment is Scott Walker--who is first and foremost a candidate for governor, anyway.
anonymous, seth, this is a bipartisan breakdown. Of course Wisconsin state policy makers - not just state but local - can't stop themselves from spending our money. Why do you think this is a constitutional change in the mechanism to allow government to increase its revenues/spending past a certain point?
Wisconsin history is littered with sales tax increases designed to lower local taxes. At the time these increases were passed they were to pay for 1. the state mandating new responsibilities for the locals, or 2. the state making some grand shift in local funding formulas and therefore making the shift palatable (ensuring no losers) or 3. the state exempting large classes from local taxation for economic development purposes (M&E) and again making the shift palatable and lowering taxes at the same time. Funny, local taxes never stay low, though: nor does state spending to keep them low.
Legislators and the Governor have not kept spending down - and look at Gov Doyle: he has stolen from every other pot of money the state has, from energy conservation to his attempt to grab from patient compensation (just in time for the $4.5 million tort award, don't you know).
This is a bipartisan, historic, problem. And don't get sappy with Republicans failing at it, by the way. Last budget they lowered spending more than Doyle did - and Doyle, using a VETO, INCREASED spending by $450 million, all of it to pour into local aids.
When was the last time a governor used a veto to increase spending like that? Don't governors use vetos to cut things?
Wisconsin is a highly taxed state, but the services we receive as a public also are among the best in the nation. All this talk of how much is being spent causes people to ignore what the money is being spent on.
Have our taxes increased over the course of Wisconsin history? Of course. Sometimes that increase is faster than inflation, sometimes not. Why? Very simply because the cost of providing public services rise faster than inflation at times and at other times not.
The debate here should be focused on what services we want and what services we don't want as a public--not how we can arbitrarily restrict government from generating revenue (which goes far beyond taxes in this proposed amendment to include fines, forfeitures, licenses, permits, assessments, and fees).
The best place to have the debate over public services is through local government because it's closest and therefore most responsive to the public. That's why Maher proposed in his article giving local governments more control over their budgets. It's a very reasonable proposal that has a much better chance at gaining bipartisan and public support than the revenue restrictions amendment, which looks like it might not even make it out of the state senate.
Getitright gets it wrong. Doyle vetoed more money into the school "pot" because the legislature took money away. In 1993 Tommy G. Thompson designed cost controls for schools which permitted increased spending to mirror inflation. The Republican legislature attempted to balance the budget on the backs of the public schools. All the Governor did was give back what Tommy G. Thompson gave them when he saddled them with revenue controls over a decade before.
"...state revenues, which can only be restricted by a constitutional amendment."
The state legislature is out of control and most of its members know it.
No other state in the union of our size has a full-time legislature...with way too much time on its hands to make much mischief!
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