{"id":3357,"date":"2023-06-08T22:08:49","date_gmt":"2023-06-08T22:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=3357"},"modified":"2023-06-08T23:05:29","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T23:05:29","slug":"no-the-milwaukeee-sales-tax-plan-is-not-a-bailout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=3357","title":{"rendered":"No, the Milwaukeee Sales Tax Plan is NOT a Bailout"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/milwaukee-bailout\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"milwaukee<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a \u201cMilwaukee bailout.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers agreed to a historic shared revenue plan that allows the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County\u2019s elected representatives to vote on sales tax increases to deal with their massive pension liabilities.<\/p>\n

No, the sales tax provision is not a \u201cMilwaukee bailout,\u201d as some conservatives have dubbed the plan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The dictionary definition of a bailout: \u201can act of giving financial assistance to a failing business or economy to save it from collapse<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Republican legislative leaders aren\u2019t giving Milwaukee extra financial help beyond the shared revenue increases they are also giving to every governmental entity in Wisconsin. The other communities aren\u2019t getting bailouts, either\u2026<\/p>\n

They are giving Milwaukee\u2019s elected representatives the ability to raise a tax on their own constituents<\/em>. (At the same time, they cut a tax for businesses in the state, the personal property tax.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a bailout when governmental officials raise property or gas taxes, either. It might be a choice that few like, but it\u2019s not a bailout.<\/p>\n

When legislators raise taxes, people don\u2019t call it a bailout.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a bailout when voters approve massive school referendums, is it?<\/p>\n

A bailout would be the state of Wisconsin cutting a massive check to eliminate the pension liability outright, but that\u2019s not what is happening here. The pain of a sales tax will be borne by Milwaukee residents, not those in, say, Superior. IF Milwaukee politicians approve it.<\/p>\n

As an aside, in Detroit, which went bankrupt, the State of Michigan did<\/em> cut a big check. Michigan literally bailed out Detroit. The Wisconsin plan doesn\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n

You can criticize the sales tax provision, but be aware that there are really three options here.<\/p>\n

1. Bankruptcy (we outline the costs of that in an upcoming story, which could include slashing retired cops\u2019 pensions, service cuts, loss of bond rating, and loss of investment.)<\/p>\n

2. Massive cuts in services (such as 500 Milwaukee police officers).<\/p>\n

3. The sales tax. This option spreads the pain. All citizens are going to pay a bigger price at the grocery store too, even the slackers, not just the hard-working cops or city workers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a choice of three lesser evils. The Legislature is picking the least evil. Yes, Milwaukee got itself into this position. But these are the options we have.<\/p>\n

We like the fact the Legislature baked guardrails into the plan so the city can\u2019t blow the new sales tax money on new DEI positions or a street car while cutting cops. The Legislature ended defunding of police and is forcing Milwaukee toward better fiscal decisions. See our list<\/a> of 13 conservative wins in the shared revenue deal, which also expanded school choice.<\/p>\n

The full Legislature still needs to approve the deal. If it\u2019s approved, the Milwaukee Common Council and County Board would need to approve a sales tax with a 2\/3rds vote.<\/p>\n

Language matters. Argue why #1 or #2 would be better than #3 if you want \u2013 it\u2019s a free country \u2013 but don\u2019t call it a bailout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/milwaukee-bailout\/ It\u2019s not a \u201cMilwaukee bailout.\u201d The Republican-controlled Legislature and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":3359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-right-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3357"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3360,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3357\/revisions\/3360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}