{"id":8121,"date":"2024-01-06T05:03:47","date_gmt":"2024-01-06T06:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=8121"},"modified":"2024-01-06T06:56:46","modified_gmt":"2024-01-06T06:56:46","slug":"milwaukee-sales-tax-increase-has-mayor-washington-county-executive-at-odds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=8121","title":{"rendered":"Milwaukee Sales Tax Increase Has Mayor, Washington County Executive at Odds"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/milwaukee-sales-tax-increase-has-mayor-washington-county-executive-at-odds\/tcsquare\/2024\/01\/06\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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by Benjamin Yount<\/h5>\n

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Milwaukee\u2019s new 2% sales tax has spawned a war of words between the city\u2019s mayor and the county executive in Washington County.<\/p>\n

It began New Year\u2019s Day when Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann posted a message on social media welcoming people to shop in his county.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome to Washington County for the savings, stay for the quality of life! Exhibit A: In the City of Milwaukee, today you will pay an additional $60 for this bedroom set,\u201d Schoeman tweeted.<\/p>\n

The back-and-forth continued Thursday when Milwaukee\u2019s mayor slapped back in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought his comments were unfortunate knowing that all communities need revenue,\u201d Mayor Cavalier Johnson told the Journal Sentinel. \u201cIf folks are looking at a high-quality dinner or a theater or a fine dining experience, they can come here, or go to Cracker Barrel there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schoeman\u00a0 (pictured above, right) said he never expected his tweet about a tax hike to become such a big thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just surprised that at conservative Washington County welcoming people from Milwaukee getting such blow-back,\u201d Schoeman told News Talk 11130 WISN\u2019s Jay Weber on Thursday morning. \u201cYou know it\u2019s certainly sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Milwaukee\u2019s new sales tax took effect Monday. It adds 2% to the cost of most things that people in the city buy. In addition, Milwaukee County added .4% to their sales tax, bringing it to .9%. Those taxes are on top of Wisconsin\u2019s statewide 5% sales tax.<\/p>\n

That means, in all, people who shop in Milwaukee are paying nearly 8 cents on the dollar in taxes.<\/p>\n

Schoeman said some of the blow back that\u2019s come his way is because he pointed out the Milwaukee and Milwaukee County leaders raised taxes on their own people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been overt in their efforts to raise taxes. [They] initially said they wanted to go to referendum and get the citizens permission, and then advocating even again talking to their citizens,\u201d Schoeman said of Milwaukee\u2019s years-long push to get permission from lawmakers to raise taxes on their own. \u201cAnd here we sit, they have an increase. Washington County is 2% lower than our neighbors who are literally across the street in the city of Milwaukee. So, yeah, we\u2019re going to try to gain some market share here. But apparently that\u2019s offensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson (pictured above, left) didn\u2019t use the word offended, but he did take some offense.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Washington County residents] are getting a boost as this is retaining the Brewers, and it helps a lot of people,\u201d the mayor said. \u201cHe is encouraging people to go to their county. Folks will pay more in gas than simply staying here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schoeman said Milwaukee\u2019s 2% sales tax may not be much when you\u2019re talking about a meal or a tank of gas, but he said it becomes a lot of money when you buy bigger ticket items like furniture or appliances or things like that.<\/p>\n

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Benjamin Yount is a contributor to The Center Square.\u00a0<\/a>
\nPhoto \u201cCavalier Johnson\u201d by Cavalier Johnson.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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The post Milwaukee Sales Tax Increase Has Mayor, Washington County Executive at Odds<\/a> appeared first on The Wisconsin Daily Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/milwaukee-sales-tax-increase-has-mayor-washington-county-executive-at-odds\/tcsquare\/2024\/01\/06\/ by Benjamin Yount \u00a0 Milwaukee\u2019s new 2% sales tax…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-daily-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8121","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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8122,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8121\/revisions\/8122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}