By “employers,” Scott, do you mean all Wisconsin businesses? (Scott? Sounds a little chummy, ain'a?)

Specifically, will you recommend cutting -- or even abolishing -- the
$700 million corporate income tax?

Scott, would you freeze property taxes only on homes, or also on other types
of property (manufacturing, commercial, farmland, utilities)?

Walker took aim at Wisconsin’s new “combined reporting” taxation law, which treats parent companies and subsidiaries as one corporation for income tax purposes.(What was known as the Las Vegas Loophole allowed companies to pretend to be headquartered elsewhere and avoid Wisconsin taxes. Walker wants to reopen the loophole.)

Walker said he would try to repeal the increase in the top income tax bracket... (the top one per cent, who make over $225,000 a year)

and new changes in capital gains deductions... (Guess who pays most capital gains taxes?

He also promises to eliminate Wisconsin’s tax on retirement income...

--Ending health care assistance to over 100,000 families (two adults, two children) per year enrolled in the state’s BadgerCare programs.

--;Firing 14,000 public school teachers

--Cutting nearly all funding to the University of Wisconsin System

When the University of Wisconsin-Madison Political Science department announced a new polling partnership with the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, one of Wisconsin's most prominent right wing think tanks, we were immediately worried about the credibility of the poll -- and more importantly, the credibility of the UW.

And when through a public records request, we uncovered that the corporate interests at WPRI pressured UW professor Ken Goldstein to alter the presentation of the poll results to more closely reflect a narrow right-wing agenda, our worst fears were realized.

UW's partnership and promotion of this propaganda polling project must end. Today. Can you sign on to the petition demanding an end to the UW-WPRI scheme? We'll deliver the names to the UW Political Science department chair, John Coleman, and UW Chancellor Biddy Martin to make sure our united voices are heard loud and clear.

Sign the petition: http://www.onewisconsinnow.org/uwpolling

The latest talking point to trickle down from Fox News to the rest of the GOP is that an up or down vote, also known as reconciliation, on health insurance reform in the Senate is outside the Senate rules. GOPer talking heads have equated using reconciliation with the "nuclear" option -- which, gentle reader, you'll be surprised to learn, is a total lie.

The latest liar to join the fracas is Reince Preibus, chair of the Wisconsin GOP. '"Democrats like Senator Feingold and President Obama have clearly and publicly opposed the use of reconciliation, also know (sic) as the "nuclear option" without equivocation...Democrats' willingness to contradict themselves by changing the rules in the Senate...blah blah blah talking point talking point etc blah.”

Now, now, Reince. Just because Hannity or Rush says something certainly does not make it true.

Good news, Wisconsin taxpayers. There are more swimming pools in your future. Look for one in a backyard near you -- but not at the park. Campaign press release:

Scott Walker, Milwaukee County executive and Republican candidate for governor, told a crowd of over 125 at Sheraton Hotel this weekend that as governor he would keep his promise to “spend taxpayer money as if it were my own,”...

In Wauwatosa, weeds snake up through cracks in the empty pool at Hoyt Park. The landscape is a stark contrast to the days when thousands of swimmers made Hoyt the most popular pool in Milwaukee County.

Competition. The ubiquitous cry of rabid free-marketers, Ayn Randites and conservatives as the answer to all that ills us. Just undo regulation and UNLEASH THE POWAH of the free market and competition! I can hear the bellowing now. Despite the repeated failures of total deregulation (current recession, runaway credit card industry, stock market crashes, etc.), conservatives still beat the “increase competition at any price” drum.

Your State Pension Under Attack

Executive Director Beil Blast's Opponents of State Pension Plan
Defends Public Sector Workers

Marty Beil - State Pensions Under Attack
Posted by SLY IN THE MORNING at 7:45 AM

Scott Walker and right-wing radio want to blame State pensions for the budget mess despite Wisconsin having one of the best run pension programs in the country. State employees make lower wages in exchange for a secure but modest retirement and its saves taxpayer money in the long run. Listen to AFSCME Council 24 Executive Director Marty Beil (http://slysoffice.blogspot.com/search?q=State+Pensions).

Listen to the radio show - Approximately 38 minutes
http://slysoffice.blogspot.com/search?q=State+Pensions

If there’s one thing new Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce board chair Tom Howatt and his corporate cronies at WMC enjoy more than anything, it’s a big ole handout from the government.

State Rep. Kevin Petersen, a Waupaca Republican who clearly believes in individual responsibility, has an idea to solve the problem that has stumped the nuclear industry, scientists and the government for 50 years: What to do with the deadly nuclear waste produced by reactors?

It's such a small quantity, Petersen seems to say, that maybe we could all just carry our own around.

Once again, Scott Walker has delighted us all with more exaggerated nonsense.  According to a blog entry on Cognitive Dissidence, Scott Walker’s campaign claimed responsibility for crashing the Government Accountability Office’s system due to an exorbitant amount of money in the campaign. The GAB’s office refuted Walker’s outlandish reasoning by saying “The Campaign Finance Information System did not crash. It was up and running throughout the weekend. No filers were prevented from downloading information, and the system has remained available throughout the filing period” (Cognitive Dissidence, 2/2/2010). 

To Walker’s dismay, the truth did not take long to surface.

During some downtime between creating super awesome and totally relevant Ayn Rand fanboy videos and posting them on Facebook, Paul Ryan managed to find time to offer up the latest GOP lead-balloon plan for propping up the rich and corporations while selling out the middle class. Ryan’s ‘Roadmap for America’ was brought to the forefront of the debate during the question and answer session between the President and House Republicans. The President even praised Ryan for offering a substantive idea, and though President Obama didn’t say so, I’m sure he was thankful to hear something from the Republicans that didn’t question his citizenship, attempt to incite racially-charged violence or contain a reference to teabagging. A breath of fresh air, if you will.

"This is not a case where there was a fatality or serious injury," Marks said. Her department is taking seriously the concerns raised by the investigation, she said.

No apology to the victims at the mental health facility who were sexually abused, just, well gee, there's been no murders so what's the big deal? Sexual abuse doesn't register as "serious injury" to the director of Human Services? 

And not a single comment from Walker in the whole article -- per usual, must be the state's fault, or the Board's responsibility, certainly not his or his administration.

WISTAX Watch is asking the conservative Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance to explain why its latest report focusing on fee increases in cities and villages ignores county governments. The state is in the midst of a gubernatorial campaign between Milwaukee's conservative county executive, Scott Walker and Milwaukee's mayor, Tom Barrett.

It defies logic that WISTAX focuses on cities but not counties, given its history of lumping taxes together in its annual total tax reports. WISTAX goes so far as to single out the city of Milwaukee for special coverage to get headlines advancing its conservative agenda.