PLATTEVILLE, Aug .5 — In case you haven’t noticed from the buzzing from the later-summer cicadas or the corn from Rewey, the last month of the summer is upon us.
That also means that we have a primary election Tuesday. I point that out for those who have been blessed to miss the mailers and obnoxious TV and online ads over the past months. And if you think it’s bad now, just wait for next Wednesday once Tuesday’s winners are determined.
Unless you want to vote for a local candidate, former Lancaster mayor David Varnam, for lieutenant governor, the action is in the Democratic primary, with contested races for governor, the Third Congressional District and the 17th Senate District.
I am convinced that at least a plurality of Wisconsin voters vote the candidate and not the party, or, in these days, based on who is president. They are the people who actually exhibit common sense, as opposed to candidates who claim that their positions represent “common sense” and the opponent’s positions are “extreme.” Position exaggeration is right next to power inflation, where the candidate promises to fix whatever he or she thinks ails the voter, whether or not one member of Congress or one state senator has the ability to do that, and whether or not a governor can fix that without getting his or her party — and maybe even attempting to get the opposition party — on board.
It is a bizarre feature of today’s politics that the gap between the two parties continues to expand just when voters don’t appear to like that reality. The corollary is more moderate positions are derided as “politics as usual.” Many candidates for office seem to depend on voters who don't pay attention to what’s going on more than a few days before Election Day. And as usual there is the trope of candidates not understanding (perhaps deliberately) that “change” and “improvement” are not synonyms. Most voters don’t want “different,” they want “better,” and most voters in this area want to hold on to what they have, not have it taken away by politicians who think they know better than you how to use your money.
Third Congressional District candidate Rebecca Cooke’s mailer Monday promises that she will “lower costs” without, of course, saying how she’s going to accomplish that. Given that all the Democrats appear to want to increase taxes on business, and given that taxes are a cost of doing business, well, maybe her way to lower costs will become evident should she win the primary.
The popular Democratic idea this year seems to be a tax on millionaires or billionaires or everyone with more money than them, or you. That includes many business owners whose businesses, which are nearly always — horrors! — corporations, are set up to have their owner pay the business’ income taxes instead of the corporation. (Do a search for “subchapter S.”) The result of taking away income from a business owner via higher taxes is less money for employee wages, less hiring, less expansion and, in the worst case, departing for lower-tax states, such as the state to our southwest. To borrow from myself in my business magazine days: Anything a business does with its money is preferable to paying income taxes.
Gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong wants to increase the top income tax rate to 17.7 percent, which would be by a large margin the highest in the entire country. Hong also proposed a new payroll tax to fund child care. State Senate candidate Corrine Hendrickson said she would be fine with a 90 percent tax rate on incomes beyond $10 million.
Given that Wisconsin has exactly seven billionaires and, depending on how you count (income vs. assets) approximately 10,000 or 138,000 millionaires out of 3 million taxpayers and almost 6 million people, the fiscal reality is that big government expansions to fund anything more will require tax increases not only on those with more money than you, but on you. Any candidate who espouses more government spending without admitting that means tax increases for most people is not being honest. And while specific voters may not have children in child care or school and may have acceptable health insurance, everyone pays taxes.
The hot issue this election cycle is data centers, which were embraced by the same party whose candidates are now running against them, possibly without much thought about the implications of being reflexively anti-data center. The remaining Democratic candidates for governor come from Madison and Milwaukee, and have somehow declined to suggest that maybe data centers should be where their users are — population centers, not on pristine farmland. (The corollary: see any wind turbines around Lake Mendota or on Milwaukee’s Lake Michigan shoreline? Of course not.)
Your favorite weekly newspaper editor doesn’t tell you whom to vote for, only to cast an informed vote Tuesday, and then in November.
