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| 2/5/2010 9:05:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Sen. Jim Holperin |
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Holperin: 'We Democrats' authorized all kinds of new taxes
Senator said budget had “enough little tax and fee hikes to sink a good sized battleship”
Late last year, in a December letter to the editor sent to local newspapers, state Sen. Jim Holperin (D-Conover) lauded the progress he said the state was making under the leadership of Gov. Jim Doyle and the Democratic-controlled Legislature.
Holperin pointed to the state's improved tax ranking - Wisconsin is the nation's 15th highest taxed state; it had been higher - and said the new 2010-11 budget should keep the rate moving steadily downward by reducing spending and raising taxes negligibly.
However, in several emails last year to Beth Tornes, a grant writer at the Great Lakes InterTribal Council, Holperin had an entirely different take on taxes and the state of the state's budget: there were lots of new taxes, he wrote, and the Democrats were responsible for them.
Tornes had written Holperin last Oct. 7 asking him to support comprehensive drunk driving legislation, as well as a beer tax to help fund law enforcement, treatment services and prevention programs.
Holperin replied, saying the beer tax was not going to happen.
"We Democrats authorized all kinds of new taxes in the recently adopted state budget (cigarette taxes, capital gains taxes, solid waste fees, cell phone tax, boat registration fee, etc. etc.) and took a lot of heat for that," Holperin wrote. "Nobody is eager to be voting for 'another' tax increase ... especially on beer! We're a brewery state, for crumb sakes (which maybe also explains our alcohol culture...)!"
Maybe a liquor tax instead, he contemplated in a message extending over two emails (he had accidentally sent the first in mid-sentence and launched the second email to complete the thought).
"However, the Senate may be in the mood to consider an increase in the liquor ... increase in the liquor tax but even that will be tough sell. I think the choices right now are, ignore the costs, pass the bill and worry about the inconsistency of that later. Or, pass the bill and increase the liquor tax by 50 cents."
The day before Holperin had sent his emails, a Senate panel had approved an increase in the liquor tax from 86 cents per liter to $1.36 per liter. The Senate later dropped the idea altogether.
Not the first try
It was not the first time Tornes had tried to persuade Holperin to support a tax on alcohol. She had also done so in March 2009, as Doyle's budget bill made its way through the Legislature.
"I'm writing to urge you to support Representative Theresa Berceau's bill to place a tax on alcohol sales in our state," Tornes wrote in a March 23, 2009, email to Holperin. "The cost to moderate drinkers would be minimal while the increased revenues to the state would be enormous!"
Holperin made no commitment to support the bill, and he again cited the numerous taxes included in the budget bill as one reason why.
"Well, we'll see," he wrote. "You know the Governor's got enough little tax and fee hikes in that budget of his to sink a good sized battleship. So there's no shortage of revenue 'uppers' for the legislature to consider and for the voters to get mad over ... which they have done even though most of the increases won't affect most average Wisconsinites."
Holperin said he understood the motivation for supporting such a tax, but he was reluctant.
"I know our beer tax rate is among the nation's lowest, but we're a beer brewing state, for crumb sakes," he wrote. "I don't know how our wine and distilled spirit taxes compare to other states."
The senator did acknowledge that "there may come a time (maybe sooner rather than later)" when the state would need the extra revenue an alcohol tax would provide, but, with the other taxes and fees proposed in the budget, he said he felt voters would view such a tax as an effort to use tax policy to discourage drinking.
"So, I won't completely rule out supporting an alcohol tax at some time," he wrote. "Just not right now. There are too many other tax increase 'negatives' we're having to deal with."
A different view
When Doyle first unveiled his budget late last year, it included $1.74 billion in new taxes and fees, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, and Republicans immediately denounced that amount as excessive, especially during a recession.
Holperin's battleship metaphor in his email was more in line with the GOP's criticism at the time, as was his pronouncement after the final budget included $2.1 billion in tax and fee increases that Democrats authorized "all kinds of new taxes."
It was all a far cry from the language he used in his end-of-year letter to the editor, however.
In that missive, he attributed the state's improved tax ranking to income tax rate cuts earlier in the decade that had been indexed for inflation, revenue caps on schools and local governments, no increase in the sales tax, and slower state spending compared to other states.
What's more, far from saying the new budget contained "all kinds of new taxes," his letter downplayed tax and fee increases.
"The governor and Legislature's 2010-11 budget, which eliminated a huge deficit, balanced the books, cut spending and raised taxes only selectively and slightly should keep Wisconsin's tax rank headed downward as other states struggle with fiscal circumstances much worse than ours," he wrote.
Other budget issues
More than just an array of new taxes bothered Holperin during the budget cycle last year.
A review of emails from Holperin's office, for instance, shows the senator was strongly opposed when Sen. Mark Miller (D-Monona) attempted to insert a budget provision removing public access requirements for lands purchased with Stewardship dollars. That language had been passed in the previous budget bill as a compromise to win Republican support for the Stewardship program's reauthorization.
Miller's office gave Holperin's office a heads up, knowing the measure would be controversial.
"I wanted to let you know about a stewardship motion that passed in JFC (Joint Finance Committee) that you will likely hear about," Miller's aide, Beth Bier, wrote to Holperin staffer Elizabeth Novak on May 29, 2009. " . . . Essentially it removes the public access language that was added in the last budget for non-department lands (local governments and land trusts) and returns to the public access standards previously in place."
It was nothing dramatic, Bier assured Novak.
"Lands remain open, this is not closing land off to hunting at all," she wrote. "I would describe it as more flexible, especially for local governments, to follow the open space plans that have gone through a public planning process to determine the needs of an individual property."
Bier said she and Miller would be very willing to explain it all to Holperin and his staff.
"Mark would be happy to talk to Sen. Holperin at any time about it if he'd like," Bier wrote. "And let me know if you want more information. I can give you 10 minutes or 10 hours, so just let me know."
The emails don't indicate whether Bier ever gave Novak a 10-hour briefing, or whether Miller conversed with Holperin, but Holperin expressed his opposition to the amendment in an email to a citizen member of a DNR advisory committee developing an access rule, who protested the JFC action to Holperin.
Environmentalists and sportsmen and women had been struggling for a compromise on the access rule, the citizen said, and the amendment would make such a compromise virtually impossible.
"When I found out about the JFC action Monday morning I talked to folks at Gathering Waters, TNC (The Nature Conservancy), Dane Co. and told them I thought this move had been a mistake and would set back years of effort by a lot of people (including myself) to encourage cooperation between the hook and bullet folks and the enviros," the citizen wrote.
The citizen told Holperin he believed the Democratic leadership should remove the amendment and tell both sides to compromise and "work it out."
In his email response, Holperin assured the citizen he opposed the amendment. He also agreed there would be little need for environmentalists to compromise on the access rule if the amendment survived.
Holperin said the environmentalists were pushing the issue hard, however.
"Well, I'm doing what I can," he replied. "My strong, strong position is to take this right back out of the budget. Holschbach, Elkin, O'Connor ... the whole crowd was in the office last week pleading with me to 'be reasonable,' by which they mean don't object to the budget provision."
"But," he added, "I say 'take it out' ... and I think there's a good head of steam up in the Assembly to do that."
Holperin wondered just how close the two sides were.
"Right now the enviros think they've won and so have little incentive to meet ... that's why I'm saying 'take it out' ... if they get the idea that it's actually gonna come back out maybe that's some incentive," he wrote.
In the end, the amendment did not survive the budget process.
AIS: One budget at a time
On yet another topic - aquatic invasive species - retired DNR and environmental activist Bob Martini thanked Holperin for supporting a $2 voluntary donation for AIS control. The donation can be made when people buy hunting or fishing licenses.
But why not expand the scope? Martini wondered.
"It's good that you support additional fees for AIS control," Martini wrote. "Why not expand the fee to all fishing licenses, boat registration, waterfront prop taxes (state), waterfowl hunting licenses, etc to really increase the fund to control AIS?"
Holperin's reaction: One thing at a time, buddy!
"When next budget time comes around...we'll see what the appetite of the legislature is for more fees," he wrote. "Maybe the time will be right to make an aquatic invasive fee mandatory with each of the licenses you specified which would, as you suggest, raise some real money."
That gain would have to be balanced by sacrifice elsewhere, Holperin added, given the way the Legislature worked.
"But, of course, the trade-off would be no more general purpose support to fight aquatic invasives," he wrote. "I think that's the only incentive legislators would have for applying a mandatory fee."
Richard Moore can be reached at rmmoore1@verizon.net.
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Reader Comments
Posted: Saturday, February 06, 2010
Article comment by:
Bob H.
Wisconsin is a tax crazy state. I was a resident of Florida and you don't even have to file an income tax form there. My biggest gripe with Wisconsin is property tax. I live in Boulder Junction now which isn't too bad compared to places like Minocqua but I got a 20% increase this last year and they seem intent on this new community center which will increase it more in the future. And rprp is correct about farmers. They get a huge break on their property taxes that has to be made up by the rest of the property tax payers. In these tough economic times governments should cut back and hold the line on tax increases AND these endless fee and license increases.
Posted: Friday, February 05, 2010
Article comment by:
rprp
This ranking is misleading. The farmers in this state pay very little of their share and the workong families and seniors pay way to much of the share of all taxes.
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