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These articles reflect the opinion of the author and are not endorsed by the Greater Milwaukee Green Party.

Gov. Doyle In The Corporate Shadow
By Robert Miranda

The national economy is on a roller coaster ride headed for a correction the likes never seen before. As states across the nation continue to recover from bipartisan fiscal neglect and corporate abandonment of America's workers, relief seems to be nowhere in sight. 

Wisconsin is an unlucky party to this fiscal crisis as it continues to find ways to manage its fiscal house. Our budget is feeling the negative affects of 16 years of privatization of public services mandated by the Republican controlled executive branch of our state government.

Jobs lost across the state have sharply reduced Wisconsin's ability to attract new tax revenue in order to meet the demands and needs of the people affected by corporate abandonment and greed. The continuing decline and rise in the stock market lead to reduced and erratic state income tax receipts from capital gains and stock options and sales tax, and meager corporation tax revenues.

The result of this economic instability, demand for state services and financial assistance for education, health care, and other services is growing significantly.

Yet, rather than stand tall for Wisconsin's workers, the Democratic governor opts to carry on with efforts to maintain corporate welfare practices, and to keep in place, and expand, tax loopholes designed to help the most affluent of corporations.

This unjust economic model must be challenged. The time has come for a leader to step forward to demand and resolve that social stability and economic fairness must be top priority over personal delight and pleasure.

In a time when the sweat of men and women working for minimum wage and or check to check can no longer sustain a decent way of life, it is time for those who have benefited from this labor force, living a decadent way of life, to put aside their greed and think about the general welfare of the people of this state.

Cutting basic services such as health care and education is no longer an option. The time to raise business taxes has come! The time for the corporation to pay its fair share is NOW!

Profitable multi-state and multi-national corporations have benefited from Republican led anti-tax schemes for almost two decades in Wisconsin. Every year the rich kept getting richer and the working poor found no long-term relief.

The political right wing and the Democratic Party's leadership will argue that taxes scare away business growth in the state. Well, this declaration needs to be exposed for what it is-obfuscation and sophistry.

Giant corporations pay little to no taxes while the working people of Wisconsin shoulder the burden to maintain the state's responsibility to provide the basic of services to working families and small businesses.

Over the years Corporations have used their political clout to shift the tax burden in this state away from themselves and onto the working people of Wisconsin. 

State representative Spencer Black points out that "corporate income tax, which accounted for more than 11 percent of state tax collections in 1979, now brings in a mere 4.8 percent."

He states that if Corporations would pay their fair share they would be paying $600 million more in state taxes this year if they were still paying the same share as in 1979.

Instead, big businesses, rather than use those savings to create more jobs and opportunities for Wisconsin's working families, have decided to move corporate jobs over seas. Using the money they saved on taxes to help relocate to countries that pay dirt wages.

These businesses are usually replaced by huge corporate service industries with few ties to the local economy. Their growth around the state only stands in the way of growth for local small businesses.

Now we see a Democratic governor, Jim Doyle, adding to the problem.  Rather than move to block loopholes in the tax formulas of our state, he maintains the Republican theory of not taxing the corporate elite because they might leave.

Indeed, he's taken it further than Tommy ever dared.

Well, I got news for Doyle. The corporate elite are leaving anyway. 

Wisconsin is losing millions of dollars every year through corporate tax-schemes. Taxes are the backbone of a state's ability to pay for the public service that not only make our state work, but also keep our cities stable and ensures our rural communities relief when economic calamity occurs. 

It is time for the Democrats in the legislature to break with their Governor. They must fight him as he shifts the tax burden from wealthy corporations to hard working families and small businesses.

They must fight him as he raises tuition almost 20%.  It's time for the Governor to move government out of the shadows of the corporation.

It is time to take on the tax cheats and their allies and turn Wisconsin's economic ship around. The Democrats need to fight Doyle as hard, or harder than they fought Tommy. 

It's time for the Democrats to lead, follow or get the hell out of the way.

Si se puede!

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