No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for May 1st, 2007

Prayers to Charlie Sykes and the Sykes family

by @ 20:46. Filed under Miscellaneous.

His mother died in a house fire this afternoon.

Speaking of taxes…

by @ 18:01. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin, Taxes.

Item #1 comes to us with a hat tip to The BlogfatherAssembly Speaker Mike Huebsch isn’t ruling out backing the 2.5% oil profits tax even though he realizes that it will be an over-7-cents-per-gallon tax increase. After all, he has to keep Payne and Dolan happy, taxpayers be damned.

Item #2 is from Owen’s latest column (H/T so I can get the trackback from Boots and Sabers). It really hammers home the both the sham that is the concept of fund transfers and the insatable appetite of the units of government that are the beneficiaries (and in this case) the authors of that transfer. Can anyone tell me why the state needs $7 out of the $12 fee for the first copy of a birth certificate when it has no cost associated with either maintaining or reproducing that certificate (at least it doesn’t currently take anything out of the $3 for a second copy requested at the same time), much less its proposed take of over half of the proposed $20 fee for EVERY copy, specifically without the oinks and squeals that are the only truthful reason?

And don’t think the other end of the cradle-to-grave mentality that Jim “Craps” Doyle (WEAC/Potawatomi-For Sale) has isn’t covered. Copies of death certificates will be going up from $7 for the first copy and $3 for each additional copy to $20 for each and every copy. Today’s lesson; do not die in Wisconsin.

What’s Yours Is Mine part 3,212

by @ 16:35. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin, Taxes.

Today’s Journal Sentinel drones on about Department of Revenue Secretary Roger Ervin’s whine that we taxpayers are “underpaying” Wisconsin taxes to the tune of $4 billion to $6 billion annually, or between 30% and 45% of the $13.3 billion that the politicos in the Capitol seem to think they’re entitled to. Before I get to items in the article itself, let’s take a look or two at those staggering numbers. There are roughly 3.5 million Wisconsinites between 18 and 65 according to the Census Bureau, so your state government is expecting roughly $3,800 from each and every working taxpayer. With the combination of the “progressive” personal income tax and the “regressive” sales tax, excise taxes, fees, and corporate income tax making that number pretty solid through the populace, is it really any wonder there is “tax-dodging”? Indeed, that combination, which enabled those that see huge government as the solution instead of the problem, is the very reason for that “shortfall”.

Now, on to the article….

State laws haven’t kept up with the ways taxpayers find to avoid taxes – including not paying sales taxes on Internet purchases, state Department of Revenue Secretary Roger Ervin said in his first in-depth interview since taking office about three months ago.

“We don’t have a mechanism in our government to annually update our tax statutes,” Ervin said. “If you don’t have that fundamental statutory authority to keep up with the market, you start falling further and further behind.”

Allow me to translate – Grab your wallets, folks. Gubmint wants to dream up new ways to tax you without any elected official having a say.

Ervin insisted that any moves to close the tax gap would not be a tax increase. He argued that more money flowing into the state from those who should be paying could lower current state income tax rates, now a maximum of 6.75% for individuals and 7.9% for corporations.

Bravo Sierra. More money flowing in is a working definition of a tax increase. Morever, history has taught us that if there is an additional dollar flowing into government, it will be spent by government; hence, rates will not go down.

Ervin was critical of the leaders of WMC for repeatedly saying that Wisconsin ranks among the high-taxed states nationally and that Doyle’s proposed budget would worsen its ranking because it includes $1.7 billion in tax and fee increases.

“We need to have WMC in here as a positive partner that’s willing to have a public debate about the economy in a very rational and mature way . . . ,” Ervin said.

Where to begin, oh where to begin? So much material, so little time. Since it is the High Holy day of Communists, I’ll start with the notion that Ervin has that it is the job of government to control the economy. WRONG! The Soviet bloc is no more because the governments that comprised it thought it could and should control the economy.

As for the “rational and mature” comment, that’s typical liberalism at work. According to Ervin and his fellow travellers, questioning the idea that $3,800 from every working-age taxpayer isn’t enough is verboten. Fiscal responsibility need not be brought up. The idea of government not being allowed to grow unchecked must be quashed at all costs.

HORSE MANURE! The root problem is that government is too big. It may manifest itself with a myriad of taxes designed to hide government’s true cost. It may manifest itself with fund transfers that have become the vast majority of state spending. It may manifest itself with the idea that government must provide health care, or tell restaurants whether they can allow smoking, or that we need two full-fledged Interstate highways between Milwaukee and Green Bay.

Today’s sign that Pelosi is delusional

by @ 13:57. Filed under Politics - National, War on Terror.

(H/T – Curt)

The following comes from Congressional Quarterly (subscription required)

The much-anticipated presidential veto of the Iraq supplemental spending bill was to have taken place already, but a signature "” or lack thereof "” has been standing in the way. And it’s not President Bush’s signature "” it’s House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s.

The conference report on the bill [was] adopted by the House and cleared by the Senate last week, but Pelosi, D-Calif., wanted time to personally read it and sign it before sending it to Pennsylvania Avenue.

Either Plastic still thinks she’s President or she’s very lazy.

This blog will NOT shut down today

by @ 8:01. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Instead, I am running a 1-day impromptu poll on how many Che Guevara shirts will make their appearances in Milwaukee’s May Day/Reconquista rally.

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