Walker Increases Taxes on the Poor and Poorer!!! They’re taking from the rich!!

A Republican promise not really a promise,  always has caveats, is a lie, and can be taken back easily with just an ounce of spin. Remember when letting the Bush tax cuts expire was a “tax increase?” But removing tax credits for the working poor is not really a tax increase but a “redistribution program” that is “taking money from other taxpayers” of wealth. See, it’s all in how you spin it that allows Republicans to justify doing whatever they want.

Wisconsin’s working class just got a TAX INCREASE. Hey Democrats, workers didn’t “sorta” get a tax increase.  It didn’t “amount” to a tax increase either. IT IS A TAX INCREASE.

WSJ: Low-income taxpayers in Wisconsin would lose hundreds of dollars in tax credits a year under Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget — at the same time the governor wants tax cuts for businesses and investors to boost jobs. 

Under Walker’s proposed biennial budget, a single mother with two children earning about minimum wage — $15,000 a year — would lose $302 of her $704 Earned Income Tax Credit next year, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance. A two-parent household with two children earning $30,000 a year would see its tax credit cut by $194 to $258, the alliance said. 

The credit is seen as an anti-poverty tool that helps offset federal Social Security taxes and encourages work among the lowest-wage earners.

It cuts a whole $16 million a year from the program. The burden on wealthier wage earners will be lifted at last, and money will once again be distributed up to the “haves.”

In an interview the Republican governor called the tax credit a “redistribution program” that involves “taking money from other taxpayers and giving it to individuals who have a limited tax liability.”“This is reducing how much money other taxpayers have to give to those individuals,” Walker said. 

The governor also proposes cutting $9 million in tax rebates to low-income homeowners under the Homestead Tax Credit. That credit is designed to offset the cost of property taxes for residents earning no more than $24,500 a year, many of them elderly. 

The budget proposal would freeze the Homestead credit at the current level rather than allowing it to rise with inflation. 

Jon Peacock, research director at the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families (said) “We think it’s very disappointing that the governor’s proposing changes that amount to tax increases for low-income families at the same time he’s proposing tax breaks for multistate corporations and the wealthy.”

The solution left for the poor? Get another job.

Revenue Secretary Rick Chandler said “The best thing for people at the lower end of the income scale is to get more Wisconsin jobs.”  

But state Rep. Donna Seidel, D-Wausau, sees hypocrisy in the governor’s approach.“The main thing we have heard over and over (from Walker) about shared sacrifice and no tax increases, as details of the budget unfold, we see that there are in fact tax increases, and the people bearing the burden of balancing our budget are the middle- and low-income — the people who can least afford it.”