Mayor Soglin then....

Scott Walker's Paul Soglin Panic Attack!!!

Scott Walker's lack of ammunition against his Democratic opponents for governor is the real shocker.

As Madison Mayor Paul Soglin inched closer to making his announcement to run, Walker spewed an almost laughable and desperate tweet storm Jan. 4th (6 days ago Politifact):

And just today, Walker bashed Madison all the while promoting it: 

Soglin's successful management of Madison, it's incredibly low unemployment rate, the fact that it's always on the lists of best cities stand in stark contrast to Walker's reign as Milwaukee County Executive. He nearly bankrupted and broke up the county government. Here's what I wrote in a post from 2015...

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...In 2009, when Walker decided to run for governor, he claimed the problems in Milwaukee were caused by "poor policies" from...guess who, Democratic Governor Jim Doyle. But now as governor, it can't be Walker's fault? Check out this video from Upfront with Mike Gousha, that also includes his push for "shrinking" wages. You read that right:

Walker: (On doing away with more state jobs) "Yes...we're going to have to look at shrinking the size of government, we're going to have to look at shrinking more importantly, the size of wages and benefits..."

Oh, it gets worse...:

Remember, this all happened under Walker's watch back in May, 2009. Even then nothing was ever his fault:

Mike Gousha: "There are going to be people who say look, Milwaukee county has the highest poverty rate in the state, we're losing jobs in the city of Milwaukee, your largest municipality at a rate almost unmatched by any other big city. Do you share any responsibility for that?"

Walker: "Everybody does, but the state of Wisconsin has done specific things, policy wise, that have effected jobs here...if you look at the tax increases of $1.2 billion of new taxes..."

Mike Gousha: "Do you think you bare any of the responsibility for the numbers I just mentioned for the poverty rate, for the lack of employment right now in this community?"

Walker: "No, for us that's been an issue for years...politicians don't create jobs or eliminate jobs...!"

Walker never made the situation better in Milwaukee as governor. Walker as county executive actually agreed to dissolve the county, admitting that it was essentially bankrupt. From the Journal Sentinel's Dan Bice:

jsonline: Milwaukee County government is in such dire financial shape that state lawmakers should push through legislation that would allow it and other local governments to file for bankruptcy … the powerful Greater Milwaukee Committee is looking to recommend doing away with the elected county executive's post, slicing county worker benefits and spinning off the zoo, the bus system, the parks and much else under separate commissions.

(The Greater Milwaukee Committee tried to hide their report, saying) "We don't want this to become some sort of political football during the fall election campaigns ... If these dramatic steps - or something like them - aren't taken county government will collapse," the draft report suggests.

With Walker in charge....

The report also puts it this way: "If we don't make changes today … Parks will close, bus routes will end and families in distress will not get the help they need. Our Milwaukee will grow smaller and smaller as people and companies leave."

Here's one of my favorite cartoons that should have been taken more seriously:

Kinda liked these too...

Tax Cuts for the Wealthy paid for by Middle-Class, with repeal of Estate Tax and Deduction for State and local Taxes.

Trump economic "policy" (seriously, does he have any idea at all?), builds on the old disproven myths of long-dead GOP talking points. For instance...

The DEATH TAX!!! SCARY: There is no death tax because when you're dead, you don't exist and therefore can't be taxed. Make sense? Not to Republicans. 

As hard as Chris Hayes tried to make that point below, he still failed to get through to Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who still thinks farmers are losing out to the estate tax. Not true, and never has been true (more on that with an eye-opening clip below of Sen. Grassley).

And when it comes to middle-class killing repeal of the deduction for state and local taxes on your Federal taxes (more below from Mayor Soglin), the party supposedly against one-size-fits-all laws wants to accomplish just that nationally, by basically forcing high tax states and municipalities to cut their taxes due to the lost deduction. This proves Republicans have no concept of budgeting:

Here's Sen. Chuck Grassley openly admitted the death tax deception is all based on what people end up thinking is true, even if it isn't. Jaw dropping stuff:

Grassley: "I have a lot of people in my neighborhood that would fall into the category of having to pay the estate tax, and they worry about it. Now is that worry legitimate? You know, you have to ask them." 

Yea, if they are worried for no reason at all, Grassley's not going to tell ease their fears:



Below is the complete clip from the show Market to Market, with a detailed breakdown that destroys the myth of the death tax:

Announcer: "In farm country, $5.4 million is the average value of 764 acres of Iowa farmland, which according to the USDA, is twice the size of the average Iowa farm... 

Announcer: "Only 5500 of the 3 million estates settled in 2017, would have to pay any taxes, and of that only 80 would have to pay the estate tax. When asked about any specific instances of heirs selling portions of farms to pay estate taxes, Grassley could not immediately sight a case."

Middle-Class Tax Hike by eliminating State and Local Tax Deductions: First an update on the GOP's latest ruthless attempt to make low and middle-class Americans pay more...while giving business a pass on taking away the state and local tax deduction:

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said Wednesday that he expected to keep an apparently limited version of the state and local tax deduction for individual Americans, a break that party leaders had targeted for elimination in their tax overhaul plan ... the deal would involve allowing individuals to write off property taxes but not state and local income or sales taxes.

Brady also confirmed that the bill would not make any changes to the ability of companies to deduct state and local taxes as a business expense. Democrats have criticized Republicans for proposing to kill the break for individuals but keep it in place for businesses.

Revenge is "Trump" Sweet: Trump a revenge kind of guy, and Republican plans to penalize Democratic states is a no-brainer:

Repealing the deduction would lead to an average tax hike of $3,218 for Californians who claim it, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. Most of the states that would be hit hardest by the loss of the deduction are Democratic strongholds. Of the top 10 states for the deduction, Trump carried only three in last fall's election.

Even sweeter, a complete 180 and abandonment of those forgotten Trumpian true believers who feel they were passed over by their government:

Eliminating the deduction would generate as much as $1.8 trillion over the next decade and help pay for the large tax cuts in the Republican plan that, based on details released so far, are focused on corporations and the wealthy.

Madison  Mayor Paul Soglin wrote the opinion below based on math and two separate studies that sounded the alarm to Americans everywhere, especially resentful Trump supporters, that the Republican tax reform debacle will hit the middle class hard:

It appears many middle-income homeowners will see their taxes go up, not down, under the GOP’s Big Six plan … takes away the most popular — and one of the most valuable — deductions for households, which is widely taken by middle-income homeowners: the deduction for state and local taxes.

The state and local tax deduction is claimed by 44 million American households on their federal returns … nearly 86 percent have incomes under $200,000.… Washington has this deduction in its crosshairs because eliminating it raises $1.6 trillion over 10 years that tax writers can use to fund other tax breaks, some of which have nothing to do with the middle class.

An analysis prepared by the National Association of Realtors found that homeowners with average gross income between $50,000 to $200,000 would see their taxes go up with an average increase of $815, even if the standard deduction were doubled. NAR found that housing values might drop about 10 percent because tax reform would increase the after-tax cost of housing and dampen demand.

The independent Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center’s analysis similarly concluded that nearly 30 percent of taxpayers with incomes between $50,000 and $150,000 would see a tax increase under the proposed plan, due in part to the elimination of the deduction for state and local taxes.

So eliminating the deduction would result in a triple whammy for many middle-class taxpayers: higher taxes, lower home values, and fewer public services that make communities vibrant and attractive places to live. 

One more point. Those higher tax states are most likely higher contributing states to the national economy. Resentfully bringing these states down to the level of those more impoverished states, well, that's how Republicans work. These states will also end up sending more money to Washington, get less back, and keep sending the same subsidies to federally dependent states. Check out the interactive map, see for yourself:

2017’s Most & Least Federally Dependent States

Source: WalletHub

Trump administration officials and top congressional Republicans said the state and local tax deduction mostly helps high earners and forces residents in low-tax states to subsidize those in high-tax states.

House Republicans from high-tax states have pushed to save the deduction by adding new limits. One proposal would limit the deduction to individuals with adjusted gross incomes of no more than $400,000, or $800,000 for married couples.

Such a limit would preserve the deduction for all but the top 1 percent of earners _ those with adjusted gross incomes above about $465,000 _ according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation. But limiting rather than scrapping the deduction would raise only about a quarter of the additional revenue that Republicans are seeking to offset their tax cuts.

Walker takes Credit for Madison Mayor Paul Soglin's and Milwaukee's Tom Barrett's Unemployment Numbers.

Shout it from the hill top...

...since Scott Walker and possible gubernatorial challenger Mayor Paul Soglin took office within 3 months of each other in 2011, Walker added 60,000 jobs in Wisconsin.

But wait, 40,000 of those jobs were created in Madison, and the Madison area (Dane County), according to Soglin.

Someone is riding the coattails of progressive liberal Madison and Dane County (Milwaukee too, see below). Opportunistic Scott Walker. His reaction to Soglin's plain talk thoughts about running?

"It would make for a lively race. He’s an unabashed throwback to the 1960s radical liberal. I’d love to have that battle.”

Here's Upfront's Mike Gousha interviewing Paul Soglin, who you'll notice doesn't use one political cliche or talking point about party or policy.

Soglin: "The governor goes around saying 'well we're in the top ten, in terms of high school graduation rates.' The governors right. But he's doesn't finish the sentence. When he came into office we were 2nd in the state...now we're 8th.

Thanks to Soglin, Madison's 2.2% unemployment rate is driving down"Walker's" statewide average too. And yet we should thank coattail Scott? 

Walker's former gubernatorial opponent and all around bad liberal Mayor Tom "streetcar" Barrett did almost the impossible, yet Walker is trying to take credit for that too in a few of his official tweets:

At 4 percent, the city of Milwaukee’s unemployment rate is tied for the lowest on record.

Remember, Scott Walker nearly bankrupt Milwaukee County when he was county executive. We're on that same glide path as a state. 

Scott Walker trashes Madison's 2.1% Unemployment rate and "throwback to the 60's" straight talking Mayor Soglin.

In my previous blog I posted this uncomfortable truth for Republicans:

Dane County, Madison Liberals to the Rescue: Democratic politicians in Dane County must be doing something right...

Dane County, which includes Madison and its technology spin-off industries, reported the state’s lowest jobless rate in April at 2.1%. Unemployment was worst across northern Wisconsin.

Liberal Democratic Successes: Democrats could have mismanaged the UW Madison's contributions to our economies bottom line and low unemployment numbers like the Republicans, but they haven't.

Madison Mayor Paul Soglin said Democrats were losing because they had become afraid to run campaigns on liberal, progressive values. "I think the point is that people are ready for someone in elected office who is focused on really delivering to the people who are electing them. It's real simple," said Soglin.

Scott Walker must not know that Mayor Soglin's been around our fair city for some time now, the same city that hosts the Capitol, which makes his comment even more absurd. From WKOW:

Governor Walker grinned when asked about the possibility Monday. "It'd make for a lively race. I mean, he's an unabashed throwback to the 1960s radical liberal out there. The idea that he thinks Bernie Sanders is a good model for him, I think makes for a great contrast. It probably does him well in Madison, I doubt it does well across the rest of the state. I don't think most people in the state believe that Madison is the way they want to be.”

Yea, lowest jobless rate and a mix of new businesses. Of course believing in Trump's agenda makes so much more sense?

But Soglin believes the rest of the state could benefit greatly from the way things are done here. "Yeah, we've got a philosophy about how to administer government to address these challenges. And they work. Why would anybody be embarrassed by that?  2.1 percent unemployment. I think every part of the state would like to be like that."

The low information brain trust at the Republican Party of Wisconsin offered up this mindless, meaningless statement…

“Paul Soglin is as radical a left-wing Madison liberal as you can get, even unbelievably giving the key to the City of Madison to brutal communist dictator Fidel Castro (1975),” said Alec Zimmerman, spokesman for the Republican Party of Wisconsin. “Instead of standing up for Wisconsin taxpayers, Madison liberal Paul Soglin would cling to the failed polices of yesterday, take Wisconsin backward to the days when special interests controlled state government - and leave Wisconsin taxpayers footing the bill.”

That's right, special interests don't control Walker's copy cat agenda. And what failed Soglin policies of yesterday is he talking about?

Check out Paul Soglin's reaction to Walker's 60's throwback statement with Sly.