N.E.W. Libertarian

Promoting clean, honest, open, and limited government in North East Wisconsin

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Tuition Reciprocity is a Poor Deal for Wisconsin

Lasee’s Notes

We have an agreement with Minnesota that allows our kids to attend college across the border and pay less for tuition and vice versa for their kids. It’s called tuition reciprocity. The thought is Minnesota colleges offer courses and specialize in majors that we don’t. And mixing in some “Mud Ducks” with the “Cheese Heads” offers a more interesting and diverse college experience. Sounds like a good idea, right? Well it is wrong for Wisconsin. And here’s why.

The Federal Reserve Bank in Minnesota reported on retention and out-migration (brain drain) of college grads in their region – including Wisconsin and Minnesota. According to their research, UW System graduates were as likely to stay in Wisconsin as Minnesota grads were to stay in Minnesota after college. Even there.

However, retention fluctuates greatly when you consider where grads come from. Four of five Wisconsin natives stayed in state after graduation. But, nearly 90% of Minnesota’s reciprocity kids left Wisconsin after graduation. I am guessing that Wisconsin reciprocity kids are more likely to stay in Minnesota after graduating or go to another state. Wisconsin is getting the short end of the stick.

To make matters worse, on average nearly 3,000 more Minnesota kids come here than we send there every year.

In a full university system, and the university system tells us they are full, 3000 Minnesota kids are taking slots from Wisconsin kids or out of state tuition payers (who pay higher tuition). This makes it more difficult for 3000 Wisconsin kids to get into the UW System and it forces them to look elsewhere. Often out of state and away from home.

Not only are Wisconsin taxpayers spending a lot of money to help educate Minnesota kids (who are more likely to leave), Wisconsin kids are getting bumped out, having to choose other options or are waiting longer to go to the UW.

Minnesota used to have more majors. Now they don’t. UW Madison currently offers nearly 200 majors and certificates from African Languages to Zoology (Click here to access the full list). This doesn’t include courses offered at one of the 26 campuses. Clearly there is no longer a lack of choice in the UW System.

Currently more than 9,000 Wisconsin kids go to Minnesota and 12,000 of theirs come here. The short term solution to fix this is to have a parity system. So Wisconsin takes as many as we send. Then we need to focus on the long term best for Wisconsin, our students and our taxpayers.

Our UW system is costly and ranks highly among public and private universities. Why would we want to put kids from another state ahead of our own? Kids raised in Wisconsin whose parents pay taxes here should have priority.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lasee’s Notes is a weekly column by Representative Frank Lasee, 2nd Assembly District, covering events in the Legislature and statewide.

Monday, June 26, 2006

Where's Your Acre?

Lasee’s Notes

School is out. The weather is warm. Summer is finally here and that means its time for many families to pull out the tent, find the cooler, grab the bug spray, pack the bags, and hit the road for the annual vacation.

We are lucky. We don’t have to travel far from our homes to find an abundance of outdoor activities to enjoy. With nearly a hundred state parks, forests, recreation areas, and trails, Wisconsin is the perfect summer vacation destination. Of course, these opportunities don’t come cheap. Taxpayer dollars are spent on improving, maintaining, and expanding our public lands.

The Stewardship fund, the state’s land purchasing program, spends $60 million in borrowed money on land acquisition every year. That’s over $800 million in land purchases for the 20 year program. More than 225,000 acres have been purchased already. That’s a lot of land and a whole lot of debt.

The federal government owns nearly 2 million acres in Wisconsin, for national parks, forests, and trust lands. The DNR owns more than a million acres (that they know of), and the state’s 72 counties own nearly 2.4 million acres for the same purposes.

In the 18 counties which make up the northern part of the state one acre out of every three is government owned. In fact, publicly owned forests, parks, trust lands, fisheries, recreational areas, and preserves add up to nearly 6 million acres – 16% of the state’s total acreage.

Add in the land under public buildings, schools, court houses, universities, etc (but not underneath roads), and the figure jumps to 22%. So more than one out of every five acres is government owned in Wisconsin. That’s more than one acre for every man, woman, and child.

Wouldn’t you like to be able to pick your acre? Think what a prime piece of lake front state forest land in Minocqua would be worth.

I’m not saying we should sell off our public lands. I use our public parks system and the trails frequently. They are a valuable resource that makes our state unique.

The question is how much is enough? How much land should the governments in Wisconsin own? Thirty percent, fifty percent, eighty percent, one hundred percent? Where do we draw the line? I think we should draw a line, instead of the current policy of more and more and more.

Remember as the government buys more land, there is less private land on the tax rolls. Meaning we pay more in our property taxes to make up the difference.

Instead of buying more and more land, we should decide how much is enough and then go about upgrading the land we own. Sell that which has less public value and replace it with land that has higher public value. In Wisconsin we must change the way we view our government. It cannot just be more and more, which is the current way that it is.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lasee’s Notes is a weekly column by Representative Frank Lasee, 2nd Assembly District, covering events in the Legislature and statewide.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Wanted: Professionals to Work in a Tax Hell

Lasee’s Notes

A poll of state business executives, many of whom employ more than 500, found a large increase in the number of companies that cannot find qualified workers to fill open jobs. Nearly 60% said they are having trouble hiring professionals, up from 40% last year. Nearly 30% ranked this labor shortage as their top business problem.

The report also found that in order to stay competitive many businesses are expanding their operations outside of Wisconsin. Nearly 70% of the businesses plan to expand in another state or country this year. This growth represents millions of dollars in lost opportunities for our economy. Not to mention thousands of jobs.

Why are these businesses choosing to invest more out of state? It is not only because of the lack of professionals and skilled workers.

With our tax burden hovering near the top 5 nationally for many years, it is no secret that if you have money or the ability to earn money you can keep more of it elsewhere. So if Wisconsin companies want to lure professionals away from lower taxing states or keep them here often they have to pay them more to make up the difference (10-15% more in many cases). This is the tax premium. And this is only half of the story.

The rest of the story is that as many wealthy, higher income professionals leave, it is likely that they are being replaced by middle to lower income people. Leading to Wisconsin becoming a state where the demand for government services outpaces the citizens’ ability to pay.

Personal income grows faster in states which have lowered their tax burden over time. They have more economic activity and more opportunity for the citizens of those states. In states with high tax burdens – like Wisconsin – the government sector grows as fast as or faster than the private sector. Thus businesses and people look to move themselves or their operations to states where they can keep more of the money they earn.

Another major issue facing Wisconsin is the regulation that businesses and people have to live with here.

Wisconsin can do better.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lasee’s Notes is a weekly column by Representative Frank Lasee, 2nd Assembly District, covering events in the Legislature and statewide.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Jeopardizing our Outdoor Heritage

Lasee’s Notes

Are increased license fees causing casual hunters and fishermen to leave Wisconsin’s woods and waterways? Should you care if you don’t hunt or fish? Yes and Yes. And here’s why.
Hunting and fishing is big business in Wisconsin. Our sporting heritage fuels a large part of the economy. Each year hundreds of thousands of people make a personal investment in our outdoor traditions by purchasing a hunting or fishing license – to the tune of $70 million in the last two years. Then think of all the gear, gas, and eating that happens because of these sports.
It is understandable that hunters and anglers expect the DNR to spend their license fees supporting hunting and fishing.
An audit was done of the Fish and Wildlife Accounts to track sporting dollars. The Legislative Audit Bureau found that over 90% of the license fees were used for programs related to hunting and fishing in 2004-2005. The DNR is spending the money appropriately in most cases. Except for the $7.5 million that went to administrative costs, but that’s another issue.
There is reason for concern.
The audit raised a red flag to the fact that interest among younger generations has sharply decreased as have license sales. And the DNR has overspent on fishing and hunting programs for several years. The account is nearly empty.
Money doesn’t magically appear. The DNR takes money from other areas and spends it on policing, maintaining, and improving forests, lakes, and other wild resources.
The Governor and the legislature have also siphoned off millions of dollars from the DNR accounts and used it to backfill spending in other areas. In this budget alone, the Governor took nearly $32 million from the Forestry account to spend on other government programs.
These accounting gimmicks create the illusion of a balanced budget. In reality what we have done is create structural deficits. Structural deficits are caused by using a one time source of money for ongoing programs. Or using moneys collected for one government service to do another.
The DNR used these deficits (created by the Governor and legislature’s pilfering) to push for higher license fees. Then we played along.
This fee increase contributes to license sales declining.
Our robbing Peter to pay Paul mentality has fed the Wisconsin government spending machine and is threatening our outdoor heritage. We must be careful of how high fees are raised and do we really use that fee money for the promised service. We need to stop raiding other funds and raising or continuing those fees to pay for non-related services.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Lasee’s Notes is a weekly column by Representative Frank Lasee, 2nd Assembly District, covering events in the Legislature and statewide.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

The Half-Million Dollar Surprise

Lasee’s Notes

What if I told you that you and your family owe more than half-a-million dollars (I bet you don’t recall borrowing that money either)? Worried about the payments? You should be.

According to a recent analysis in the USA Today, federal, state and local governments have added $10 trillion in the past two years in more borrowing - 13% above inflation. Our government’s debt now stands at nearly $60,000,000,000,000 (sixty-trillion).

That’s more than $500,000 and growing for every American household. For each family it’s growing about $25,000 per year. That’s more than some people make in a year!

Should you be concerned? What should we do?

Our governments will continue to increase taxes and borrowing to cover the interest on the debt. Unless we do something different.

Who is going to make good on this debt?

Do you think our governments should be able to continue to spend more money than they take in year in and year out? (Click here to register your vote – here for Yes, there for No).

For the last several decades, Congress – under the control of both Republicans and Democrats – has increased spending, taxing and borrowing. When they don’t have enough to cover their spending, they borrow more, and more, and more.

This Washington mentality has infected many state governments and is becoming a disease increasingly popular among local governments as well. In Wisconsin, our state debt is nearly $9 billion. That’s about $6500 for a family of four and that’s just part of the government debt.

Match this with the fact that many family incomes are stagnant. With increased costs of energy, health care, taxes, and other living costs eroding modest pay raises, it is clear we have a long term issue.

Every year government gets more expensive. The price we all pay goes up.

Our government is piling up debt and continues to grow at levels we cannot sustain long term. We must get a handle on this.

Taxpayers need protection from a government that takes ever more. We must require all governments to live on a responsible budget and ask all of us before they dig deeper in our pockets. We need another check on our government. Because our government is setup on the principle of checks and balances.

The Taxpayer Bill of Rights (click here for an explanation) will put a growth ceiling on taxes, spending, and borrowing for all governments. As I have written it, it recognizes the relationship that exists between the state and local governments for the delivery of valuable government services. The delivery of government services is a federal, state, and local partnership that has to be recognized.

The Taxpayer Bill of Rights provides taxpayers with more input into how and what our government does for us and how much it costs us.


What do you think about this issue? Click on this link and send me an email with your thoughts.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Lasee’s Notes is a weekly column by Representative Frank Lasee, 2nd Assembly District, covering events in the Legislature and statewide.