The QEO: A “Roadblock to Reform” or the Last Line of Defense for Taxpayers?

Lasee’s Notes

Five weeks before the November election, if Governor Doyle had issued a press release saying that he intended to raise taxes and he wasn’t exactly sure how high they might go, do you think the result of the election might have been different?

Five weeks after the election, he has shared the plan that he and his partners in the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC, the state’s teachers union) have in mind for taxpayers. The Governor’s proposal is the top item on WEAC’s Christmas wish list: the repeal of the QEO.

According to Governor Doyle, the Qualified Economic Offer, or QEO as it is commonly known, is “broken and it needs to go.” Governor Doyle’s spokesman told a reporter last week that the QEO has “really become a roadblock to reform."

The QEO is the roadblock preventing education reform in Wisconsin? The Governor says our public education system in Wisconsin needs reform. Apparently, the Governor feels that teachers need to be paid more. No mention of paying teachers based on performance, just pay teachers more. That qualifies as “reform” in the Doyle administration.

The QEO was invented in 1992 (along with revenue caps) to keep property taxes down. It worked. In the five years before the QEO took effect, school taxes increased by about 8.5% per year. In 1994, the first year the caps took effect, taxes grew by 5.1%. In some years following that, the growth in school taxes has been less.

Wisconsin cannot afford to climb the list of the highest-taxed states in the nation anymore than we already have. We have to bring our tax burden down because it will help our economy grow. The QEO is part of an important protection for taxpayers.

How does the QEO work? Each year, a school district must offer its teachers a minimum raise of 2.9% in salary and 5.4% in benefits to avoid arbitration with the local teachers union. How many of you reading this today receive a guaranteed minimum increase in your salary and benefits every year you are employed?

WEAC and the Governor would not be willing to give up this guaranteed, minimum increase if they did not expect things to get better for WEAC members after the QEO is gone. Despite what you might hear during the Badger and Packer games, WEAC is in the business of getting more for its members.

Greater education spending increases are on the horizon if the QEO goes away. This means higher property taxes for all.

We spend nearly $11,000 per child annually to educate children in this state. If we had no revenue controls, or the QEO that makes the revenue controls work, we would be spending more and our taxes would be even higher.

The QEO must stay in place. It is a critical piece of legislation that protects taxpayers in this state. The balance we have struck in this state is working. If we spend more, we have to tax more. Wisconsin is spending enough.

If school districts want to increase spending, they should have to make their case to the people footing the bills, the taxpayers. That is how it works now and 70 percent of the people in our state want to keep it this way. We should not allow the Governor to break the back of school revenue caps through a back-door method. Revenue caps that can be overridden by a referendum provide a good balance and should be left in place.

I will oppose attempts to repeal the QEO because it is an important protection for taxpayers. The QEO makes school revenue controls work and that is good for taxpayers.

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

Brown County turns Mo' Town

Ding Dong! The Queen is dead. Which old Queen? The wicked Queen! Ding Dong! The Wicked Queen is dead.

Carol Kelso a "wicked queen?" That's how one Brown County super phrased it. Hardly how I think of the "Taxpayer's tax slayer," but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say. That super needs glasses, a chill pill and a one way ticket out of town.

Kelso's dead. That's wat I said. Curtis Mayfield's Motown sound is what I hear coming. The theme from "Shaft". Motown - that's what Brown County will be without Executive Kelso, with all the public worker unions chanting "Mo', mo', mo'!" And who get's the shaft?" The taxpayers. It may be a long time before we see responsible budgets and lower taxes in Brown County again.

The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen! Kelso's successor seem's bound to be a king. We must watch to whom the hideous spending monkeys swarm. Whoever Diamond Jim endorses, that's our nemesis. That is who we vote against.

But who do we vote FOR? I see no friends of the Taxpayer on the horizon. Alumni of the Kelso School of Government are demurring. Only County Executive Walker from Milwaulkee stands above the dust and shambles. I guess I can't blame them, it's a hard knocks school and they are sporting fresh lumps and bruises.

That leaves us with the infidels from Riverboat Jim's school of the Wheel and Deal, who learned budget ledgermain from a Harvard graduate and stands ready to tax and fee us to death and mummify us with debt bond-age and inter-fund transfercation. Not a pair of ruby reds can be found.

The recent election demonstrates what happens when the voters get so fed up they will take change at any price. There was no one to vote FOR, only only folks to vote against. The stagnent Republican tide finally swept out, but what swept in with the tide of negativity, all the candidate's whose moving and hopeful campaign platforms were the same -- "I'me not a republican. I have never been a Republican. I promise never to become Republican."

Like party was the problem.

Let us pray we don't get what we asked for when, in our rage we tossed out the lot of them. Arrivederci, Mrs. Kelso, we hardly knew thee. "Seems we jsut started and before you know it, comes the time to say 'so long'"

I'm tugging my left ear, dear.
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Richard Parins, President - Brown County Taxpayers Association

Free College Tuition: a Solution in Search of a Problem

Lasee’s Notes

Free college tuition – sounds great doesn’t it? Not many college students would pass on an opportunity like that. If it’s free – no one pays right?

In order to get free tuition the student will have to commit to staying ten years in a state with long winters, high taxes, burdensome regulation, a low-scale social scene, and a lack of good paying jobs. Which students will jump at the opportunity?

Free tuition is part of a plan that the Wisconsin commission on improving higher education will likely endorse this week. The proposal calls for free college tuition for any student (that means both in-state and out-of-state kids) who commits to staying here for ten years after they get their diploma. Several of the commission members have labeled this concept as the “big bang” idea because they believe it will revolutionize the Dairy State. In their opinion, creating a “captive” workforce will draw new business and industry to Wisconsin and help lower our tax burden.

So instead of working to make our state more business and taxpayer friendly by lowering taxes, requiring our governments to spend less, or improving our heavy handed regulatory environment (all proven ways to attract and keep jobs) – we are now going to hold kids hostage and create a give away program of massive scale.

The problem they say they want to solve is that too many college grads are fleeing the state and we need to keep more of them here. The commission’s theory simply isn’t true. They want to give away something for free to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. This is so typical of a bureaucratic mindset.

Wisconsin doesn’t have a serious “brain drain” problem. According to the Federal Reserve Bank in Minnesota, four out of five Wisconsin natives stayed in state after finishing college. Our overall graduate retention rate is the same or better than other Midwestern states. We are keeping our kids here.

THE REAL PROBLEM IS: WE ARE NOT ATTRACTING COLLEGE GRADS FROM OTHER STATES. Holding the kids in that we already have here won’t solve anything.

What we need to do is work to make our state more attractive to out of state grads that are looking to relocate. That includes making it easier for technology sector companies to locate and remain here because they often pay higher wages.

Another problem with this free tuition program is what do we do if the jobs don’t come? How will picking up the tuition improve this? What do we do when one of these students moves out of state for a job or the weather or a significant other? How will we get them to pay back the money? We can’t get businesses to pay back their state grants. Why would thousands of students be any different?

If the program fails and businesses don’t come, are we going to let the kids (who have gotten their college education on the taxpayer’s dime) off the hook? We already heavily subsidize the university system to the tune of over $1 billion per year ($6,250 per student). If we paid the tuition too just imagine how much our bill would be. Regardless of how successful this program is, we will all pay more.

This free tuition giveaway is simply another government imposed solution in search of a problem. Of course, solving the problem mostly involves government forcefully taking MORE of OUR money to pay for more government programs. That’s indicative of the government problem we face in Wisconsin.

The question is: will we ever learn? My bet is that with a University System that wants to solve problems that don’t exist, with solutions that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, we will not get smart fast enough.

An interesting fact – Colorado is second in the country in the percentage of their population with college degrees. That is pretty impressive for a state that was supposedly ruined by their limits on government spending and taxes (the Taxpayer Bill of Rights). Why do college grads want to live in Colorado? The state isn’t bribing them to stay with free tuition.
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Lasee’s Notes is a weekly column by Representative Frank Lasee, 2nd Assembly District, covering events in the Legislature and statewide.

The Season of Giving

Lasee’s Notes

As the holiday season approaches, now is the time that many of us open our purse strings to complete holiday shopping lists and also donate to our favorite charities. From bell ringers manning donation pots, to “Giving Trees” full of wish lists from those less fortunate popping up in our banks, community centers, and churches – the signs of giving, caring, and sharing are all around us.

Despite all of this generosity, a newly released study from the National Center on Wealth and Philanthropy ranked Wisconsin as the 10th lowest state in the nation for charitable giving. The study found that the average Wisconsin household donates $1,325 to charity each year. That’s more than $500 below the national average ($1,753).

According to the group’s research, based on residents’ giving adjusted for several cost factors, Wisconsinites are the 40th most generous citizens in the nation when it comes to donating to charitable groups.

Are we really that stingy here in the cheese state? I don’t think so. I believe we are mostly generous people who give what we can (time, talent, effort, goods, money, and other support), when we can. And most of us are willing to help those in need or support a worthy cause.

Then why is Wisconsin considered a low charity state?

Could it be that taxpayers believe government is giving enough of our money away already? Our government spends a lot of our money (nearly $7 billion per year) to maintain one of the most generous social welfare programs in the country. Many taxpayers may consider this to be a part of their charitable giving. They see it as government taking money out of their pockets and giving it to someone who, in government’s opinion, needs it more.

Or is it that people have become more cautious with which groups they give their money to?
Are people giving less because they aren’t sure how some of these charities may be using their donation? Concern over how much money reaches those in need has led many people to be more careful about whom they direct their charitable checks to, if anyone at all.

Many liberals would probably say the problem is that we just don’t care as much as we used to. Or that many of us have become more selfish today than in years past and we are keeping more of our money to spend on ourselves.

Their solution would most likely involve forcing you to give more of your money to the government (similar to Sen. Erpenbach’s tax shifting proposal from last week). Then they could decide which charities and social causes are worthy of support. Of course they would have to skim a little off the top for administrative costs. As a result we would all pay more.

The problem, in my opinion, is that due to decades of high taxes and government spending, many wealthy people (who are likely to give larger sums of money to charity) have left the state.

As our government has grown so have our taxes. People who have the ability to earn money understand this. They are relocating to more tax friendly states. That means they are taking their wealth, intelligence, taxes they paid, businesses, and philanthropy (charitable donations etc.) with them.

According to the non-partisan Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, Wisconsin lost $4.6 billion in net worth and $450 million in net income between 1995 and 2000 (that’s only five years) due to wealthy people moving out. That was during the good times. If we had kept half of those people in the state we would likely be in the middle of the pack for charitable giving.

If we want people to give more of their money to charity, we should consider allowing them to keep more of it. That means lowering taxes by controlling government spending and borrowing. Give the taxpayers a break for a change.

If we were allowed to keep more of our money in the first place, would we make the choice to give more to charity? I think so. Unfortunately with democrats in control of 2/3 of state government, that is a question we won’t likely answer anytime soon.
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Lasee’s Notes is a weekly column by Representative Frank Lasee, 2nd Assembly District, covering events in the Legislature and statewide.