Milwaukee County Tax Referendum – Define “Spoken”

Leave it to the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel to define “The People Have Spoken” in the following fashion, as it pertains to the Milwaukee County Sales Tax Referendum results. 

http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/33929259.html

Here are the results as of today:

Percentage “Yes”	51.0%	-
Percentage “No”	49.0%
Total Votes “Yes”	185,562
Total Votes “No”	178,472
Percentage of Communities Voting “Yes”	15.8%
Percentage of Communities Voting “No”	84.2%
Community	# of Votes “Yes”	% Voting Yes	# of Votes “No”	% Voting No
Bayside	1123	46.5%	1294	53.5%
Brown Deer	2866	45.8%	3395	54.2%
Cudahy	3881	46.4%	4489	53.6%
Fox Point	1881	48.1%	2031	51.9%
Franklin	6534	38.2%	10560	61.8%
Glendale	3884	51.1%	3711	48.9%
Greendale	3066	38.1%	4975	61.9%
Greenfield	7332	41.5%	10342	58.5%
Hales Corners	1599	38.7%	2528	61.3%
Milwaukee	107550	57.4%	79692	42.6%
Oak Creek	6313	40.8%	9169	59.2%
River Hills	431	42.0%	596	58.0%
Shorewood	2082	45.7%	2469	54.3%
South Milwaukee	3949	54.0%	3361	46.0%
St. Francis	4596	46.0%	5448	54.0%
Wauwatosa	11991	45.6%	14304	54.4%
West Allis	11924	44.0%	15195	56.0%
West Milwaukee	759	51.3%	721	48.7%
Whitefish Bay	3801	47.6%	4192	52.4%

They are correct in the sense that the county has spoken, but their analysis of the voting by no means supports their claim that there is a mandate by the county to get this put into place.  When all but three communities’ vote NO (a resounding NO in almost every community except Milwaukee and Shorewood) that should tell you that there is considerable negative feeling towards this tax increase.  If this were a city of Milwaukee referendum, than I would fully agree that there was a clear message by the voters to put this increase in place.  The problem is it wasn’t just a city of Milwaukee referendum, it was the whole county.  If you are going to increase a tax on the whole county you had better take the other communities’ votes VERY seriously and not just base your argument on the weighted decisions by the geniuses in the city of Milwaukee.

Another issue that needs to be addressed regarding this tax increase is the wording of the referendum as it read on the ballot.  It states the following:

“Shall Wisconsin grant Milwaukee County the authority to provide property tax relief of at least $67 million by levying a 1% use and sales tax to be used to remove the following three items from the property tax levy: parks, recreation and culture; transit; and emergency medical services?”

Is there a reason they didn’t write it in the following fashion?

 

“Shall Wisconsin grant Milwaukee County the authority to increase the sales and use tax by 1% to be used to remove the following three items from the property tax levy: parks, recreation and culture; transit; and emergency medical services?  Along with providing property tax relief of at least $67 million dollars.”

Answer: Because if they start off the question with the ACTUAL intent (to raise taxes) instead of the fleece job of couching this as property tax relief the referendum would have never passed.  These are the tactics of the tax and spend crowd that permeates Milwaukee and Wisconsin. 

 

The next little nugget in all of this is everyone must realize that when you increase or institute a tax, whether it is for the city, county, state, or country it NEVER gets rescinded.  These decisions are permanent, worse yet, many governments use these increases as reasons to “pile on” several years down the road.  An example of that was the 1991 increase in the county sales tax, with promises that it was going to lower property taxes.  The tax was passed, instituted and property taxes went (wait for it…..) UP!  Should we take them for their word – Again?!?!  I’m not.

 

The last issue I have with this whole “the voter has spoken” deal is that 51% of the votes cast came from the City of Milwaukee (both Yes and No).  As I mentioned before this is a county tax and not a city tax, but the point I’m trying to make is that we had the city of Milwaukee make a decision that affected the other communities, when there was little to no support from those communities from the outset.  That decision?!?!?  The deep tunnel.  Think Milwaukee made a good decision for the outlying communities on that one?  If so, you haven’t been down to the lakefront beaches over the past several years.  With the billions of gallons of raw sewage dumped there over the years, our once great lakefront has become the port-a-potty of Milwaukee County board decisions.