As soon as I read "By ASSOCIATED PRESS", I know that the article will be badly slanted left and will appeal to the so-called "low information voters" who re-elected Mr. Obama.

Class warfare at it's finest right here. This article was slanted to cause this. The AP should be ashamed to even publish this piece. For all the ignorant people who believe in this article: when you pay in more money to begin with, you will get more money back, but the percentages will be the same. Like someone else pointed out, this is the way a progressive tax code works. You wanted it, so you got it. If you can't understand the concept, maybe you shouldn't be commenting at all. BTW, when a hard working person gets to keep more of his/her paycheck, it is a GOOD THING. Is it really that hard to understand that?

And actually, I was just reading this article:
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130...
and thought again of your statement. There seems to be little or no innovation when virtually all marketshare is monopolized by a few market participants such as in the public school monopoly! So I guess you're right again! Enjoy.

Yes, Maine, "There can be no innovation when virtually all marketshare is monopolized by a few market participants". Tell that to my smartphone, internet-connected HDTV or car navigation system.

Billy - Many of the posters have to be excused for their total lack of understanding of even the most basic economic concepts given the state of our educational system and the willingness of a biased press to slant articles and headlines the way that AP did with this story.

I refuse to excuse them based on the school system or the press. Maybe on modern society for enabling the ignorant to survive and breed, instead of being culled from the herd as nature intended.

The point of a high top tax rate is to discourage the monopolization of too much marketshare by one market participant. When the top tax rate is high, you will choose to NOT pursue even more marketshare, making that marketshare available to other market participants. Marketshare monopolizers like Walmart need an incentive to relinquish marketshare to others with entrepreneurship and innovative skills. There can be no innovation when virtually all marketshare is monopolized by a few market participants.

Also, by ensuring that the Fed. min. wage is a living wage, mediocre companies that create Communist China-style poverty-wage jobs are forced to relinquish their marketshare to our many young college graduates with the entrepreneurial and innovative skillset to create living wage jobs. That is how we can rid the system of mediocre companies that are a liability to America.

Those who own most of America should pay for most of America's debt. Example: If the Walton family owns 40% of America, then they should be responsible for 40% of America's debt. Raising the top tax rate on the likes of the Walton family will provide an incentive for them to relinquish marketshare to innovative entrepreneurs. When you own a huge proportion of U.S. marketshare, you no longer have to innovate. You bribe politicians for special tax rates, subsidies, grants, right to offshore jobs, and a low Fed. min. wage. Without innovation, a nation declines. We once had mom & pop shops all over the U.S., which spread the wealth around. Today, most U.S. wealth is stashed offshore (NOT invested in America, invested against America).

Naturally, this tax cut is for the rich. At the Federal level, they got away with a very low top tax rate of only ~39% AND they got the tax threshold increased from $250k to $450k! They tell us that a $250k annual income "is not enough to be able to live off of," but the Fed. min. wage of $14k annual is "way too much." The top tax rate under JFK was 75%, we had a solvent middle class back then that could afford to consumer spend, and put a man on the moon. Today, the rich still have >50% of the world's wealth hidden (stashed offshore) from shareholders, stakeholders, wives and the taxman.

Trillions Hidden in Offshore Accounts by L. Kilzer and A. Conte, July 8, 2012: Across Europe, experts say tax dodgers undermine economies in places such as Greece and Spain, threatening the Euro as a whole. More than half (>50%) the world’s money passes almost undetected through a series of financial black holes that shelter it from not only the tax collector but from shareholders, partners and wives, a Tribune-Review investigation found.

A global super-rich elite had $21 to $32 trillion hidden in secret tax havens by the end of 2010, according to a major study. The figure is equivalent to the size of the US and Japanese economies combined. The Price of Offshore Revisited was written by J. Henry, a former chief economist at the consultancy McKinsey, for the Tax Justice Network. Mr. Henry said that the super-rich move money around the globe through an "industrious bevy of professional enablers in private banking, legal, accounting and investment industries. "The lost tax revenues implied by our estimates is huge. It is large enough to make a significant difference to the finances of many countries.

I really think the bed is getting crowded for Walker. The Koch Brothers must be so very proud of their boy. "DIVIDE AND CONQUER" - You will be next on the Walker list.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/18...

hooters - you said this was years ago. If I recall, Paul Ryan worked at McDonalds. Very likely it could have been him, based on his unworkable budget notions.

vnvet71 Don't expect McDonalds to teach any of their employees how to do math. The registers are pre-programmed, labeled buttons and it will tell them how much change to give back. I was at Edgerton McDonalds years ago when a storm took out the power. They would not sell any food even if we had exact change or offered them more! They did not know what to charge, how to ad or how to figure out sales tax.

Many of the posters have to be excused for their total lack of understanding of even the most basic economic concepts given the state of our educational system and the willingness of a biased press to slant articles and headlines the way that AP did with this story.
I defy anyone to explain to me how someone making 374k a year would get a larger percentage of their taxes back when compared to someone making 80k under this proposal. Further, someone making 20k a year doesn't get a "tax cut" they get another transfer payment where those who actually pay taxes have their money taken from them and handed over at the rate of $575 to those contributing zero to the state budget.

I pledge allegiance to the flagof the corporate states of America.And to the stockholders, for which they stand,one nation, under Mammon, socially divisible,with liberty and justice for some.

States are so darn easy to buy.

I can't stop laughing all the way to the bank.

Right on, Super Dave! and- What a slanted title for this blog/quasi article.

Oh what a perfect land it would be without any taxes and no government. With our population of 300 million + how would that work again?

Have not read any previous comments, but I had to chime in on this little gem from the article: "a family of four making $80,000 would save $106 a year under the tax cut, while those earning $374,000 or more a year would save $285 annually". This statement epitomizes the lack of understanding of our so-called "progressive" tax system. Please excuse my shouting, but OF COURSE those that pay more in the first place will reap more savings with a cut. And OF COURSE those with low incomes that pay little or no tax in the first place won't benefit much from a cut - what's to cut when you're paying little or nothing in the first place?!? And btw, it works both ways - when tax rates are increased those already paying more see more of an increase than others paying less, and yet in that instance no one says boo - it is presumed to be "fair". Ignorance abounds *sigh*.

I agree with the jokers comment. I also work with a person that makes about the same amount as me and because see is not married and has five kids see is getting close to $15000 return. She also gets food stamps,rent paid and power bill help. It's just not fair that we reward people for popping out kids and everyone else has to pay for them!!!

Sigma, still trying to figure out how to make change for a dollar ? Thought McDonalds would have taught you that by now.

The R's passing a self-serving tax cut that favors the rich? Now, there's a news flash....

Imatim2.....don't hold your breath. The libs have no problem with the government taking and spending/redistributing everyone else's money. When it comes to their own money, it's a completely different story......

I see the Gazette has thrown those uniformed libs a bone again. I would recommend that those who feel wronged by this tax cut just live their convictions and send that extra money right back to Madison in protest.

Same O same O

Gee, there's a surprise.

LOL, fearfulrhetoric please provide the links to all those, you know the tribe people, that support the increased spending.

fearyoubig dummy are you tired of calling people a derogatory sexual term? Now can we talk like human beings? Some of us do not agree with increased spending. A decrease in the increase does not equal a decrease in overall spending. It is the same that Wisconsin is doing that the federal government is doing. Do some of us agree absolutly not

joker- I would never jump om you for that sentiment because I agree with you. There are serious abuses within ths country by people who play with the loopholes. Earned income credit is one of them. While the intention is/was a good idea, it is being used in the wrong way. It amazes me that it continues to go on and we all know about it.

I havent done my taxes this year but last year I claimed 1. had to pay in when taxes are done. someone I work with claimed exempt, (4 kids same father wont get married why) she payed zero yes zero but got a refund of $12000 this is why income taxes should be done away with.Buy something pay a tax do not punish someone for working. Before you all jump on me exemptions can be made, food lodging and a few others. That can be worked out. No I do not hate the poor but we cannot continue the way it has been.

I can't stop laughing at the absurdity of some of these posts; the left fringe is seriously delusional.

Some on the fringe declare letting people keep their OWN money is "wealth redistribution". Others on the fringe think because some have more than they do it might be time for a parade. While yet others want to use totalitarianism over a group claiming they need to be "destroyed".

So what is the genesis for all the discontent, the idea that people get to keep their money, is not part of the near religious ideals of socialism.

Just a side note here. I suspect this might be why these same people have been silent over the having no national budget for over 3 years

"Federal Poverty Guidelines for a family of 4 are $23,550."

It was a question.....if this family would receive other benefits, in addition to their tax refund.

(based on this statement)

"The tax cut would probably mean little to a family of four earning just $21,000. With existing tax exemptions and credits, they currently would owe nothing and instead would get about a $575 refund, based on figures compiled by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance."

Forgive me if I am reading this wrong..
"What "entitlements" would this "family of four" receive, since they are below the FEDERAL poverty guidelines (in addition to the tax refund)?"
The article refers to a family of four making $80,000 would save $106 a year under the tax cut. Not sure what your point is?
Now I know that with a family of 7 making $60,000 there are no entitlements. Federal Poverty Guidelines for a family of 4 are $23,550.
whz_bng, not sure where you found your numbers or if you are figuring some with credits and deductions but here are links to federal 2012 tax bracket and rates http://www.consumerismcommentary.com/201...
and for 2013
http://www.consumerismcommentary.com/201...
this is of course before credits.
Wisconsin tax year 2012.
http://www.revenue.wi.gov/taxpro/calctbl...

Whz-bang – great post and you have caused me to have greater sympathy for plight of those poor, abused rich people. The solution is so simple that I think the rich are so smart that they have simply overlooked it. They need to give all they have to the poor and make the poor people’s life as miserable at their lives are and the rich can become impoverished themselves so they can live the good life of the poor. Simple!

Like we didn't see this one coming.

Obviously because if you go by percentages the person making more will pay more, so if everyone gets the same cut, the people making more will save more....DUH!

The Walker Budget is better than the Obama budget.

Oh, wait....how long has it been since Obama and dems had a budget?

916 - you missed a space so your “inability to construct a simple sentence without an error” makes it incoherent – “desperate(or pathetic)”

Everyone, please calm down. Don’t you see that this is just a competition between Lyin’ Ryan and the Dropout to see which one of them can claim the title to the biggest BOZO.
(Disclaimer- Apologies to Bozo the Clown… they are just more hilarious.)

Political morons are in charge at the Associated Press.

@916- To answer your question from 2:47 PM- The proposals are proposals like the tax cut. They are being " proposed". My guess is that they will go through in their entirety.

Red......Your inability to construct a simple sentence without an error had little to do with understanding the point that you were trying to communicate. I had already had come to the conclusion that intelligence was something that we probably couldn't expect from you. I didn't realize that you would be desperate(or pathetic) enough to attempt to make equal tax cuts appear to be unequal because of your attempt to trace them back to budget cuts which you say favor the wealthy state taxpayers(who provide the majority of funding for the budget) over the state's middle class taxpayers. I apologize--I'll try not to overestimate you again...:)

Lets see if I understand this...A "rich" family that makes money has their money Taxed..Part of their money is paid to the government...A "poor" family that makes money is taxed zero... But at the end of the year they are given $500 of the "rich" families money...I guess this doesn’t make sense to me, Unless the headline is wrong. Plus this sounds like what the Democrats want.. So why are Democrats on here foaming at the mouth? This is called wealth redistribution.

axolotlsx5
Feb 22, 2013 at 5:13 p.m.
Suggest removal

That would be the person who posted just before your post….

i hope the morons who voted walker back into office likes this. screw the poor and give more money to the rich, which will help keep him in office

carlitosway

Are you capable of making a comment without trying to blame me for your inability to comprehend facts?

Good ole Scooter does it again

916WI, the fact is Walkers tax cut was ONLY possible due to the surplus of funds generated from budget cuts. At first I feared my incorrect usage of effect rather than affect would prevent you from understanding the core of my argument. I realize now that your inability to grasp the obvious is more fundamental. No budget cuts - no tax cut. Get it?

The rich already pay their fair share in the USA. If you are a family of 4 earnibg $50K your fed income tax is $729, a rate of 1.485%. A family of 4 that earns that earns $148K pays a fed tax of $18,563, a rate of 12.4%.12% higher than the 50K earner. A family of 4 with an income of #350K pays $81,563 in fed taxes, a rate of 23.28%. 16X higher than the 50K earner. Roughly the same % in Wisconsin as to the wages.So once again who is not paying their fair share?

WOW the Gazette gives truth as to his issue Wislady will you ever ever ever stop with your the GOP garbage that Fox tells you????? You are one that will not accept the truth if it was in braille as you sure can't see it.

fordfan nailed it. The root of our problems can be sourced back to the Tea Party and their grab for power.

The Tea Party must be destroyed.

Their continued existance and influence on the weak minded and easily swayed are an embarassing reminder of how foolish the extreme right is in its quest to establish an oligarchy and plutonical type of government within our nation...and ultimately further dividing Americans against one another.

Badgerlvr.....You seem very confused. You are not being asked to give the rich any of your money. The discussion was in regard to an across the board tax rate decrease--everyone gets to keep the same percentage of what they contributed. Get it? What exactly would you consider more fair than that? Higher incomes receiving none of the surplus while taking that money that they paid in and give it to people who are already have zero state income tax liability? Would that be your definition of fair?

$285.00 divided by $374,000.00 = 0.000762% return.

$106.00 divided by $80,000.00 = 0.001325% return.

The fact that one makes more than the other is a mute point. If you want to make more then get the education and go get a better paying job or risk everything you've got on your chance at the American Dream. Nobody owes anyone anything in life. If you want it then get off your dead butt and go earn it. I'm sick of people attacking the rich because they are rich and you want to be where they are! The rich are getting a lower rate of tax break as the math shows. The fact that they make more is because they did something in life to better themselves. Envy and anger at the rich doesn't mean you deserve a piece of their pie just because!

A US Federal Treasury Officer told me if they were to take everything the rich have which is anyone making $250,000 or more per year and I mean take everything they own, kicking them to the curb with nothing more than what they are wearing, you would only get just over $4 trillion. That still leaves us with almost $13 trillion in debt and growing. So now what? Now what do you do since you took everything from the rich folks you hated because Obama said everything that was going bad in your life was their fault? So now what????

Red.....We were discussing the income tax cut. It AFFECTED all of Wisconsin's residents equally. They are all paying an equal percentage less. As I said before, the author of this piece definitely did find a few idiots to buy into it:)

916WI: Spoken like a true 1%er. I can't wait to give more to the rich. How much do you want 916WI?

Gee 916 and Maynard, it would be great if the Walker budget cuts effected the income and wealth of the poor, middle class and wealthy equally, but it didn't. The services and benefits which were cut to generate the "surplus" had little effect on those earning $375K but had a much greater impact on those earning less than $80K yet its the "wealthy" receiving the greater portion of the surplus. Obviously 916WI, its you whose clueless.

Thank you Scott Walker...Maybe everyone would be happier if he just raised taxes instead?

"Walker’s income tax cut helps rich more". Well, DUH!!! He is a Tea Partier you know. And the poorest of the Tea Partiers believe this is by far the best way to go while the wealthiest Tea Partiers keep saying “Trust me and you will soon be rich like me!”.

The rich are our betters, you know. We don't do enough for the rich in this society. The rich would not be rich if they weren't better than us, so they deserve to stay rich at our expense. Frankly, we all should hold annual parades for the rich, and invite them to dinner in our homes, so that they are nice to us with the money that they have earned from the roads, schools, sewer systems, and law enforcement that we built. It's so hard to be a rich person these days!

I thought ALL Wisconsinites shared the sacrifice of cuts which led to our current surplus. Yet now Walker believes the wealthy should receive the largest share our surplus. This is a classic example of wealth redistribution. Wait, there's more: "Walker's (budget) plan will create $188 million more in spending commitments than the state is projected to have available to pay them heading into the next two-year cycle starting in 2015."
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Imagine that, Walker is SPENDING MORE THAN HE IS TAKING IN AND GIVING THE EXCESS TO THE WEALTHY. Wow, where have we seen THAT before. Walker PROMISED not to spend more than what the State took in. I dare the Republicans and Tea Baggers in the Senate and Assembly to vote for THIS budget.
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And when it comes time to vote for the mining bill, consider this:
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The Republican mining bill as written will also cost the state more than $170 million meant for recycling and environmental protection programs every year. According to the WC Today, Republicans propose to "drastically reduce state fees that mining companies pay for producing waste rock." "Most of that money goes to help fund local governments' recycling efforts, pollution abatement, brownfield cleanup and bonds for cleaning up contaminated land." "According to estimates the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau released Wednesday, the bill would slash that to a little less than 3 cents, resulting in a loss of up to $171 million annually." Meanwhile the wealthiest Wisconsinites receive a nice bonus check in the mail. Is Walker really that stupid or are those that support him that stupid? We'll see.

nogo, that is a different issue.

breaking news.. walker lies again..

nogo: Agree. 80K family gets a refund of .1325% of income. 374K family gets a refumd of .0762% of income. About half the percent. And 21K family not only pays no taxes but gets a 2.5% refund paid by other taxpayers. Figures do not lie but liars figure. Statistics do not lie but you can lie with statistics. So tired of this class warfare and wording in articles to slant meaning to what author wants. Just put the money surplus into the transportation and education funds instead of talking more gas tax and instead of giving a meaningless tax cut (except for feel good political gain). IMO

Badgerlvr...Aside from you not being able to comprehend basic math, I don't know how you are so surprised. If there is a 1% across the board reduction of tax rates, obviously those who had and will continue to have a much larger tax burden, will also have a larger "savings" when they are asked, like everyone else, to pay 1% less. I think the author of this piece was assuming a large part of the anti-Walker crowd to be completely clueless when it comes to basic math and percentages-it looks like the author's assumption was correct.:)

analert--which of those "proposals" have actually been put into play? Thanks in advance!

As Lewis Black pointed out when talking about the Bush tax refund. Unless everyone spends the money at the exact same time it won't stimulate the economy. This type of tax cut only serves the purpose of saying that you gave a tax cut trying to buy votes.

What I do know is that $106 will go a lot farther than $0.

How do these proposals help the middle class?

Increase current 51.3-cent gas tax by 5 cents
• Create a new mileage-based registration fee for passenger vehicles driving more than 3,000 miles
• Boost cost of 8-year driver's license to $54 from $34
• Eliminate sales tax exemption on the trade-in value of vehicles
• $2,000-plus increase in annual registration fees for tractor-trailers

Surprise, surprise. When will the surprises ever end?

As someone brilliantly pointed out in another article, this administration is raising fees on just about everything. His little tax cut will not even make up for the fees that are being raised.

nogo, have you ever tried to spend percentages?

What "entitlements" would this "family of four" receive, since they are below the FEDERAL poverty guidelines (in addition to the tax refund)?

This article is not skewed at all. Apparently the person who wrote this article doesn’t know percentages.

This is the perfect example of a tax cut for the sake of a tax cut. It will have no real affect on the economy of WI, which is what tax cuts are intended to do. That $106 per year will be barely noticeable, and definitely will not spur growth through spending. This tax cut is a sham to take the focus off the miriad of problems with the budget, like public education spending freeze extensions, cuts to Medicaid, and no plan for increasing transportation revenues. Wake up, WI!
*
I saw a projection yesterday that showed WI will have a $2.6 Billion real budget deficit at the end of the 2013-15 Bienium, largely due to this proposed budget.

No.
The American way is to create a product or service that the rich want. Then charge an arm and a leg for it. That way you can become one of them.

What A surprise there.. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.. Isn't that the american way....