11th?

We are the 11th highest taxed state in the nation and folks are proud of this?

Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, also praised the drop in rankings. Doyle has
generally opposed sales, income and corporate tax increases, though last year he
sought tax hikes on cigarettes, hospitals and oil companies.

"He's consistently committed to responsible budgeting," Doyle spokesman Lee
Sensenbrenner said of the governor. "Here you're seeing those results."

Unfortunately for the governor, it also became painfully apparent even yesterday that our deficit climbed even higher. Announced just yesterday, Wisconsin has added $800 million to our deficit.

It is the second time state government has asked to borrow up to $800
million to cover cash-flow problems; the first time was in 2002.

How can you not get excited about that?

$800 million in debt, but yippee, we are only the 11th highest taxed state in the nation!

So let me ask- do you think Wisconsin’s tax climate has gotten any better or do you believe that other states have just gotten worse?

Common sense thinking people are well aware of the real answer to this question.

Of course Wisconsin’s tax climate is not getting better. In continues to get worse even as people continue to make excuses.

Our governor likes to claim that he is in favor of responsible budgeting. The truth be told, our current budget is held together by nothing more than accounting gimmicks.

For example, one of this budget’s accounting gimmicks is the $200 million in the transfer of funds from the patient’s compensation fund. This is money that our state government had no right to have.

Another gimmick, borrow money now and pull the money out of the next budget, not this one.

Not one word has been written for the 2009-2011 budget and yet we are already spending millions of dollars into that budget.

I do not care how many different ways the governor spins, you cannot have a massive budget hole totaling over $650 million and just make it disappear. As I have said before- there are only two ways to fix the budget problems- either we cut spending to match the revenue generated or they raise taxes to generate more revenue.

This is not rocket science.

Even with this latest budget repair, we are in the same precarious position we were in last year. We have borrowed money we cannot pay back. We continue to expand programs that we cannot afford. We have created programs we cannot afford. We have spent money we do not have.

Nothing has changed.

We have a fiscally irresponsible state government that is lead by a man that has the incredible ability to hide the truth from the taxpayers.

The real truth about Wisconsin is that we live in a tax hell, run by a government that cannot keep its hands out of our pockets.