Democrat Tony Evers Lays His Blueprint To Ruin Wisconsin’s Economy With Tax Hikes

After admitting last week that he is open to imposing costly new tax hikes on the people of Wisconsin, claiming that “anything is on the table,” Democrat gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers is taking criticism for his reckless plans to reverse the state’s progress under GOP Governor Scott Walker.

The MacIver Institute writes that Evers’ “murky” rhetoric and lack of any specific tax plans hides the fact that small businesses would likely be hit by tax increases under his agenda, based on his past statements. To make matters worse, Scott Manley of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce stated that “it would be difficult to design a better blueprint to ruin Wisconsin’s economy than what Tony Evers is proposing right now.”

While Governor Walker fights for continued tax relief for the people of Wisconsin, Tony Evers has made it clear that he is committed to making them pay more for his big-government agenda.

The MacIver Institute writes:

“Tony Evers wants more money for government – a lot more.

The secretary of the state Department of Public Instruction and Democrat candidate for governor proposes a big infusion of new revenue for everything from education to transportation.

Just how Evers plans to fund it all remains a bit murky, but one thing is certain: Somebody would have to pay for the candidate’s government expansion plans.

During his annual State of Education Address at the Capitol Thursday, the public education chief laid out his plan to increase education spending by $1.4 billion in the next biennial budget, which would follow Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s historic investment in K-12 education, which boosted spending by $639 million in the current two-year budget.

Afterward Evers took – and seemed reluctant to answer – a flurry of questions from Capitol reporters, including MacIver Institute’s Ola Lisowski. How would Evers pay for it all?

Yet to be determined, according to the candidate. 

“There’s no definite plans at this time,” Evers said. He went on to insist, ‘Anything is on the table.’

Based on his public statements, anything could include a hefty gas tax. He’s open to 33 cents a gallon, but Evers shrugged off claims by Walker’s campaign that the Democrat would hike the state’s gas tax by as much as a buck a gallon.

The Walker campaign ad asserts Evers would raise various taxes. Evers again didn’t disabuse anyone of that notion during Thursday’s press gaggle.

Evers said he is considering a broad range of possible tax hikes, ‘shifts,’ and ‘revenue enhancements’ to pay for transportation.

Property taxpayers could be looking at higher bills for the first time in several years under Evers’ latest education budget proposal, which includes a 10 percent spending increase. That would be on top of the $636 million in additional ed spending Walker built into the state’s current two-year budget…

The Republican governor on Friday remarked on how the times had changed.

‘Last year when I made the largest actual dollar investment in state history he called it ‘pro-kid.’ Now he’s saying it’s out of whack,’ Walker told MacIver News Service at an event in Milwaukee. ‘The fact is when he was running for superintendent he thought it was a pro-kid budget. When he’s running for governor he thinks it’s something different. This is just double talk from a politician…’

Evers has offered few details on where exactly he would find the additional $1.4 billion needed to fund the proposed spending increase. At Thursday’s press conference, he repeatedly denied the notion that taxes must necessarily go up.

While he insists his goal is to ‘keep taxes reasonable,’ Evers is drawing from the old redistributionist handbook. In short, higher taxes for higher earners in the pursuit of lifting the tax burden off of Wisconsin’s middle class, Evers insists.

But what Evers leaves out in his class warfare rhetoric is the number of small business owners that would be hit by higher income taxes. So-called ‘pass-through’ businesses are taxed at the individual tax rate, not at the corporate rate…

Scott Manley, senior vice president of Government Affairs for Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, said raising taxes and eliminating job-creating tax credits is a “recipe for economic disaster and failure.”

‘It would be difficult to design a better blueprint to ruin Wisconsin’s economy than what Tony Evers is proposing right now,’ Manley said.”