The Wisconsin Business Alliance touts itself as the nonpartisan alternative to Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the Wisconsin News Connection reports.

Really? They report, you decide:

Lori Compas, executive director of the newly-formed Wisconsin Business Alliance, says her organization will be open to all and will look at things differently.

“The Wisconsin Business Alliance is a non-partisan, nonprofit membership organization. We’re going to be representing business owners statewide, including small businesses, aspiring entrepreneurs and farm-based businesses.”

She says the Wisconsin Business Alliance, or WBA for short, will be very different from Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce — known as WMC — because it will not be interested in picking sides when it comes to politics.

“The WMC has really become a mouthpiece for the far right. The one thing that really blows my mind is they advocate for policies that drive wages down. For those of us who own businesses that depend on people having disposable income, that doesn’t make any sense at all.” …

“If we hope to really make positive change here in Wisconsin, for business owners and for our larger communities, we have to get beyond partisanship.”

One little detail the WNC failed to report: If the name Compas sounds familiar, that’s because Compas ran in the 13th Senate District recall election against Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R–Juneau). Compas didn’t run as a “nonpartisan,” she ran as a Democrat. And if you had any doubt about that, go back to the fourth paragraph of the quote.

WMC is also officially nonpartisan. Principles are more important than parties or candidates.

As for Compas’ comment about “driving wages down”: If Compas believes people aren’t paid enough, she is perfectly free to hire them for her business. Of course, pay employees too much for the amount of business the business has, and that thing called “profit” disappears, followed by those employees’ jobs.

And as for taking sides …

Compas says WBA will focus on smaller businesses whose owners love Wisconsin, want to stay here and want to help their employees build a life here.

That’s one way to look at it. The other is that WBA apparently has zero interest in doing something about our overtaxing, overregulating state government. How do we know that? Ask them, under Who We Are:

Wisconsin Business Alliance is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(6) organization representing business owners in throughout Wisconsin who are committed to broad-based prosperity and a modern economy that’s built to last.

“Built to last” … why does that sound familiar? Oh, yes — that came from the Obama for President campaign. Read on:

WE HONOR TRADITION.
Wisconsin’s proud traditions of education, cooperation, and smart government have led to an exceptional quality of life and a strong business environment.

“Smart government”? Where? When? For what we pay in taxes, we should have the best government services, including schools, in the entire world. We don’t.

“Strong business environment”? We lag behind national averages in business startups and incorporations. Per-capita personal income growth has lagged behind the nation for more than three decades.

Wait! There’s more!

WE BUILD COMMUNITY.We recognize that our economy, now and into the future, depends on a healthy, well-educated workforce; thriving fields, forests and waterways; and the infrastructure that unites them. Real economic freedom stems from policies that ensure a high standard of living for everyone.

Government has a valid and vital role in creating and maintaining the infrastructure that supports a resilient economy, including roads and rail lines, internet access, cultural assets, and public utilities such as power and water.

What’s not there? How about “profit”? How about “taxes”? How about “regulation”? This isn’t about business at all; it’s about propping up government, and, I suspect, somewhere well hidden, public employee unions. (I wonder how Alliant Energy, We Energies and the other investor-owned utilities feel about that big sloppy kiss for public utilities, which provide a small amount of the state’s electric power. I wonder how private-sector Internet providers feel about the inference that government should be providing Internet access.) I suspect as well that the WBA will make the false differentiation between small businesses and those evil corporations, like banks, which gave more money to Democrats than Republicans by far in 2008, or GE, which has been run by Barack Obama’s marionette strings ever since 2009.

This, you see, is why the WBA has been getting such glowing press from business publications like Isthmus. (Yes, those last four words are meant to be sarcasm.) WBA apparently cares nothing about this state’s having the fifth highest state and local taxes in the country, or the regulatory hell this state is, or how we don’t get anything remotely close to our money’s worth from government, or how government in this state does much more to prevent business health than it does to promote business. Politics is a zero-sum game, and it’s a game business has been losing in Wisconsin for a long time. (As demonstrated by Wisconsin’s corporate income tax rate, one of the highest in the world.)

The Wisconsin Business Alliance seems to be what the Democratic Party would like business to be — meekly compliant.