If I were a state legislator, I would certainly vote for the income tax cut plan introduced by Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R–Brookfield).

That sounds like faint praise, but there doesn’t seem anything wrong with Kooyenga’s plan besides the fact that the tax cuts are too small. Politics is the art of the possible, after all.

The MacIver Institute describes it in nicely graphic terms:

Paid for in part by …

In a previous interview with the MacIver News Service, Kooyenga said little used tax credits should be removed from the tax code. The refundable credits that Kooyenga eliminates in his plan include the Dairy Manufacturing Tax Credit, the Meat Processing Investment Tax Credit, the Film Production Tax Credit, and others.

The Representative deletes the Jobs Credit from the tax code as well, which some say was a way that government would pick winners and losers. The Jobs Credit provides a wage subsidy to employers of up to 10 percent and a subsidy for certain employee training expenses for new hires. By deleting the credit, expenditures are projected to decrease by $1.75 million in 2014-15 and is expected to reduce annual expenditures by $7 million in 2015-16 and up to $17 million in 2021-22.

Kooyenga told the MacIver News Service that the Jobs Credit actually hurts businesses that made tough decisions and retained employees during the recession. He said businesses that fired employees and are now hiring them back would see a tax credit, which shows the unfairness in the Badger State’s tax code.

The non-refundable credits that would be deleted from the tax code include the Dairy and Livestock Investment Credit, the Post-Secondary Education Credit, the Ethanol and Biodiesel Fuel Pump Credit, the Water Consumption Credit, the Relocated Business Credit, the Community Development Finance Credit, and others.

Some of the credits that are repealed in Kooyenga’s plan have not been claimed for many years or have had very few claimants.

If I were a state legislator, I would certainly vote for the smaller income tax cut plan included in the 2013–15 state budget, if Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal were the only option besides keeping our taxes the fifth highest in the U.S.

If I were a state legislator, however, I would have introduced a far larger income tax cut plan. Remember that Gov. James Doyle increased taxes by $2.2 billion. Simply repealing Doyle’s tax increases would be worthwhile.

Another possibility would be to cut taxes by an equivalent amount, though different from the taxes Doyle increased. As I’ve written in this space before, the correct corporate income tax rate is zero. In the 2010–11 fiscal year the state collected $852.9 million, which is just 6.6 percent of total state General Purpose Revenues. So the state could cut that much by eliminating corporate income taxes (for one thing: no taxes, no tax breaks), and use the remaining $1.3 billion or so as investor-friendly income tax cuts, which would be nearly twice the size of Kooyenga’s proposed tax cut.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that wealthy taxpayers would see the largest tax cuts. Independent of whether Wisconsin actually has wealthy people (not really, with about 10 exceptions), the fact is that wealthy people pay the lion’s share of state taxes — specifically, the top 10 percent in income pay half of state income taxes. It is impossible to give tax cuts to people with zero net tax liability. The purpose of taxes is to raise funds for government operations, not redistribute income.

There are inevitably claims that tax cuts produce deficits. That is only the case if the tax cut isn’t accompanied by spending cuts. (Although the increased economic activity from people having more money means that tax cuts produce more tax revenue, and the decreased economic activity from tax increases means that tax increases fail to produce expected revenue.)

It isn’t within the province of a state budget, but as I’ve also previously written here, passing tax cuts is not enough, since future editions of the Legislature can undo them. (As the 2009–10 Legislature, which passed Doyle’s tax increase, demonstrated. How the voters felt about that was demonstrated by the fact that the Legislature has been controlled by Republicans since the 2010 election.) This state continues to need permanent (as in constitutional) limits on spending and required voter approval for tax increases. Without them, state and local governments spend twice what they would have spent had their spending increases been limited to population growth plus inflation since the late 1970s. And since the late 1970s, this state trails the national average in per capita personal income growth.

Steve Spingola:

While one can argue that advocating on behalf of a law enforcement agency’s budget is well within the purview of the duties of the chief-of-police, in an interview with a reporter from the local newspaper, the thinly veiled political attack on the state legislature by Milwaukee’s chief-of-police—done under the guise of good government—illustrates that Chief Ed Flynn is all too willing to pony-up to the bar of the public trough in search of yet another free drink.

As the impetus for his tirade, Flynn cites the expiration of a $445,000 grant for SharpShooter—a computer program that can pinpoint an area where gunshots emanate, which has been funded by the state legislature.  Often times these awards, such as the COPS grants funded by the Clinton administration in the 1990s, cover the first three to five years of a program, at which time the agency receiving the grant money is expected to assume the cost.

The $445,000 needed to fund SharpShooter could easily be achieved by Flynn streamlining his already top heavy command staff.  The Milwaukee Police Department has three assistant chiefs of police.  Why a city the size of Milwaukee has more than one defies logic.  Two of these positions could easily be eliminated by placing just one assistant police chief in charge of the north, central, and south commands, since all three are currently overseen by an inspector of police. By eliminating the two assistant police chiefs’ positions, the Milwaukee Police Department could save nearly $300,000 in wages and benefits.

Flynn also ripped the legislature’s decision to allow one of the state’s regional crime labs, currently located in cramped quarters near Lapham Blvd., to search for a new location, possibly outside Milwaukee.  Having worked closely with technicians from the crime lab in the past, the location of this building really has little to do with efficiencies within the Milwaukee Police Department.  For the sake of argument, if the Wisconsin Regional Crime Lab is moved from its current location to the Milwaukee County Grounds in Wauwatosa—near an area where the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee is constructing research facilities—how would this hamper the crime fighting efforts of Milwaukee police? Clearly, making the location of the crime lab an issue came directly from a Barrett administration talking points memo.

Yet even a low information voter could see through Flynn’s water carrying exercise as the chief feigns outrage over the elimination of the residency requirement for City of Milwaukee employees.  Of course, the reporter fails to ask the police chief how this change would affect the overall operation of his department. Why? Because this rule change, in the long run, might actually benefit the Milwaukee Police Department, as solid, young potential recruits, unwilling to raise their families in the confines of the city, might now be encouraged to apply.

The real hypocrisy, in my opinion, comes not from the state legislature, but from the chief of police himself. If Flynn believes so strongly in Milwaukee, why hasn’t he put his money where his mouth is and purchased a home in the city?  Instead, the chief has chosen to rent a condo in the trendy Third Ward. Moreover, Flynn’s family, specifically his wife, does not reside in Milwaukee.  Surely, once the chief’s contract expires or he chooses to retire, his lease on his Third Ward condo will lapse and, once his payroll checks from the City of Milwaukee stop coming, he will move out of state, probably back to the east coast or Florida, with his pension checks in tow.