Charlie Sykes: Sykes Writes

A BOATLOAD OF TAXES

By Charlie Sykes

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Hasn't a gaffe famously been defined as when a politician inadvertently speaks the truth. Take State Senator Jim Holperin (D-Conover):

"You know the Governor's got enough little tax and fee hikes in that budget of his to sink a good sized battleship. So there's no shortage of revenue 'uppers' for the legislature to consider and for the voters to get mad over ..."

Read more of his unusual candor here.

Late last year, in a December letter to the editor sent to local newspapers, state Sen. Jim Holperin (D-Conover) lauded the progress he said the state was making under the leadership of Gov. Jim Doyle and the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

Holperin pointed to the state's improved tax ranking - Wisconsin is the nation's 15th highest taxed state; it had been higher - and said the new 2010-11 budget should keep the rate moving steadily downward by reducing spending and raising taxes negligibly.

However, in several emails last year to Beth Tornes, a grant writer at the Great Lakes InterTribal Council, Holperin had an entirely different take on taxes and the state of the state's budget: there were lots of new taxes, he wrote, and the Democrats were responsible for them.

Tornes had written Holperin last Oct. 7 asking him to support comprehensive drunk driving legislation, as well as a beer tax to help fund law enforcement, treatment services and prevention programs.

Holperin replied, saying the beer tax was not going to happen.

"We Democrats authorized all kinds of new taxes in the recently adopted state budget (cigarette taxes, capital gains taxes, solid waste fees, cell phone tax, boat registration fee, etc. etc.) and took a lot of heat for that," Holperin wrote. "Nobody is eager to be voting for 'another' tax increase ... especially on beer! We're a brewery state, for crumb sakes (which maybe also explains our alcohol culture...)!"