The Mid-Atlantic Region's Wisconsin

Guess who made these statements:

"The focus on short-term solutions to long term problems has continuously compounded the state’s deficit. It cannot and will not continue. It has undermined our state’s credit rating and prevented us from addressing other challenges, like property taxes, stem cell research, school construction and ethics reform. For too long the main objective of the budget process has been to finish it."

"The goal has been to complete a budget and go home with as little political discomfort as possible. Today, finishing the budget, simply for that purpose, is not good enough."

"Short-term patches that get us through the night are no substitute for sound fiscal policies."

Could be Jim Doyle or Mark Green on the campaign trail--though at this point only establishment party hacks could be dumb enough to think that Doyle or Green will provide anything other than "short-term patches" to the state's deficit woes. Neither Doyle nor Green are willing to show the leadership necessary to make Wisconsin's tax code progressive, thus making the budget crisis a fact of life.

The statement was actually made by Democratic New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, a former US Senator who now as Jersey's Chief Executive is willing to tolerate the shutdown of non-essential government services until the Democrats in the assembly give him a sales tax increase. Corzine, aware that Democrats in the state have lost elections after proposing tax increases, also said:

"Is a budget to be a political platform to seek reelection, as has too often been the case in the past, or is it a statement of our mutually agreed upon priorities with an honest and real way to pay for those same priorities?"

That's the rhetoric of leadership, but simply proposing to raise the sales tax (a regressive tax) from 6 to 7 percent shows that Corzine really is playing just another version of politics as usual. A proposal to raise the top income tax rate would represent real leadership because it would force Corzine (former CEO of Goldman Sachs who spent at least $43 million to get elected) to take on his Wall St. buddies. Instead he proposes to raise a tax that disproportionately hurts those who spend a greater share of their income on consumer goods; i.e. middle class and poor people. Some leader.

New Jersey's Assembly is controlled by Democrats who have called Corzine's sales tax proposal "dead." The Assembly Dems are hardly flaming progressives either, and they are scared shitless of running for reelection in 2007 after voting for any tax increase in 2006, but at least they are considering the possibility of asking for more from the wealthy. According to the New York Times:

"Legislators said that among the alternatives that were being discussed in private were a proposal to increase the income tax in the top brackets, an idea the Corzine administration has been cool to."

Wisconsinites ought to follow the New Jersey budget deliberations very closely as they portend what will happen here next year: a Governor that talks big but will not offer real leadership, a wealthy special interest legislature paralyzed by a system that keeps them indebted to big donors, smoke and mirrors from establishment party hacks to cover up their mutual responsibility for the mess, and a disconnected/marginalized public that ultimately pays a heavy price.