Corporate Welfare Run Amok
September 10, 2009
It appears that the County of Fond du Lac will pass a sales tax increase as part of the plan to keep Mercury Marine located there. While I understand potentially losing 2,000 jobs would be damaging I can’t get behind raising taxes on everyone in order to make one private company happy.
First off, this sets a very bad precedent. What other employer could threaten to leave and get their local government to bail them out? Harley Davidson is facing hard times, should we raise taxes to help them out?
The next problem I have is that it seems that only certain jobs and certain businesses are worth saving. Right now we have an awful tax climate for business because taxes are so high, but if we have to save some union jobs we are willing to raise taxes to make the overall business climate even worse? Will we raise taxes to help out a local accounting firm? How about a restaurant?
What Wisconsin needs to do is get its house in order. We are one of the highest taxed states in the Union and that’s why businesses do not want to be here and expand. It would be much better to lower or simply eliminate the corporate tax rates in order to attract more business than raising taxes to pick and choose who gets the benefits.
Many people love corporate income taxes, but they need to understand that the cost of those taxes are passed along in the form of higher prices to the consumer or lower wages to the employee.
