Wisconsin: Four Facts You Need to Know

What's happening in Wisconsin isn't about budget deficits or government spending or even public employee benefits. It's class war, wherein the big business, conservative Right tries to pit working class Americans against one another.
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What's happening in Wisconsin isn't about budget deficits or government spending or even public employee benefits. It's class war, wherein the big business, conservative Right tries to pit working class Americans against one another so that the super-rich can continue to pilfer our private and public coffers for their own boundless gain. Here are the facts you need to know -- and spread:

1. 60% of Wisconsin's largest corporations pay ZERO taxes

According to the Institute for Wisconsin's Future, in 2007 60% of corporations in Wisconsin with over $100 million in annual revenues paid zero taxes. None. Zip. Zilch.

2. Raising corporate taxes in Wisconsin to the national average would generate $1 BILLION in revenue

By comparison, Gov. Walker's union busting bill will "save" a measly $350 million (that is, if you consider lowering the income and security of a core group of tax-paying workers "saving" money...).

3. Cutting taxes on corporations and the rich created state budget crises.

States do not have a spending problem. They have a revenue problem. The recession caused all tax receipts to be lower, but government revenue was artificially suppressed long-before by tax cuts for the big business and the rich pushed through at both the federal and state levels. But with Wall Street tycoons still raking in big bonuses while the rest of us stagger and suffer, anger against big business might reach a boiling point... unless private sector workers can be pitted against public sector workers in a "blame government" charade to diffuse anger from the rightful target.

4. Gov. Walker and the attack on unions are paid for by anti-government Koch brothers

David and Charles Koch, scions of the second largest private corporation in the United States, know how to get a good deal for their dollar. Do you really think the brothers who fund the anti-government, pro-big business Tea Party really give a damn about Wisconsin's deficit? They are using Wisconsin in their larger play to destroy all unions, further strip all workers of benefits and decent wages, and increase power and profit for a very few, very large corporations like their own. The Koch brothers are among Gov. Walker's top political contributors.

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