Wisconsin Democracy Campaign
Campaign Cash

Koch-Funded Group Backs Tax Cut

Cut could reduce state forestry funding.

By - Jun 5th, 2017 10:59 am
Koch Brothers

Koch Brothers

A rightwing electioneering group that has spent more than $5.7 million since 2010 to help elect Republican legislative and statewide candidates is pushing hard for a property tax cut in the proposed 2017-19 state budget.

Americans for Prosperity, which was created and funded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, said Wednesday it strongly supported Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s budget plan to end the state forestry mill tax.

The tax, which costs the owner of a median-valued home about $27 a year, is used not only to pay for forestry programs but also to pay for equipment used by local fire departments to fight forest fires. Walker wants to replace the $90 million a year raised by the tax with taxpayer dollars from the state general fund.

The property tax cut is up for a vote soon by the legislature’s Joint Finance Committee, which is expected to wrap up its work on the proposed budget and send it to the full GOP-controlled legislature for consideration this month. The committee’s co-chairs, GOP Sen. Alberta Darling and Rep. John Nygren, support eliminating the forestry mill tax.

Americans for Prosperity, whose past electioneering activities included television ads, mailings and door-to-door canvassing, warned Republican legislators on the committee not to vote against this. “Our activists will be watching closely to see which committee members have the courage to give Wisconsin taxpayers the relief they deserve and demand.”

Opponents, including forestry groups, say Walker’s proposal could threaten forestry funding because it would have to compete with high-priority funding issues, like medical assistance and education.

Most of Americans for Prosperity’s spending, about $4.8 million, on outside electioneering activities has been to support Walker in his 2012 recall and 2014 reelection campaigns. Most of the group’s remaining spending, about $935,000, was spent in the 2011 and 2012 recall elections to help incumbent Republican senators and candidates.

7 thoughts on “Campaign Cash: Koch-Funded Group Backs Tax Cut”

  1. Jason says:

    Scott Walker wants to give a refund of $27 back to the average Wisconsin tax payer per year and this is backed by the Koch brothers. So, if each Koch brother moved to Wisconsin they would receive together $54. This is also most as bad as George Soros giving tens of millions of dollars to Barack Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012. What does Obama due for him. Obama makes the coal industry so expensive through environmental regulations that 10, 000 coal families lose their jobs in Colorado and West Virginia. Companies like Peabody energy go bankrupt and who is there to pick up all the troubled assets George Soros. Soros bought Peabody energy at pennies on the dollar . Nice pay off if you can get it.

  2. Jake formerly of the LP says:

    COAL IS DEAD, KIDDO. And wasting $180 million that could go to fixing the roads to give a one-time gimmicky $27 property tax cut seems like a bad trade to me.

    You really are this dumb and needy in real life, aren’t you Jason?

  3. Vincent Hanna says:

    Jason you are just making shit up now. Coal was dying decades ago, when Obama was a teenager (and you were in your 50s). It has been killed by cheaper and cleaner energy like natural gas. Not Obama. This is common knowledge.

  4. Vincent Hanna says:

    Oh those pesky facts that prove Jason doesn’t know what he’s talking about:

    “But for all the rage over Obama’s environmental agenda, mining jobs began disappearing in the region long before he entered the White House, for reasons that have nothing to do with regulations now coming out of Washington.

    In fact, coal mining jobs in Appalachia fared far worse under the Reagan, Clinton, and George H.W. Bush administrations than they have under Obama.” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/coal-countrys-decline-has-a-long-history/453144/

  5. A Bus Driver says:

    Jason is a TROLL. I would say no one could be that dumb but, there’s plenty of proof that say many are that dumb.

  6. daniel golden says:

    Peabody energy is as foul a corporate citizen as the current greed driven corporate leadership in this country has produced in a long time. Peabody has funded at least 2 dozen separate climate change denying “public interest” groups in recent years. Its reactionary leadership it a major sponsor of the American Legislative Exchange Council, as well as other radical right organizations. Peabody, like most coal producers, has had a tough time competing with cheaper energy sources for decades Jason’s usual package of lies and half truths aside, Peabody is in an industry that is similar to the buggy whip manufacturing industry in the face of the early automobile, although buggy whip makers didn’t have hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on attempting to corrupt the political process in this country.

  7. MKE kid says:

    Good comebacks, guys, to “Jason.” “Jason” comments on practically every article on UM with his alt-right views.

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