Taxpayer Bill of Rights?

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Wisconsin Senate Bill 477 otherwise known as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, would cut the inflationary spending increase school districts are allowed under state-set revenue limits from $241 per pupil to $120 in the 2004-’05 school year and to $100 in subsequent years.
This article’s premise that spending more money increases quality does not always hold. My brief interactions with candidates, the board and interested observers indicates that state & federal mandates (not always fully funded), services beyond the core educational programs, along with rising administrative costs are driving spending increases.
Wisconsin, like other states, needs to consider additional sources of education dollars. Residents are largely tired of ever growing property taxes. [Editor: how about auto license fees or sales tax changes]
Wisconsin Property Tax Information: Teoma All the Web Yahoo Search Google

Madison School Board Site Updates

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I’ve added several items to my site for the April 6, 2004 Madison School Board Election:

This initiative was inspired by Dave Winer, Glenn Reynolds, Doc Searls, Jeff Jarvis, Dan Gillmor, Jay Rosen and many others….

Warren Buffett’s Annual Shareholder Letter

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NEW YORK, March 6 (Reuters) – Warren Buffett, the world’s second-richest person, wants to pay more taxes. And he wants the rest of corporate America to pay more too.
In his annual letter [196K PDF] to shareholders of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (nyse: BRKa – news – people) holding company, released on Saturday, the 73-year-old Buffett said Berkshire’s taxes rose more than eleven-fold to $3.3 billion from 1995 to 2003, as profits rose ten-fold to $8.15 billion.
During the same period, federal income taxes paid by all U.S. companies fell by 16 percent, to $132 billion.
“We hope our taxes continue to rise in the future — it will mean we are prospering — but we also hope that the rest of corporate America antes up along with us,” said Buffett, who has previously criticized Bush administration tax policy.
Visit Berkshire Hathaway’s site to view Buffett’s annual letters, from 1977 to 2003…..

Protectionism

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Dave Farber’s IP List has an interesting post on controlled economies:
Einar Stefferud writes:
“Reminds me of efforts to [support] Wisconsin.
I well remember how we had to buy margarine by mail order and hand mix
in the yellow coloring because it was against to law there to sell it
any other way.
And, the law required that all apple pie served in any state institution,
like the University of Wisconsin had to be served with a slice of Wisconsin
Cheese. Most of that cheese went into the garbage because most people did
not want cheese with their apple pie.
This kind of foolishness does not help an economy to grow jobs. It just
causes stagnation and waste and loss of incentives.
And higher taxes to pay for the waste.
Economies do not thrive under central control.
Economies and Internets do better without central control of details.
And, in the international situation, this is the beginning of a trade war,
ala the beginning to the 1930’s depression, which lasted for approximately
10 years until WW-II finally bailed us out.
BTW, the trade wars were a major aspect of the causes of WW-II.”