Taxpayer Bill of Wrongs'

At a forum on the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) in La Crosse, Vanessa Pickar discusses the impact of budget cuts on students at the Western Wisconsin Technical College. More photos

About 70 citizens packed into a La Crosse meeting room Thursday night (December 8, 2005) to talk about the potential devastating impact of what one state legislator called the "Taxpayer Bill of Wrongs."

The forum actually was about TABOR, or the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which is being advanced by a select group of Republican legislators to severely reduce the amount of resources available for state and local government services.

"This is something that is going to affect all our communities in many ways in our daily lives," said John Keckhaver of the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, which sponsored the forum. WEAC is a co-sponsor of this and five more TABOR forums scheduled throughout the state.

TABOR is a proposed amendment to Wisconsin’s Constitution that would severely restrict the ability of local governments and the state government to raise funds necessary to maintain quality services. To become law, it would have to pass two consecutive legislative sessions and be approved in a statewide voter referendum.

A panel of eight community representatives talked about how TABOR would affect government services, from health care to foster care to education.

Even without TABOR, schools are struggling financially, said Linda Head, a kindergarten teacher at State Road Elementary School in La Crosse. For example, she said, the federal so-called "No Child Left Behind" law places many new demands on schools but fails to fully pay for them. "If you're not going to give me the money, how am I going to get the job done?" Head asked.

Head said she is seeing more and more children from families in poverty and children with special needs. Some children come from single-parent families in which the parent works two or more jobs to provide for children and as a result has difficulty meeting the children's daily needs. "I had one child come to school this year in her pajamas," Head said. Many children arrive at school without breakfast, she said.

"When I retire, I want to make sure the kids I am teaching today are well-educated and go on to get good jobs," she said, expressing concern about the potential impact of TABOR on schools' ability to continue providing critical services and quality education programs.

Warren Pickar, an agribusiness instructor at Western Wisconsin Technical College, where the forum was held, said the college already is facing the loss of funding and positions that are affecting students, and that TABOR "would only make the situation worse."

Students already are coming out of the college with "huge debt loads," while sharp increases in health care costs and fuel oil are placing enormous stresses on the college's finances, he said.

Pickar's daughter, Vanessa, a student in a new collaborative education program between Viterbo College and WWTC, displayed a chart showing the trend of declining financial support for Wisconsin technical colleges. She said that trend is leaving many students "a little stretched" financially as they try to get an education "to become more productive members of society."

Denise Green, a La Crosse area foster parent, said foster children and parents rely on a wide variety of government services including parent visitation monitors, family support programs, in-home therapy, school programs, prevention programs, and independent living programs. Such specialized services, she said, "are imperative to the success of our children," and TABOR would force reductions in them.

June Kjome, a retired registered nurse, said La Crosse is a very caring, generous community with many community groups and faith-based organizations that help provide services to citizens. However, she said, "we cannot always expect them to pick up the slack."

"TABOR is going to leave a big hole in many of the budgets and many of the services. The government is shirking its duties in passing TABOR," she said. "Government must do its share."

State Representative Jennifer Shilling (D-La Crosse) said TABOR is "gaining momentum" in the Legislature and is expected to be brought up for a vote soon. Shilling said the TABOR constitutional amendment should more accurately be referred to as the Taxpayer Bill of Wrongs or the Taxpayer Bill of Frights. She urged people to talk to their friends, neighbors and co-workers about the unintended - or intended - consequences of TABOR, which cripples government services and disproportionately harms Wisconsin’s most vulnerable citizens.

"TABOR will impact all of us," she said.

The forum also featured a short video about the devastating impact of TABOR in Colorado, which passed the amendment in 1992. After 13 years of severe cuts in government services, even leading Republicans have abandoned support for TABOR and are calling for its repeal. In a statewide referendum in November, Colorado voters passed a ballot measure that suspends a central provision of TABOR.

Following the La Crosse forum, participants were encouraged to record a video message to tell their own stories in front of a camera set up in the back of the room. Many people lined up to share their thoughts, including Frances Schmidt, who organizes activities at the Monroe County Rehabilitation Center in Sparta. TABOR, she said, will reach so far as to cut activities for nursing home residents who "depend on those services for things to do throughout the day."

Keckhaver also asked participants to fill out forms urging their legislators to oppose TABOR and to volunteer to help stop the amendment from becoming law. More information on those opportunities are available on the WCCF Web site.

The next scheduled forum is Wednesday, December 14, in Fond du Lac.

More on the forums
Resource Page on Tax Gimmicks

Posted December 9, 2005