I wasn’t aware that I was trying to take anything away from you, I hadn’t realized that you have a claim on my income… but then youre a liberal.

But your advice is sound, if I don’t like paying Wisconsin’s exorbitant taxes I should leave—lots of other retirees and and college graduates are doing just that. The sun belt states continue to grow.

In my 60+ years I’ve visited and lived in a good number of states, both high tax and low tax. To be honest there’s not much difference in the services the high and low tax states offer. Parks are nice but they’re not worth being taxed out of my house.

That having been said, I’d take him over Walker anytime. I *loved* Walker’s solution to the wreck he made of the county park system: spin them off as a separate entity with a separate budget and taxation authority. That way he could escape responsibility for having to provide for upkeep of the parks in his budget.

I can admire the goal of holding the line on taxation, and can sympathize with holding off on buying/building new things. But there comes a time when we have to raise the money to maintain the good things we have, or we lose them. Walker doesn’t seem capable of understanding that point.

And to Smitty: If you don’t get what you want for your tax money, go ahead and find someplace you think you do and live there. That’s the beauty of freedom; you can make choices like that. Live where you like the budget and stop trying to take things away from me. When I left the military I could have been a permanent resident of any state in the union, since I’d spent my time on Federal soil, and I *chose* to come here. I’ve lived in places that “hold the line” on taxation and I haven’t been impressed by what I got for my money there. I was proud of what I saw in WI, and I’ve been disappointed by Walker’s systematic dismantling of it. If the Dems had run a *real* candidate against him, I think the election would have been a lot closer.

Tell Doyle, if he gets an appointment, to get a toupee’ to cover his chrome dome. It shines so much that it conceals what a slimeball he really is.

And despite winning twice with 56+ percent of the vote for Milwaukee County Executive, Scott Walker still couldn’t manage to come out of the GOP primaries as the Republican nominee for Governor. The fact that he won this year’s election by a slightly larger margin than past elections speaks less about the job he’s done and more about the kind of campaign Lena Taylor ran.

That “doe-eyed conservative” you referred to just got 59% in Milwaukee County…the third time he’s had 56+% county-wide. After 6yrs on the job, and increasing election victory margins, it’s pretty hard to deny that people think he’s doing a pretty damn good job.

As far as the election for governor, I love how you dismiss his chances based on ‘06. Reagan lost to Ford in a ‘76 primary for president and kicked Jimmy Carter’s ass in ‘80.

So I’m willing to listen to anyone who is serious about holding the line on taxes. The alternative is for me to start thinking seriously about sunnier climes where tax rates that are not confiscatory (and don’t get 90 inches of snow in the winter). Two of my retired neighbors have moved out of Wisconsin in the past year; one was a former public school teacher and the other a former IRS employee whose wife had worked for the DOT. People with good pensions who want to spend their retirement money, not pay it back to the state.

If he somehow got the nomination, in the general election you’d just have to ask the voters whether they’d like Scott Walker to do to Wisconsin what he did to Milwaukee County.

He got lucky this year and didn’t draw a strong opponent even though he was vulnerable. But he won’t be the next governor. Get some money down on that with your optimistic GOP friends, before they come to their senses.