The Wisconsin Legislature has proposed a new tax, which in itself isn’t news, but this particular one calls for doubling the tax on car rentals in order to pay for a train between Milwaukee and Kenosha. The daily tax on some cars would actually be higher than some car companies charge for a daily rental.
This is wrong on so many levels, it’s hard to know where to start. First of all, this is asking people who aren’t even going to use the train to pay for it. Secondly, the bulk of the cars rented in Southeastern Wisconsin are in Milwaukee, forcing Milwaukee County to pay the bulk for something that “benefits” three counties. The quotes around “benefits” is because no one is really sure who benifits from this train, other than the people who will work for the railroad. I don’t know this for sure, but I suspect that more than half of the cars rented in Milwaukee County are “local” rentals, that is, people who live here renting a car for business (like I often do) or to have wheels while their car is in a repair facility.
The worst part about this is that unsuspecting visitors to Milwaukee will get smashed by this car rental tax - once. If I’m a business person visiting Milwaukee, I’ll fly into Milwaukee, rent a car, and choke when I see the bill. On all subsequent trips to Milwaukee, I will fly into O’Hare, rent a car there, and drive to Milwaukee. I’ll pay tolls to Illinois and, while I’m at it, I’ll just get a hotel room in Chicago while I wait for my return flight. I’m sure Mitchell Officials and Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce types will love to see that happen.
In my own case, I often rent cars for business trips. If this tax passes, I will simply ride the shuttle to O’Hare, pick up my rental there, and go my merry way. All those lower rental taxes will go to Illinois, not Wisconsin.
Doesn’t anyone in Madison ever stop to look and see how the real world works?
It’s dumb enough that Diamond Jim “We must not raise taxes” Doyle has a budget cooking that increases taxes by $1.7 Billion (That’s with a B) but who ever expected that the legislature would RAISE it to One Point NINE Billion dollars!
Includes is an increase in the car rental tax to fund a train between Kenosha and Milwaukee.
That makes a lot of sense - run a train where no one wants it and practically no one will ride it.
Who comes up with these boneheaded ideas?
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A cursory examination of the local radio market shows the absolute domination of rock and roll in the FM radio marketplace. Rock and roll is loud, it can be shrill and the fact that the FM spectrum is dominated by rock and roll is a good indication that the entire marketplace is not being served. Many listeners, who prefer other musical forms, are not being properly served because of this structural imbalance in the ownership and management of stations.
It is up to the government, then, to step in and challenge owners and managers of FM radio stations to better serve the marketplace. The one outlet for “smooth jazz” gave into the trend and changed formats to rock and roll. Another station stepped in to offer smooth jazz but at the price of abandoning classical music. There is no longer a classical music station in Milwaukee. (Some people have said there is more culture in yogurt than in Milwaukee radio.)
Perhaps it is time that legislative action be taken to balance the offerings on the FM dial and make sure that fans of classical music will have a station to listen to.
WFMR has been broadcasting classical music in the Milwaukee market for over 50 years. Granted, it is a niche market, but a niche with a very loyal listener base. As of midnight tonight, WFMR is dumping the classical format and will start playing “smooth jazz.”
It is the purpose of any radio station to make money, and a format that attracts the most listeners allows the station to charge more money for advertising due to advertisers getting more listeners. Let’s face it, classical programming is a small dog in the marketplace but even though it is a small market, it is a loyal one. What happened was that the smooth jazz station dumped the format (for just what the market needs, yet another rocker) so the classical station is dumping classical to get that huge smooth jazz audience - all three or four more listeners than classical had.
Wisconsin has two public radio networks, one plays classical music and the other offers the “talk that matters to…” someone, I suppose. Milwaukee has four public radio outlets, but Milwaukee does not have an outlet for the classical network. Two stations (one owned by the Univeristy of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) sound so much alike you can’t tell when you’re listening to one and not the other. Both offer liberal talk that has been all the rage to discuss the last few days.
(There are two other public stations, WMSE at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, an outlet that marches to the beat of a different drummer and WYMS and no one really knows what they’re broadcasting because they probably have fewer listeners than WFMR did.)
Bottom line: It’s a sad day for all Milwaukee radio listeners but especially those of us who like classical music.
Been to a grocery store lately?
Prices haven’t been this shocking since the days of runaway inflation in the 1970’s. Milk prices are skyrocketing. Beef and pork prices are skyrocketing. Soda prices are skyrocketing. Everyday items, cheap things we have taken for granted for so long, are no longer cheap and are getting out of the range of some families.
The entire phenomenon can be summed up in one word.
Ethanol.
You are witnessing The Law of Unintended Consequences at work - an alarming development that some of us have been warning you about for years. You don’t believe it? Follow along for a lesson in basic economics - something that should be taught at the junior high school level, but isn’t.
Milk: Comes from cows. What do cows eat? Corn.
Beef: Comes from cows. What do cows eat? Corn.
Pork: Comes from hogs. What do hogs eat? Corn.
Soda: What sweetens our beverages? Some people think it is sugar, but after Fidel Castro messed up the sugar industry, food processors were forced to find a cheaper solution for sweetening their products, and they did: Corn syrup.
What is the basis of everything in the American diet? Corn.
What is ethanol made from? Corn.
The price of a bushel of corn has gone up by a factor of four in the last year - and it is driving up the prices of everything, unleashing what could be an uncontrolled cycle of inflation in months to come.
The government-mandated blending of ethanol into gasoline was based on good intentions, which was, to make our air cleaner. The law of unintended consequences came into play as soon as the first gallon of ethanol was distilled over 25 years ago, except no one in government had the chutzpah to stand up and say, “Wait a minute! Let’s think this thing through!”
Here are the facts:
Ethanol is mandated by government to be blended into our fuel. The benefits of ethanol are under question, and even the do-gooders who told us, twenty years ago, how great ethanol was for the environment are coming out against it, realizing that some of us were right all along.
Why is it mandated by government? Because no one in their right mind would put this crap into their vehicles (it costs more, is less efficient and damages fuel systems) and the free market would never accept it. At the request of the Big Corn lobbiests, the government shoves it down our gas filler pipes.
It takes 70% more energy to produce ethanol than it releases. The process requires 131,000 BTUs to distill one gallon of ethanol, using precious petroleum products to do so, but ethanol only produces 77,000 BTUs per gallon - a loss of 54,000 BTUs. (Not counting the petroleum products required to plant, maintain and harvest the corn crop.)
It takes massive amouts of water - a precious commodity - to distill ethanol.
In order for the United States to use ethanol exclusively for motor fuel, 97% of the American land mass would have to be converted to growing corn for ethanol.
What does all this have to do with food prices?
Simple: we are burning our primary food source as fuel. That is even dumber than dumping raw sewage into our primary aquifer and don’t get me started on that.
Look at it this way: If the average car traveled 10,000 miles per year on pure ethanol, it would use about 850 gallons of ethanol. This would require 11 acres to grow enough corn to fuel that one automobile - 11 acres that would otherwise feed 7 people.
Does that sound like efficient land use? Of course not. It simply illustrates, once again that when the government tinkers with the free market, nothing good comes of it.
A revolt is in order, but it won’t happen until we all get tired of paying 5 bucks for a gallon of milk, almost 4 bucks for a gallon of gas that is about a pint short of gallon of gas, paying 4 bucks for a pound of ground beef, 5 bucks for a hamburger at a fast food place and realize that we’ve been had by the Big Corn lobby. It may be too late - the damage to our economy may already be too far widespread to matter.
Are you in love with ethanol? Check out what Dr. David Pimentel of Cornell University has to say about “Unsustainable Subsidized Food Burning” at: http://healthandenergy.com/ethanol.htm
I’ve been in touch with Jessica McBride, a well-known Milwaukee area journalist, college professor, former radio talk show host and all around interesting person.
She was kind enough to add a link from her blog to mine, so I’m returing the favor. You’ll find her link below, under “Links.”
Thanks, Jessica!