Conservatively Speaking
State Senator Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) represents parts of four counties: Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, and Walworth. Her Senate District 28 includes New Berlin, Franklin, Greendale, Hales Corners, Muskego, Waterford, Big Bend, the town of Vernon and parts of Greenfield, East Troy, and Mukwonago. Senator Lazich has been in the Legislature for more than a decade. She considers herself a tireless crusader for lower taxes, reduced spending and smaller government.
Defeating Government Healthcare Nothing New for Wisconsin
Weeks have passed since the US Supreme Court ruled ObamaCare is constitutional. Since then, many people are coming together to fight the unsustainable tax increase from the grassroots level. Perhaps the nation should once again look to Wisconsin for the example, because we have been rallying against massive tax increases disguised as do-gooder free health care laws for years.
Early during 2007, Democrats in the Wisconsin Legislature advocated for a state version of government health care they called Healthy Wisconsin. Senate Democrats attached the massive proposal to the biennial state budget bill, perhaps believing burying it would hide the enormity of the fiscal burden brought with it.
Fortunately, it did not work. After an enormous outcry of opposition, the proposal was rejected and removed from the final budget. Consumer choice and the free market carried the day.
Soon after, during spring 2008, Senator Jon Erpenbach tried to resurrect government healthcare as a separate bill. Erpenbach, current chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Revenue, Tax Fairness, and Insurance, along with current Senate Majority Leader Mark Miller, testified in favor of the exorbitantly expensive plan.
How expensive was it? At the time, it was estimated that government healthcare in Wisconsin would cost $15.2 billion. That’s billion, with a “b.”
Other than the state budget, it’s exceptionally rare that lawmakers even consider state level proposals with fiscal effects in that range. To put it into perspective, the $15+ billion cost of government-run healthcare in Wisconsin was more than the state was taking in through sales and income taxes combined.
Where would all of this money come from? The proposal included 14.5% employment tax on wages, averaging $510 per month per employee. Of that, $370 would come from employers, because in the mind of Democrats, that would protect the middle class. Never mind the fact that the employer is almost certainly going to have to respond to a tax increase by raising prices on the middle class, laying off middle class workers, and lowering middle class wages. Even former Governor Jim Doyle, a Democrat, opposed the bill and said he had to live in the “real world.”
Fast forward a few short years, and the real world looks astonishingly different. Somehow government healthcare went from a liberal pipe dream to the new reality. The entire nation is watching as the Democrats dig us deeper and deeper into tax and spend hell, and permanent socialized medicine is a very real possibility.
Fortunately, recent opinion polls suggest that most people favor repealing the national health care law. They understand that the mandate in ObamaCare, like the payroll tax in Healthy Wisconsin, is a jobs killer and serious blow to our country on many fronts. Wisconsin residents knew this fact years ago, most Americans appreciate this fact now, and November 6, maybe the President will finally understand it.
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