Sen. Ted Kanavas threatens to move to Texas, endorses combined reporting
State Senator Ted Kanavas (R-Brookfield) thinks the grass is greenest in the Lone Star State
“If we don’t change and change soon, I may bump into my lawyer friend again, but it just might be in Texas.” — Senator Ted Kanavas’s threat to move to Texas, 6/30/2009
What do you think of when you think of Texas? The Dallas Cowboys (shudder)? How about Enron? George W. Bush (double-shudder)?
Despite those horrible inhabitants, State Senator Ted Kanavas (R-Brookfield) thinks the grass is greenest in the Lone Star State. Not happy to just echo WMC’s talking points and bash Wisconsin, Texas Ted goes a few steps further and actually names the state in which he’d rather live.
If Sen. Kanavas wants to move to Texas, there must be a reason, right? What can we learn about the great state of Texas? Why IS Texas Ted so anxious to get there? Is Texas really ‘better’ than Wisconsin? A good measure would be how Texas ranks when compared to other states. Here’s a quick run-down according to a study done by a Texas State Senator:
- Percentage of population without health insurance: 1st
- Percentage of children without health insurance: 1st
- Percentage of non-elderly women without health insurance: 1st
- Percentage of population over 25 with high school diploma: 50th
- Percentage living below the Federal Poverty Level: 3rd
- Percentage of mortgages that are sub-prime/predatory: 1st
- Air pollution emissions: 1st
- Pollution released by manufacturing: 1st
- Open-space protection: 50th
- Number of executions: 1st
- Number of registered machine guns: 1st
- Women’s voter turnout: 49th
What a great place to be!
Then again, a look at Kanavas’s voting record and it becomes pretty clear why he’s so enamored with Texas. Kanavas has supported restrictions on voting like a new voter ID requirement and has fought tooth-and-nail on behalf of insurance companies against real health care reform. Just in the last budget debate, Kanavas pushed for more tax breaks for the wealthy with nothing for the middle class and working families, fought to eliminate taxes on capital gains, and tried to keep the ‘Las Vegas’ loophole open so corporations can avoid paying Wisconsin taxes. Texas Ted would be a great fit for the Lone Star State!
His reason for moving? ‘[Texas] has been adopting policies that favor business growth and job creation for years.’ Like WMC, Texas Ted constantly rails against efforts to ensure corporations pay their fair share in taxes in Wisconsin, particularly combined reporting for corporations and their subsidiaries. ‘Combined reporting is a big problem and in fact is exactly what we don’t want to do. According to Texas Ted, Wisconsin would be better off adopting more business policies like Texas. Well guess what? A quick google search yields this handy-dandy guide to paying the ‘Revised Texas Franchise Tax: Combined Reporting.’ I can see the headline now:
Ted Kanavas flip-flops on combined reporting
Supports WI adopting Texas policy making corporations pay fair share.
So if Texas Ted really wants to go to Texas, who’s going to stop him? It certainly won’t be the working families of Wisconsin, who have suffered so much under policies pushed by conservatives like Sen. Kanavas. No one who cares about health care reform would step in. And if Ted gets his way and Wisconsin copies Texas and enacts combined reporting, even his corporate cronies at WMC might hesitate to keep their once-loyal lapdog nearby.
And, if you’d like, you can let Texas Ted know his failed ideas WOULD be better off in Texas by sending a ‘NOT WANTED’ poster to Texas Ted. Head over to http://www.onewisconsinnow.org/notwanted and send your message to Texas Ted!