What You’ll Find at WISTAX Watch

Gotta quiz for you…Which supposedly “independent” and “unbiased” organization in Wisconsin fits the following?

Its president and leading voice is a former Republican administration official and local Republican party executive committee member.

Members of its board of directors since 1994 have donated nearly $1.3 million to Republicans and conservative political candidates.Fifteen of these same 33 board members have served on the board of the state’s most influential pro-corporate outfit, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce.

Its tax research is constantly used by conservatives and Republicans to push for lower taxes for the rich and corporations and less public investment.

So which group is it? You guessed it…The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance.

There’s more. And One Wisconsin Now has uncovered, evaluated and cataloged this information at our newest watchdog website: WISTAX Watch.

Check out the new WISTAX Watch site at http://www.WISTAXWatch.org.

Modeled after One Wisconsin Now’s successful WMCWatch.org site, the goal of WISTAXWatch.org is to provide you, the media and elected officials with information about the conservative, pro-corporate agenda of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, as well as debunk its allegedly unbiased research.

But most importantly, WISTAX Watch wants to expand the debate on budgeting and taxation issues in Wisconsin and ensure progressive values are reflected fully in the public policy debate.

When it comes to taxation, budgeting and public investment, you will almost exclusively arrive at the conservative argument from WISTAX research.

And while I may laugh when WISTAX asserts that the WMC corporate masters that have saturated its board for the last 20 years are doing it out of the kindness of their hearts, One Wisconsin Now takes both the research and the conclusions we have accumulated at WISTAX Watch deadly serious.

WISTAX research and talking points drive much of the state tax debate. WISTAX Watch exhaustively presents the evidence of its conservatism of their arguments, but also we the public the ability to be their WISTAX Watchers.

The site has a full array of social networking tools, information and a guide to analyzing WISTAX reports for conservative bias.

Conservative elected officials are already calling for return of the $100-million-a-year corporate “Las Vegas Loophole” and a repeal of the first-time-in-40 years income tax hike for those earning more than $225,000.

The makes it even more important now that conservative groups in non-ideological clothing don’t get away with their bias being ignored.

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