Republican Wisconsin State Senator Randy Hopper is facing a recall election on August 9th against Democrat Jessica King. Over 20,000 of Hopper's constituents, including his estranged wife, signed the recall petition against him after he voted for Governor Scott Walker's union-busting bill earlier this year.
King and Hopper debated Monday night in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. You can view the debate here.
Hopper, better known for cheating on his wife and helping his mistress get a state job than for anything he has accomplished as a legislator, displayed typical, blustering Fitzwalkerstan arrogance during the debate. He told a lot of lies, but one of them needs to be fully debunked. I'm just the goat to do it, so follow me below the fold for my amazing Hopper Whopper Stopper...
Early in the debate, Jessica King was asked to talk about what she thought was the single most important issue in the campaign. She answered that the people of Senate district 18 feel that their government has stopped listening to them. As an example, she pointed out that while vital services in health care and education were being cut, Hopper and the other Republicans gave away loads of tax breaks to corporations.
Hopper responded by saying that King was either uninformed about the tax cuts or was lying. He claimed "The corporate tax cuts are based on job creation. They are given to companies that don't exist in Wisconsin right now."
Ahem...Excuse me Senator Hopper, but you're lying out of your bed-hopping ass.
According to a June 9th, 2011 analysis by Wisconsin's non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, only 5 million of an estimated 1.6 billion in corporate tax breaks over the next decade is for the "Relocated Business Credit/Deduction."
The rest of the corporate tax breaks, including 874 million dollars in plain old tax cuts referred to simply as a "Domestic Production Credit", apply to any company doing business in Wisconsin, not just companies who relocate here.
Tax breaks for rich individuals weren't mentioned in the context of this particular debate question, but they're in there, too. In all, the current Wisconsin legislature has passed a budget and separate bills granting 2.3 billion dollars in tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy over the next decade, while gutting funding for education, local aid, and health care programs.
Hopper has another message for District 18. After his giant lie about the corporate income tax giveaways, he assures us that "We're still going to collect income tax on people, still going to collect property tax."
By "people", he means middle-class and working-class people.
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In Beloit near the Illlinois border on Monday, Governor Scott Walker attended a re-opening of a welcome/visitor center on Interstate 90. There were plenty of visitors there to welcome him: