Scott Walker was never for the small business person or even the medium size business person. Those people are finally figuring it out. Walker is beholden to his billionaires and the multi national corporations. After you cut the fat you start cutting muscle and bone. Walker and the Republican legislature are now cutting away healthy bone and muscle from the state in order to appease the billionaire class. Here is a great look at the comparison between Minnesota and Wisconsin and more particularly, Superior, WI and Duluth, MN. The cities share a harbor but lately, seemingly little else.
http://www.superiortelegram.com/...
Some choice bits beneath the fold.
But ask local officials and business leaders, and they will say Walker's policies have little to do with a turnaround that has moved in tandem with the national recovery. Tax cuts haven't lured many businesses across the bridge from Duluth, Minnesota, they say, while the loss in revenue has prompted steep spending cuts to education, harbor maintenance and road construction.
For some, the tradeoff is not worth it.
"We should put the $2 billion in roads or education," said Superior Mayor Bruce Hagen, a self-described conservative.
Walker has made no secret of his desire to lure businesses across the border from Minnesota, where Democratic Governor Mark Dayton has hiked taxes. Superior should be poised to benefit: the city of 27,000 has access to the same freeways and port facilities as Duluth, without the steep hills that make construction more expensive on the Minnesota side.
There are plenty of vacant storefronts along Superior's main street, where one bar advertises "BINGO EROTIC," and space is also available in weedy plots near the waterfront, where rust-colored freighters load up on coal and iron ore.
The tax difference between the two cities is dramatic. Manufacturers will see their corporate tax rate drop to 0.4 percent in Wisconsin in coming years, compared to 9.8 percent in Minnesota. Wisconsin firms also pay less in unemployment insurance, workers' compensation and sales tax, according to a comparison circulated by Walker's economic-development agency.
Yet Superior isn't pulling ahead, according to U.S. Labor Department figures. Private sector-employment in Superior grew by 5.6 percent in Superior's Douglas County between January 2011 and September 2014, the last month for which reliable figures are available. In Duluth's St. Louis County, jobs grew by 9.8 percent during that period.
Meanwhile, the number of businesses in Douglas County declined by 6 percent - double the rate in St. Louis County.
Along the waterfront, Mike McCoshen surveys huge piles of limestone and road salt unloaded from freighters plying the Great Lakes. His company, Hallett Dock, tapped state harbor-maintenance funds to expand its operations in Wisconsin in the years before Walker took office. The program was all but eliminated in Walker's latest budget proposal - an unwelcome development for other shipping businesses.
As for Walker's tax cuts? "They haven't made us grow or recede at all," he said.