Do Wisconsin taxes affect your quality of life? (Milwaukee, Madison: 2013, construction)

[TrueTimbers]

Originally Posted by milt14

easy for a non middle class person to say. Someone moves to WI and buys a house for say 100K, finances it 100%, and their real mortgage payment could easily be about the same amount as their property tax per month. So this means your monthly payment to the bank, 1/2 is for your house and 1/2 to the government.

Someone moves to another state with 50% less property tax rate means they could buy 50% more house.
Or not and just pay 1/2 the "mortgage" you pay presently and save/spend the other half.

Wrong on your example it would be.. $12K to the bank $1K to the tax man.

10% per thousand is a typical tax rate... So 100K property would be $1000 dollars property tax per year. Sure they could be paying $1000 per month because the fat cat banksters are ripping us all off, then gambling with our money and when they loose the bet they come crying to the tax payers for a bail out...

I do not understand what the heck the point you are try to make is. Tax is a small percent of their mortgage payment, under your example.
The overall tax burden difference between all states is less than 5%. I will stand by my point..

And yes you are correct, I am not a middle class person anymore... I am part of the working poor.. Thanks to multinational big business owning our politicians and greedy fat cats on wall street out to get the little guy.

Buy local.. Support small business! Only vote that counts is with your pocketbook.

[liveurdream]

Originally Posted by stockwiz

there must be something about WI that's desirable because taxes remain high and yet demand to move there is still there. Michigan is far worse off by comparison and they have even more great lakes and lower taxes. Luck of the draw?

What demand to move to WI????????????????????????? Wisconsin isn't a stat with a made rush of new residents moving in. WI has been a 'brain drain' state going on for over 25 years now.

[Empidonax]

Originally Posted by milt14

you think for a couple of years on a part time job making $45k/year is reasonable?
On an 8 month work year, that's $5600 a month in pay, $1400/wk?


Seeing as there's always a thread on how to change green bay, I took your 45K salary number and ran it for green bay. Person there gets an additional $20K a year cash value for their benefit package for that year.

So, after a few years on a part time job you make $65K? And that's not a lot?
That's $8K a month. And not only do you get all the govt vacation days, but every summer you can take off.

And these are the low end of the scale for teachers/admin people. No wonder most people feel so alienated from the government employee class.

Apparently the way to make green bay more tolerable is to be employed in the school system there.

Teachers work very hard for their salaries, they are crucial in the development of our children, and many teachers spend more time with kids than the parents do. During the school year most teachers work more than 8 hours per day, and also work during weekends. The summers do give teachers time to refresh, but most teachers still have to plan classes, take professional development workshops, etc. Unfortunately, most people don't know what teachers really do, and this has negatively affected the status of education in Wisconsin and in the rest of the country. I bet if teachers stepped back and worked according to a punch-clock (working on a strict 9-5 routine), everybody would take notice and would scream bloody murder. Their salaries are well earned, not only because of the intense and important nature of the job, but also because of the need to offer competitive salaries to make the profession appealing to folks with other options. Private business has figured this out already-- I don't get why so many people want an excellent educational system but don't really want to pay properly for it.

[ccjarider]

Empidonax

Private business would never work under a Union agreement for "professionals." Generic Labor yes - but not professionals in positions where individual results can be measured. The reason is that the higher your productivity, the higher your compensation demand. This is the best method to improve oneself. Earn it based on individual merit and result!

Until teachers ditch the Union mentality and demand results based individual performance, they will not be taken as serious professionals by the public.

[milt14]

Originally Posted by TrueTimbers

Wrong on your example it would be.. $12K to the bank $1K to the tax man.

well, i bought a 70K house, 100% financing. "mortgage" is about $250/month and property tax is $200.
This is why I've always been in favor of not having your 'bank' pay your property tax, but you each month.
One check to the financial institution that lent you the money to buy the house.
Another check to the local govt for the taxes that month.

Another great idea is to eliminate withholding and just pay people gross minus fica. Then at the end of each month have them mail a check to the irs for their taxes.

People will then realize how overtaxed they are.

[milt14]

Originally Posted by Empidonax

Teachers work very hard for their salaries

Thanks. I now know nobody else that makes 1/3 of what a teacher does for their part time job works hard.
We need to give them more of our money because they deserve it.

[ram2]

Originally Posted by liveurdream

What demand to move to WI????????????????????????? Wisconsin isn't a stat with a made rush of new residents moving in. WI has been a 'brain drain' state going on for over 25 years now.

My parents moved out in 1969.

[Steve Bowen]

Originally Posted by milt14

Thanks. I now know nobody else that makes 1/3 of what a teacher does for their part time job works hard.
We need to give them more of our money because they deserve it.

In your opinion, how much should school teachers in Wisconsin be paid?

[Empidonax]

Originally Posted by milt14

Thanks. I now know nobody else that makes 1/3 of what a teacher does for their part time job works hard.
We need to give them more of our money because they deserve it.

I didn't say other people who work hard shouldn't be properly compensated. But teachers were the target of the message I responded to, and I value education quite a bit, thus my post.

[Empidonax]

Originally Posted by ccjarider

Empidonax

Private business would never work under a Union agreement for "professionals." Generic Labor yes - but not professionals in positions where individual results can be measured. The reason is that the higher your productivity, the higher your compensation demand. This is the best method to improve oneself. Earn it based on individual merit and result!

Until teachers ditch the Union mentality and demand results based individual performance, they will not be taken as serious professionals by the public.

When individual results can truly be measured, then I agree with your rationale. But I'm skeptical of the line of thought that all significant dimensions of educational impact can be quantified and measured. Education is highly complex, multidimensional, and cumulative: much of it has a reinforcing component, so if an instructor of 5th grade can be measurably credited with a kid's progress in a specific function in arithmetic, for example, it doesn't mean that previous instructors working on the same task were ineffective. Current performance assessment does not (and cannot) plumb the depths of the complexity of the learning experience, yet as a society we're treating education more and more like a factory process and commodity. The same seems to have happened with parenting, too.