Madison -- It was reported on Saturday by the progressive blog “Badger Democracy” that Georgia Pacific (Subsidiary of Koch Industries) was given an early Christmas gift by the Walker administration. Badger Democracy Reports:

A confidential source inside the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR) says that Secretary Richard Chandler has intervened in an action against Georgia Pacific to have the action dropped by the Department.

Badger Democracy went on to say they were twice denied FOIA access and after an extensive investigation said:

An extensive investigation did, however, find the action to be longstanding, and quantified the amount of disputed taxes to be in the millions of dollars.

Politiscoop wanted to find out just who is WI DOR Secretary Richard Chandler and what interest would he have in ensuring Koch Industries pockets continue to be flush with cash. Chandler first was the Wisconsin state budget director for the former Governor Tommy “Tomney” Thompson from 1987 to 2001. From 2001-2003, served as former governor Scott McCallum’s (R) secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.

When we skip ahead to the years 2008-2010, we find Chandler a lobbyist for the Wisconsin Coalition of Virtual School Families and the Wisconsin Realtors Association. If the Wisconsin Realtors Association rings a bell then you may have read our article from April 2011 and saw the chart connecting the dots between Walker and his donors.

The Budget Repair Bill and WPRI

If you are unfamiliar with WPRI, they claim to be a “nonpartisan, not-for-profit Institute working to engage and energize Wisconsinites and others in discussions and timely action on key public policy issues critical to the State’s future, its growth and prosperity”. (Sound familiar? Growth and Prosperity).

Chandler wrote several skewed studies published on WPRI’s website along with other authors such as Charlie Sykes and Journal Sentinel writer David Dodenhoff. On WPRI’s board of trustee’s is Edward Zore (Northwestern Mutual PAC) and George Lightbourn. The backgrounds on these two men include Ed Zore contributing $10,000 to Scott Walker through the PAC and George Lightbourn was talked about on the blog Uppitywis.org. Uppitywis reported:

Lightbourn is turning out to be the one-man, homegrown equivalent of the American Labor Exchange Council, that national Rovian/Koch group that has been whispering sweet policy nothings in the ears of conservative Wisconsin legislators and business-centric editorial boards like the one at the gullible State Journal.

Little did we know that the Reason Foundation, George Lightbourn and Edward Zore would again surface? Again back in April of this year, we ran an article that spoke about the Reason Foundation ties to walker and high-speed rail here. It appears that WPRI had reason to know the Reason Foundation as the “Think Tank” who released a study by Robert Pooles jr that was published on WPRI. (another article posted about the Reason Foundation/Wisconsin Connection here.)

If you are unfamiliar with the Reason Foundation, then just have a look at the board of directors. (To save you some time, look no further then David H. Koch of Koch Industries.) As for Edward Zore, back in April, we brought you the story about makeityourmilwaukee and Scott Walker preparing for fiscal martial law. It appears that Zore was a part of that group as you can see him speaking here.

It is interesting these people, who are not elected officials, have their fingerprints all over the state budget. Especially when Walker "teases" his donors with eliminating county government and transferring the assets to the state. (which under Walker's Koch induced budget hands the state funds over to his corporatists cronies) People were wondering if this ever came to be, according to Chris Liebenthal on November 17, 2011 it has, as his story reads “An Emergency Financial Manager By Any Other Name”

But what does this have to do with the budget repair bill you ask? On January 7, 2010, Chandler released a skewed study for WPRI on Wisconsin’s fiscal wellbeing and how the “Worst was yet to come”. In response to this Citizen’s Action of Wisconsin had this to say about Chandler’s study.

For the record, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute continues to claim that Healthy Wisconsin would cost “taxpayers” $15.2 billion. WPRI should know better. It will cost “employers” $15.2 billion but will save those same employers $17 billion in insurance premiums, yeilding a $1.8 billion savings! That’s probably not the message their funders wanted to send, but it is what it is. The insurers will lose the $1.8 billion that the employers save.

However, you’ll have to read about it here because my corrections keep getting deleted from the WPRI blog. If their funders do not demand accuracy, or in fact prefer skewed information, it makes me wonder if WPRI is simply a money-making machine, generating reports that are not necessarily accurate but are helpful to their paying clients. There must be a better way to make a living.

Putting Words in Walkers Mouth

In 2010, Walker and Chandler attended the Wisconsin Economic Summit Series and from their brochure, you’ll notice a few things. First, you will see some key phrases that Scott Walker has used when trying to sell his draconian budget proposal, such as, “increase the number of good-paying jobs Wisconsin needs” and “develop and sustain an entrepreneurially and business friendly environment”, finally, “generate the angel and venture capital needed to encourage and support business start-ups and expansions”.

The brochure and summit includes everything a governor needs in order to sell hardship to the citizens of Wisconsin as it states. “Summit I will also focus on how best to inform the media and the public about the Summit findings and new strategies for economic development and competitiveness”.

What’s next from the Koch/Reason Foundation Blueprint?

Richard Chandler again published his findings on the website refocuswisconsin.org, among many other things, Chandler states the following.

Perhaps just as important, this move would have strong public support. Wisconsinites would approve a shift in the tax mix. When asked if they would support or oppose raising the state sales tax by 2 cents to 7 cents on the dollar to reduce everybody’s property taxes by 20%, 60% of respondents said they’d approve, and 40% were opposed. When asked if they’d support a 2-cent sales tax increase in return for a 25% personal income tax cut, 56% said they’d approve, and 44% were opposed.20

There will be arguments against this approach. One argument is that if we raised the sales tax, the additional revenue would just be spent rather than being used for tax reduction. But this won’t happen if a plan is structured properly, with appropriate spending restrictions. When additional revenues were devoted to school aids when the state moved to two-thirds funding of schools in the 1990s, property taxes ended up 10% lower than they would otherwise have been because school revenue limits were in place.

In the same article, Chandler advocates against raising taxes for the wealthy while raising taxes on the middle class. In fact, Chandler suggests eliminating corporate income taxes all together.

Chandler cites a study from Beacon Hill.

 The Beacon Hill analysis started by looking at the effects of several tax reduction alternatives: First, reducing personal income taxes by about $800 million (about 13%); second, reducing property taxes by about $800 million (about 9%); and third, eliminating the corporate income tax (equivalent to a roughly $800 million reduction when the economy is strong). The income tax reductions and property tax reductions were assumed to be across-the-board reductions.

Oh right, that must be where the 800 million came from when Walker gutted public school funding, can we now call this Walkers eight, eight, eight plan?

Our Conclusion

We believe that is just another epic pay to play scheme perpetrated by Governor Scott Walker who allowed Wisconsin’s budget to be written by the Reason Foundation and Koch Industries. The fact that the budget practically mirrors WPRI’s (Koch funded, Reason Foundation connected) skewed study shows that Scott Walker is either too inept to listen to the people of Wisconsin or that money matters more than people’s lives.

If Chandler did intervene in the department's decision to drop the action against Georgia Pacific then we have every reason to believe that this was in fact political payback from the top down. The connections to the Reason Foundation and Koch industries are undeniable to both Scott Walker and Richard Chandler through either political contributions or affiliations.