Empower Wisconsin | March 18, 2022

MADISON — WMC Issues Mobilization Council is out with a new ad  hitting Gov. Tony Evers on policies that would have driven up even higher the rapidly rising cost of living for Wisconsinites.

The 30-second ad from the affiliate of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce features news clips detailing 40-year inflation highs and surging gasoline prices.

“But, Tony Evers wants even more of your money,” the narrator says in the ad. “Evers pushed to double the energy tax that would increase your heating and electric bills. He tried to make us pay even more at the pump by hiking the gas tax. And, Evers wanted to tax manufacturing jobs, hurting workers’ paychecks.”

In his first days in office, the governor proposed what amounted to an 8-cent increase in the state’s gas tax, which would have brought it to one of the highest rates in the nation.

Evers also pitched restoring indexing, or automatically increasing the state’s gasoline tax by the rate of inflation every April. Evers, working with his state road builder allies, was looking to raise quick cash for his Department of Transportation, led by a long-time road builder lobbyist.

At nearly $4 a gallon and with escalating inflation (7.9 percent) not seen since 1982, motorists would be paying even more at the pumps.

The ad began airing on Wisconsin broadcast television this week, part of a “significant investment” by WMC Issues Mobilization to educate Wisconsinites on “issues important to our state’s economic competitiveness,” according to a press release.

As the council notes:

• Evers’ first veto of his term rejected a nearly $500 million middle-class tax cut passed by the Republican Legislature.
• Evers proposes raising the gas tax by nearly 25% in addition to tying automatic hikes to inflation, which is currently seeing record highs.
• Evers proposed doubling the state’s energy tax, which would have raised ratepayers electricity and heating bills by $100 million – on top of already skyrocketing energy costs.
• Evers sought to increase taxes on manufacturing jobs to help pay for a budget that would have increased spending by more than eight percent.
• Evers said raising taxes in his first budget by $1.3 billion was “small” and that it was “pretty close” to not raising taxes

Watch the ad here.