Brew City Brawler

What question did WPRI forget to ask in its poll?

The right-wing Wisconsin Policy Research Institute asked a bunch of questions in its latest poll. But oddly it did not ask a question that's front and center in American politics right now: Would Wisconsinites favor increasing taxes on the rich?

Why didn't it ask this question? I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that in a poll last October -- before Occupy Wall Street, et al -- 63 percent of Wisconsinites favored increasing taxes on the rich. How much higher would it be now?

Presumably the WPRI doesn't want people to know. 

Yes, soak the rich

The Club for Growth, via Charlie "No Evidence" Sykes, says it's not fair to raise taxes on the rich because the poor dears already pay a high share of income taxes (though John L's remarks in comments at the site of Charlie "Thrice-Married" Sykes are illuminating). 

Left unsaid is that the rich are getting richer as income inequality has been increasing in Wisconsin, as demonstrated by the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at UW-Madison.

Over the past two decades, the benefits of the state’s economic growth have been increasingly concentrated on our wealthiest residents. Our proud legacy of equality, and the joint commitment to building a strong state which that equality helped undergird, is in serious and troubling decline. Together, we need to pursue strategies to ensure that Wisconsin’s economic growth is more widely shared.

Meanwhile, most folks in Wisconsin want to raise taxes on the rich to help close the deficit.