Badger Blogger

Things got a little interesting (probably for the first time ever) last night over at Tom Gaertner’s “Gas Pains” blog.

It seems Mr. Gaertner didn’t like a couple questions I asked him, after he chose to include Badger Blogger in his reference to “loud-mouthed daytime radio [hosts] and belligerent bloggers” whom he claims are distorting this issue, as pointed out by Patrick recently in this post.

I asked Mr. Gaertner, both here at Badger Blogger, and at his own blog, to offer further clarification on his use of the terms “luxury” and “high-end” to describe these assisted living facilities, whose residents he apparently feels aren’t paying their fair share.

His response: “Take a tour“. Then he called us “right wing extremists“, part of a “lunatic goon squad”. (As though questioning unfair taxation automatically makes one a “lunatic goon”.)

That’s when I asked Tom a question he really didn’t like. First it was posted — then it wasn’t — then, it was again — but only after Tom realized he had absolutely no other option but to post (and respond to) the question — as I had screen capped my post.

Tom’s response? He told me “I was behaving badly“. Then, he accused me of being a shill for mayoral hopeful Jill Didier… just because I personally think that there’s a point in a person’s life, as Patrick has discussed here at length, when we should say “Thank you for your service as a taxpaying citizen. We’ll let you live out your remaining days without further taxing you to an early grave”.

Here’s the entire blog capture, in its entirety, for those of you who are interested.

Tom claims he’s a “card carrying member of the NRA” and a “moderate Republican”. I’ve suggested that with his hypocrisy, name-calling, and attempts to suppress dissenting viewpoints, he might want to re-evaluate his party affiliations…

Hats off to Patrick, and to Jay Weber for exposing this tax grab against Wauwatosa’s elderly when no one else in the media was paying attention. This was a shameless attempt to bolster revenues on the backs of the elderly, whom Wauwatosa bureaucrats thought would be voiceless! They were wrong.

Representative Brett Davis of Wisconsin’s 80th Assembly District has sold out the Wisconsin taxpayers. We now know his price, a $4 million soybean crusher promised to him by Governor Jim Doyle (2nd bullet point) two days earlier.

Davis calls this, “true compromise“… What do you call it?

Good news from Jay Weber. Wauwatosa alderman have put off a meeting in which they were to have taken public input on the taxing of four non-profit independent living centers in ‘Tosa. This would have generated a huge turnout of elderly folks to tell them exactly what they thought of their proposal. Part of what scared them off is the knowledge that a high percentage of elderly people vote, and there is an election in April.

Jay says that city officials will spend the next several months preparing a strategy to fight the law suits that will come after they do get these independent living centers on the tax roles.

More good news is Wisconsin Rep. Leah Vukmir is working to to clarify the law and block non-profit independent living centers from being taxed.

Keep fighting the good fight Jay!

Update: Tom at Gas Pains also discusses this. Tom thinks soaking elderly people is a good idea, since they haven’t paid enough taxes over their lifetime and blames “loud-mouth daytime talk radio and belligerent bloggers” for shining the light on their attempt to tax the elderly… That would be Jay and me