Yesterday’s property tax bill (including not small increases in local and school taxes) along with recent articles on the China Price and Milwaukee’s loss of unskilled labor jobs serve to remind Wisconsin residents of the real issues facing our state:

• Encouraging the formation of more new businesses. I don’t believe the formation of yet another quasi-government organization is the answer. Rather, let’s simplify (and reduce) the paperwork that any organization must support to operate in Wisconsin.
• Broadband: Wisconsin is stuck with SBC, a telco that has done nothing to offer true, 2 way broadband (100X the speed of today’s rather slow DSL/cable services) to Wisconsin residents. I have not seen any indication that our state’s political leadership has boarded the cluetrain on this one.
• Biotech certainly has great promise for Wisconsin, however, historically the benefits have generally gone to out of state firms. Perhaps this will change somewhat over time.

Without a strong, growing tax base, we’ll continue to see substantial increases in local property taxes. I don’t believe this is a sustainable strategy.