Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
Walgreen’s, your friendly neighborhood pharmacy, funds the Republican legislators in Wisconsin who are diminishing the powers of the newly elected Democratic Governor. Microsoft is another major Republican donor. The reason for the support, tax cuts. These corporations are OK with gerrymandering and any other tactic that keeps the GOP in power.
From the NYT
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In 2008, the State Supreme Court ruled in favor of an aggressive tax strategy by the company, in a case known as Walgreens v. City of Madison. When calculating the property taxes it owed, Walgreens used an artificially low valuation of its stores. It did not pay taxes based on the actual value of those stores, as reflected by their purchase price and rent. Instead, it took into account the value of vacant stores nearby.
The court ruling allowed this “dark-store” practice — by Walgreens and other retailers — costing cities and towns millions upon millions of tax dollars. The resulting budget shortfalls, local officials point out, have caused taxes on families and small businesses to rise more in Wisconsin than in neighboring Minnesota.
The Walgreens loophole is deeply unpopular, based on the results of a nonbinding ballot initiative across Wisconsin. And last year, a bipartisan group of state legislators began a push to change the law. But then, somewhat mysteriously, the effort died. The legislature’s Republican leaders — including Robin Vos, the Assembly speaker, and Scott Fitzgerald, the Senate majority leader — appeared to play a crucial role in the demise of that measure.
A few weeks later, Walgreens donated $1,000 to Vos. Over the summer, it donated another $6,000 to the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate. A couple of weeks before Election Day, the company gave $1,000 to Fitzgerald. These donations weren’t simply a matter of spreading money around. Walgreens did not donate to state-level Democrats this year, as it has in the past.
The sums here may not be enormous. But neither are the budgets for local campaigns. Even more important is the message that Walgreens is sending to politicians: We don’t care if you undermine democracy, so long as we get to keep our tax break.
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Coroporations are funding the coup