Forget the tea parties: if there’s one thing that will galvanize the drive for tax reform in Wisconsin, it will be complaining Packers:
The states without income tax, I felt, always had an advantage in recruiting free agent players. Teams in Florida, Tennessee and Texas used the fact that their states had no income tax to show players how much more they would take home than teams in high income tax states (like Wisconsin). In some cases, agents actually showed me data from other teams showing how much more the player would make over the life of the same contract in one of those states. In recruiting players for Green Bay, I would always hear from agents how much more a player would make from, say, the Buccaneers or Texans compared to the 6.6-percent state income tax that Wisconsin would take from Packer players.
If taxes are keeping the Packers from the Super Bowl, the people will rise against Jim Doyle and the Wisconsin Legislature faster than you can say “Rick Santelli.”
What I want to know is this: are the NBA’s Toronto Raptors making a pitch for free agents based on free health care?