Behind the Push for the Oil Tax

We’re going to connect a few dots and tick off a few people…

If you have been listening to the radio at all, you have probably heard a radio ad from the Road Builders supporting Doyle’s proposal to tax oil companies $370 million.  Here’s some of the verbiage from the ad. 

“The state’s chamber of commerce is running ads and wants you to believe the status quo is good for Wisconsin,” say the new ads by the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association. “You know better. It’s time for Wisconsin to turn the tables on big oil.”

The Road Builders are trying to sell Doyle’s lie that Wisconsin can somehow force the oil companies to NOT pass on the tax to the consumers of Wisconsin.  Of course, everyone from the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute to Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce to UW business professors to the Wisconsin Legislative Council says that’s a bunch of crap and this tax will result in 5 to 7 cent per gallon increase in gas prices.

Also, it’s worth noting that despite this massive tax increase that Doyle wants to put on the backs of Wisconsin’s gas consumers, Assembly Speaker Huebsch has been very soft about opposing it. 

Republican Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch is not so sure. “It is very likely to go back to consumers.” But Huebsch is so concerned about highway construction and maintenance being delayed statewide because of lack of funding, he does not rule out this oil profits tax to support Wisconsin’s roads. “I haven’t made a position on the oil franchise fee. I think what we need to do is find ways to be more efficient in transportation, but where there is need for more dollars, look at all the options that are out there,” Huebsch said. “This is one of those that’s out there.”

Why?

We know why the Road Builders want more gas taxes.  It funds more transportation spending which is money directly in their pockets.  It’s easy to say that the Republicans and Democrats are in the Road Builder’s pockets.  But who exactly are we talking about here?

The guy behind the Road Builder’s ads advocating the gas tax increase and the guy who is pulling the strings in the Speaker’s office is none other than former Thompson Secretary of Commerce and uber-lobbyist Bill McCoshen. 

This is worth noting because McCoshen also wants to be governor some day.  He put his name into the WisPolitics straw poll at the GOP convention. 

But McCoshen is also linked to Dennis Troha and possible corruption in the Thompson administration:

A decade later, investors partnered with Troha signed a secret agreement promising a $46.5 million payment to a lobbying firm owned by a former top Thompson aide if it could persuade federal regulators and Thompson to approve a casino in Kenosha.

The firm, Madison Consulting, was owned by Bill McCoshen, previously Thompson’s chief of staff and campaign manager, and his lobbying partner.

The deal, initially signed in 1997 and revised in 2000, called for the firm to receive $4.5 million once the project was approved and then $42 million over the next several years for what the report called virtually no work.

The billing records of Stephen Hurley, the Madison lawyer close to Thompson whose firm drafted the revised agreement, show he spoke with Thompson on the phone at least once and his aides several times about the project in 2000.

Thompson has said he was unaware of the deal and that he was never lobbied by McCoshen’s firm on the project. He left to join President Bush’s cabinet in 2001 before the project, which later fell through, reached his desk.

“This is an old story,” McCoshen said Tuesday. “Seven years ago, this issue was put under a microscope by state and federal officials, and they found nothing inappropriate.”

This is the dirty back-end of politics.  McCoshen, a well-connected lobbyist with deep ties in the Wisconsin GOP, is pulling the strings in the leadership of the Republican-led Assembly to get a massive tax increase passed for his own personal gain. 

McCoshen, or “Billy Mac,” is going from running Tommy’s campaign to running Republicans into a tax hike.  He is going from “king maker” to “minority maker.” Because if the Assembly passes a massive gas tax hike, they are virtually assured to lose the majority next year. 

Maybe this is why Huebsch won’t sign my tax pledge.