While most Wisconsin voters did not watch the only debate between Democrat David Crowley and Republican Tom Tiffany Wednesday night, it actually turned out to be a very informative exercise that gave voters a better understanding of who the two candidates are, what they believe in, and, in our opinion, a clear choice in the race for Governor.
While all the so-called political experts in the mainstream media are going to try to convince you that Tiffany’s plan to cut your taxes so you can keep more of your hard-earned money is somehow going to decimate state government or that Crowley’s recent flip-flop to outline very weak “guide rails” so data centers can be built all over Wisconsin is something to admire not criticize, we are going to focus in on the biggest takeaway from the debate – candidate David Crowley’s repeated refusal to be honest with you, the voter.
On issue after issue last night, really what seemed like the entire debate, Crowley either deliberately refused to answer a direct question from the moderators or automatically deflected away from a topic at hand to his glib Congressman Tom Tiffany is from Congress and cannot be trusted attack. Crowley’s outright silence and purposeful deflection in answering questions during the debate was intentional and a huge problem for the voters of this state. Crowley’s repeated refusal to be honest with voters should be the end of this race.
Abortion
During what many insiders are describing as the most important part of the debate and the issue that unexpectedly offered the greatest contrast between the two candidates, David Crowley refused repeatedly to answer the question, would Crowley put any restrictions on abortion in Wisconsin if he were elected Governor? Kudos to WISN’s Matt Smith and Gerron Jordan for trying to get Crowley to answer the question and keep the debate on point. Crowley had clearly been coached by his handlers to just repeat the cliche that abortion is a decision between a woman and her doctor over and over again and to never directly answer the question. And that is exactly what he did. Repeatedly.
What Crowley and his handlers didn’t think through was that by awkwardly refusing to actually answer a simple and direct question on one of the top issues of the day, abortion, it made him look like he was trying to hide something from voters. Crowley’s silence told voters exactly what he will do if elected. Crowley will work with the radical abortion-on-demand crowd in this state to make sure the killing of human life is unimpeded and casual.
Crowley’s legislative record documents his extreme position on this issue. Crowley voted AGAINST the 2019 born-alive bill and he voted against another bill that would have outlawed abortions pursued because a couple wanted a boy, not a girl, or where the baby has Down Syndrome. Think about that for a second. That is extreme.
Wherever you stand on the abortion issue, we all know that abortion is now a state issue. So for Crowley to pretend that state government should have no role, pretend that abortion is just between a woman and her doctor, in most important policy question of our time is incredibly disingenuous and off putting. We also know that the vast majority of voters land somewhere in the common sense middle on this question and Crowley’s refusal to moderate his extreme abortion-on-demand position, let alone say anything on the issue, should be disqualifying and end this race. As a side note, when is the last time that a Republican actually won the abortion question in a debate? Republicans never win this issue in debates. Never. But here, because again, Crowley refused to be honest, and because Tiffany answered honestly that he would not ban all abortions, Tiffany won this part of the debate and won it decisively.
Property Taxes
A slightly lower property tax rate does not mean your property taxes went down – Crowley continues to tell the lie that he cut Milwaukee County property taxes because, in his words, he has cut the ‘tax rate’ every year. Every homeowner in Wisconsin is painfully aware that the property tax rate doesn’t really matter. What matters, the only thing that matters, is if your overall property tax bill increased or decreased.
All of us homeowners have experienced where our property tax rate has gone down 2 cents but our overall tax bill has increased a couple hundred bucks or more because our assessments went up dramatically. Does Crowley really believe that homeowners don’t know the word game he is playing? Milwaukee County government always gets its money, your taxes. Governments lead by a Democrat never take less of your money, your tax bill always goes up. Always. Crowley is fooling no one with his dishonest take on property taxes.
10 Questions Voters Want Crowley to Answer at Tonight’s Debate
Higher Taxes On The Masses
Crowley wants to tax the rich but refuses to say who is rich and how high will he jack up taxes on all of us to pay for the massive amounts of new spending he has promised the special interests – Speaking of taxes, Crowley, here too, was repeatedly pressed by the moderators for the details of his plan to raise taxes. And, here too, Crowley once again refused to answer the question. Crowley has been telling every special interest group out there that he will pass their unnecessary and unrealistic request for more tax dollars in the next budget if he is elected.
A conservative estimate would be $3-4 billion for K12 education and the UW system. Add to that total what it would cost taxpayers if Crowley gets his wish and Act 10 is repealed, if Crowley gets his wish to dramatically expand government healthcare to the non-needy, make childcare a government-run monopoly to name just a few of his spending proposals and you are realistically looking at tens of billions of additional spending at the state level. Billions with a b.
And while Crowley will try to lie to you that taxing the rich will cover all this spending, everyone knows that there is not enough rich people in Wisconsin to tax and that Crowley will need to increase taxes on the broad middle class if he wants to pay for all his promises.
Think about it. How many people do you know near or at retirement age who have moved down to Florida or Arizona, living there six months plus a day, to avoid Wisconsin’s already high taxes? Even though Crowley has refused to give a detailed plan on how he will raise taxes, we do have his dogged work as Milwaukee County Executive to raise the sales tax as a guide. As Milwaukee County Executive, he approved nearly doubling the county sales tax from 0.5 percent to 0.9 percent, making it the highest in the state, and then, to top it all off, Crowley celebrated increasing the tax that hits the poorest the hardest by having cake with his cronies on the Board.
When asked if the increase would burden residents, he said, “No. I don’t think it would be a burden.”
If Crowley were being honest with voters and, if we assume he would increase the state sales tax since he increased Milwaukee County’s sales tax, he would be talking about plan to double the state’s sales tax from 5% to 10% to pay for all his spending promises.
A quick, back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that doubling the state’s sales tax would cost Wisconsinites over $8 billion dollars a year. That works out to roughly a $1,680 tax increase for every adult in Wisconsin. We don’t know about you but, we don’t want to give state government a nickel more let alone another $1,600 dollars so Crowley can dole out favors to his cronies and campaign backers.
Lower Electric Bills
Renewables will lower your electric bill – This one is especially maddening because Crowley’s lie is just so absurd. Everyone knows that wind and solar power were price competitive years ago because of the massive taxpayer-financed subsidies that the federal government enacted in an effort to encourage the country to go green. Now that those subsidies have finally ended, wind and solar is expensive. Wind and solar systems are terribly inefficient and cannot run 24/7/365 days a year. There are days when the wind doesn’t blow or when the sun doesn’t shine.
In order to compensate for this unreliability of solar and wind systems, if Crowley were being honest, he would be talking about the need to build into our grid system traditional power sources like coal and gas to power the grid, heat your home, cool your business, when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining. That duplication costs more money, not less, which means higher electric bills for you.
Crowley is also not being honest with voters about what his green energy mandate would do to food and grocery prices in the state. The amount of farmland Wisconsin would lose to giant wind turbines and sprawling solar arrays in order to power Crowley’s fantasy green energy goal would be mind blowing. Just to power two data centers in Wisconsin, Crowley’s plan would remove over 100,000 acres of fertile farmland from production. Just for two data centers. Think of how much land would be destroyed if the entire state needed to be powered by renewables and what that would do to food prices.
Now I’m Opposed To Data Centers
A few days ago Crowley was all in for data centers, now with just a few days to go in the election, he is supposedly against data centers – Speaking of data centers, this has been probably Crowley’s biggest flipflop or lie. Remember how Crowley tried to stand out in the crowded Democrat primary field by trying to seem reasonable or pro-business on data centers? Crowley went to great lengths to not be an automatic no like all the other candidates in the primary field.
Now, as it has become clear that data centers are wildly unpopular with Wisconsin voters and with just days left in the campaign, Crowley suddenly says he has been against data centers all along. What??!! Are you kidding me?
Sanctuary Wisconsin?
Crowley’s silence on ICE cooperation when he has trumpeted that he is an accomplice to immigrants – Here again, give the moderators Smith and Jordan credit, they tried to let Crowley explain his position and he deflected and dodged. T
iffany has made a lot of Crowley’s comment that “when it comes down to the immigrants… I always say, ‘I’m not an ally. I’m an accomplice.” The Tiffany ad showcasing Crowley’s comments with examples of the real world destruction and mayhem illegal immigrants have caused here in Wisconsin is probably the most played campaign commercial this cycle.
So why would Crowley pass up an opportunity during the debate to make his case for his position? Strange until you consider that Crowley knows how extreme and out-of-touch his sanctuary for illegals position is with voters. Even though he was required to take this unpopular position in order to win the Dem primary, Crowley knows it is a loser with the vast majority of voters and so he desperately wanted to stay silent on the issue during the debate. Disappointing that a career politician like Crowley refused to defend or advocate for his own policy.
I’m Just Like The Socialist Hong
Leading up to his surprise defeat of Socialist Hong in the primary, Crowley tried to convince Dem primary voters he and the Hong were the same on the issues, but now Crowley claims he doesn’t know what the policies of the Democrat Socialists of America (DSA) are. I mean, does the man know no shame? The Journal Sentinel did a banner headline back in July when Crowley was trailing Hong badly in the polls as Crowley tried to convince the radical Dem base that Hong could not win a general election.
The pitch was, you should vote for Crowley because Hong cannot win against Tiffany and Crowley and Hong agree on almost all of the issues. Now, after his political Daddy Evers rigged the primary for him, AFTER Crowley had decided to drop out of the primary it must be pointed out, now Crowley refuses to say if he disagrees with the radical policies of the DSA? Really?
Crowley knows that DSA has called for a long time to abolish the police and prisons. Crowley knows that the DSA wants to abolish the US Senate and pack the US Supreme Court. This, in fact, is perhaps the most perplexing part of Crowley’s steadfast silence in the debate. Set aside the optics of how silly Crowley looked up on stage refusing to answer a simple question, the real issue here is why did Crowley stay silent? Crowley had a chance to change or at the very least moderate the extreme positions he took to win the Democrat primary and that the radical base of his party fanatically believes in, and he didn’t.
Crowley deliberately and very consciously decided it was better for him to look like a on statewide TV than for him to answer the questions of the voters.
Crowley’s real and profound fear of saying anything that would upset the Dem base, even though that base is wrong on criminal illegals, on abolishing the police, or abortion on demand, on so many issues, shows what type of candidate David Crowley is and, even though at times, Crowley stayed silent, Crowley’s silence made it loud and clear to voters what type of Governor he would be for Wisconsin.
