Thursday, October 6, 2011

Gary Goyke - Streetcar Lobbyist: Taxes

What is with these Democrats and taxes?

They want to raise taxes. They want to increase the burden on taxpayers for their pet projects, but they can't seem to pay up themselves.

Democrat Gary Goyke, lobbyist for Tom Barrett's idiotic streetcar, wants taxpayers to fund this useless plan, millions upon millions upon millions of dollars.

Democrat Goyke should pay his fair share in taxes.

From Brian Sikma, Media Trackers:

Media Trackers discovered this week that political supporter of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, and Wisconsin Urban and Rural Transit Association (WURTA) lobbyist Gary Goyke has a record of failing to pay his taxes on time. Public records show that Goyke, a former Democratic state senator from Oshkosh who has been twice convicted for campaign and ethics law violations, failed to pay $142,710 in unemployment, income, sales and withholding taxes.

WURTA has been a strong advocate of both the Talgo high-speed rail project and the Milwaukee streetcar.

Goyke’s record of tax law violations took place from 1983 to 2002 and his total outstanding tax bills tallied up to $199,499 once fines and penalties were included. During the 2010 campaign Goyke and his wife, Nancy, contributed $5,500 to Mayor Barrett’s gubernatorial campaign, and the 501(c)4 political fund that Goyke chairs endorsed Barrett’s campaign for governor. In late September Goyke, on behalf of WURTA, awarded Milwaukee Alderman Bob Bauman a leadership award for his work on the Milwaukee streetcar project.

“The Milwaukee streetcar is the pet project of Mayor Tom Barrett and Alderman Bob Bauman,” said Brian Sikma, communications director for Media Trackers, a conservative, non-partisan watchdog organization. “It comes as no surprise then that one of their mutual political supporters, who happens to be a shady lobbyist, supports the streetcar project.”

“It is interesting that a lobbyist and political insider who can’t pay his taxes on time would support a streetcar program that will be built – and very likely run – by taxpayer money,” Sikma said. “Thousands of Milwaukee and southeast Wisconsin taxpayers pay their taxes on time. With the projected cost of building the streetcar rising as high as $130 million, Goyke is a hypocrite to be unwilling to pay his own taxes while using his political influence to argue that millions of other taxpayer’s dollars be spent on a wasteful, unnecessary and ill-advised project.”

Goyke, pay your own damn taxes!

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