Scott Walker’s Baffling War On Bikes
MADISON, WISCONSIN — In just one year, Wisconsin’s bike friendliness ranking from the non-partisan League of American Bicyclists dropped from the third best in country to ninth. If the state legislature approves Governor Scott Walker’s budget, which slashes funding for bike infrastructure, boosts spending on freeways and imposes a new tax on bicycle sales, the ranking could plummet further.
As Governor Walker prepares for a likely run for the White House, he’s been traveling the country touting his record of slashing taxes on corporations and the wealthy, saying he has “put more money back in the hands of the hardworking taxpayers.”
Yet Governor Walker and his allies in the Madison statehouse have found one corporate sector where they’re willing to raise taxes: bicycles. Though they have been hesitant to hesitant to consider boosting taxes on gasoline or vehicle registration fees, state lawmakers have been pushing a $25 tax on the sale of all new bicycles in the state, on top of the existing sales tax.
Daily bike commuters, like fourth generation Wisconsinite Brian Ward, told ThinkProgress it feels like an “attack on cycling.”
“When you create barriers to people accessing a bike, it’s a real burden and a disincentive,” he said. “There are a lot of misconceptions about what kind of people bike, and you do have the people who have a lot of money and do it for sport, but you also have people who just need to get to work. It’s not uncommon to go on a trail and see people of all shapes and sizes and types of bikes.”
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http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/06/03/3664754/scott-walkers-war-bikes/
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