Last Friday night when Governor Jim Doyle squared off with challenger and congressman Mark Green, many Wisconsinites, especially college students, were busy preparing for Saturday morning's hangover and not particularly interested in sitting down to watch two guys blab on about taxes and budgets for an hour.
But while discussing taxes in Wisconsin, the debate shifted to the ""brain drain,"" the exodus of those Wisconsin university students out of state, often to Chicago or Twin Cities, after graduation.
Green thinks that Wisconsin's taxes are driving the young people from our state.
While we concede that a brain drain does exist, we don't think it has much to do with Wisconsin's tax burden.
Green specifically blamed property taxes, but property taxes are not on the mind of the youth fleeing to these major metropolitan areas. Most of them will rent apartments. How many 23-year-olds with student loans can really afford the down payment for a house?
Young people are not fleeing to Chicago and the Twin Cities because our taxes are too high, they are fleeing to these cities because they want to live in a vibrant urban environment teeming with jobs for the highly educated.
If Green is serious about keeping young people in Wisconsin, he should propose investing in urban renewal projects in Madison and especially Milwaukee to transform these cities into the type of environments that attract young people.
With better cities, Wisconsin could become buyers in the market of educated young people, not sellers.
