Fire Helps Port Record: Officials at the Port of Milwaukee were popping corks over reports that the port may have set a record for shipping in 2006. Shipments went from 3.7 million tons in 2005 to 3.8 million tons in 2006. The port's success last year featured grain ships as nearly permanent fixtures in the harbor all summer. Grain shipments rose 85% last year, but nowhere in the media reports or port press releases were any reasons given for the sudden surge in grain shipping. It seems a fire damaged a major Toledo grain elevator rendering it useless for 2006 and that caused grain shipments to be diverted to Milwaukee. Not exactly a feather one can put in the performance cap.

The port also received recognition for being the fifth-ranked point of origin for shipments through the St. Lawrence Seaway. The port claimed a 99 percent increase in sailing 700,000 tons of stuff through the St. Lawrence over 2005 -- second most in the Great Lakes -- even though in 2002 that figure was 638,000 tons. Even though Milwaukee benefited from Toledo's misfortune, it still ranked third in grain shipments on the Great Lakes, behind Duluth and Toledo. Milwaukee's port sends significantly fewer ships to sea than Toledo. Toledo moved about 10.7 million tons through its port in 2005 and shipments rose 6.1 percent in 2006.

Tax Hell or Tax Smell: It's that time of year when most everyone bemoans paying taxes. But two reports out this week take a decidedly different tact in attacking the taxman. While we expect the annual cries from state big business that Wisconsin's tax climate is akin to hell on earth, the Institute for Wisconsin's Future found that corporate Wisconsin was paying some $1.3 billion less a year in state and local taxes compared to other states. The IWF found that in 2006 Wisconsin corporations paid about 35 percent of all state taxes, considerably less than the share for corporations in the rest of the country, where the average is 40 percent. In local taxes, corporate Wisconsin pays about 47 percent of the share, compared with about a 52 percent average nationwide. As the IWF puts it, "as a taxpaying partner in supporting state and local services, Wisconsin's corporate sector ranks 41st among all the states ... a bottom ten ranking that should embarrass corporate leaders."

Alaskan corporations lead the country in paying a share of state and local taxes at 82 percent -- by far the highest -- with South Dakota second at 64 percent. Connecticut is the lowest at 34 percent and Oregon No. 48 at 36 percent.

For Wisconsin's big companies -- of which nearly 62 percent did not pay income taxes in 2003 -- the share of tax contribution has been on the decline since the early 1970s. Then, homeowners paid less than half of all property taxes. Now that figure is 70 percent.

But figures like that don't stop Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce from crying their annual crocodile tears over the state's tax burden. But WMC chooses as its moaning point-not corporate taxes -- but residents' overall taxes. It cites a study by the Tax Foundation that points out Wisconsin ranks seventh in the country in terms of state and local taxes as a percentage of income. WMC says it would like Wisconsin's ranking to be No. 11, even though that has never happened since 1970. In fact, since 2002, when Jim Doyle was elected, the state's ranking dropped from No. 4. When including the federal tax burden, Wisconsin ranked No. 13, with 33 percent of income going towards taxes.

Smoke Ban Snuffed: An effort to ban smoking in Dunn County public places has failed. A committee voted 5-3 to kill the measure. One board member said the goal of public health is to educate, not to legislate. "We legislate much more in the United States than our founding fathers envisioned," she said. Another was quoted as saying there had not been any public outcry for the ordinance. He also worried about business owners losing the freedom to regulate themselves.