In the meantime, politicians and sellout business groups are again trying to raise our taxes for the least important component of the local transportation network - mass transit. The fake "crisis" has been promoted for years by The Business Journal and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and they’re now getting backing from the increasingly left-wing Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce. MMAC is joining the papers and other local lefties in calling for a 0.5 percent sales tax in Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha counties to pay for more buses and the inane Milwaukee-Kenosha commuter train.

Unless you’re one of the fringe that actually rides the bus, transit just isn’t that important. Almost everybody who has a job drives to it or gets a ride from somebody else. Throwing tens of millions at such a tiny part of the transportation ridership is pointless. Creating a train that runs along Lake Michigan is beyond pointless; it’s moronic. Raising our already onerous tax burden for the benefit of the cult that uses transit is another nail in the region’s economic coffin.

"But rising gas prices will be a boon for buses and trains!!!!!" So they tell us. If that’s so, the increases in fare box revenues will take care of all of our transit needs. Don’t count on it. Most people hate riding the bus and will cut out Starbucks, car washes and Doritos before they give up their cars to ride a train. And next to none of them will take the bus.

Waukesha County might be a short-term beneficiary of this. It doesn’t have a sales tax and an increase of 0.5 percent in Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha counties would leave Waukesha a full 1 percent below the other counties. Who do you think wins that fight: the higher-taxing counties to the east or the lower-taxing county to the west? It’s critical Waukesha and Washington counties don’t start sipping from the transit Kool-Aid.

As for MMAC, the once influential business group is becoming the King of the Taxers. It backed the unsuccessful recent attempt to create a state hospital tax and opposed efforts to lower the state’s gas tax. Now it wants big sales tax hikes. It’s fairly clear there is no group right now representing small business owners fighting for tax relief. What’s happened to MMAC? Two things. The group has allowed many nonbusiness organizations to become members. It has also allowed local mega-employers like Northwestern Mutual and Aurora to make all of its policy. Owners of small businesses may as well stop paying dues to MMAC because they have no voice and the organization now actively opposes their interests.

As for the "Business" Journal, it joins the Small Business Times as choosing to represent the interests of those who are taxing small businesses to death, rather than the handful of us who are actually trying to keep our region economically competitive.

* * *

If you get most of your information from the local mainstream media you don’t know that:

* Gov. Jim Doyle spent six hours in the middle of the flooding crisis to attend a golfing event to raise money for his own campaign;

* Oak Creek waterproofing contractor Adonnis Waterproofing allowed an employee who is an illegal immigrant with two previous drunken driving convictions and no valid driver’s license to drive the vehicle that killed a 6-year old girl in West Allis;

* Waukesha County Democrats were planning to hold a meeting to discuss their belief that President Bush was responsible for the 9-11 attacks until I got wind of it.

That was just last week. The Doyle golf story was ignored by virtually everybody, although The Freeman printed a small story on Page 1. The head of the state’s largest political Web site, Jeff Mayers of wispolitics.com, told me he didn’t know about Doyle’s break from flood work to raise money while golfing (I guess "wispolitics" isn’t too connected with Wisconsin politics). The excuse from Madison’s largest newspaper, the Wisconsin State Journal, was even "better." Here’s what the paper’s managing editor, Tim Kelley, wrote to readers wondering why Doyle’s golfing while Wisconsin was flooding was ignored:

"We have a compelling story running in the morning about how and why many homeowners aren’t going to be able to get flood insurance coverage thanks to missteps by local officials who failed to update floodplain maps. That’s more significant reporting than taking a cheap shot at the governor ... "

Cheap shot! The media has apparently moved from ignoring all embarrassing stories about Democrats to now taking shots at those who dare to actually report them.

(Mark Belling is the host of a daily WISN radio talk show. His column runs Wednesdays in The Freeman.)