Gov. Walker flies into La Crosse, promoting $100 child tax credit

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker flew around Wisconsin on Thursday, promoting a tax credit for families with children.

The credit would be $100 for each child under 18. Walker, toting a Spiderman backpack while talking to reproters at the La Crosse airport, talked of how parents would spend all that moeny.

“What parents tell me overwhelmingly, is they’re already making plans for how they would spend that — on school supplies, backpacks, on paper and crayons, and pens and pencils, on new shoes and clothing, and other things along the way,” Walker said of the credit, which would cost a total $122 million.

The governor wants the credits to be paid out by Sept. 1, before school starts — and two months before he’s up for re-election.

Is the proposed tax credit an attempt by the governor to buy votes? That’s what one radio host in Wisconsin suggested.

Several critics have questioned the timing of the child tax credit, coming as Walker is running for a third term.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald wants to think about the credit plan for a bit, to see if Senators will support it.

Walker, in his State of the State address on Wednesday, outlined plans to return $122 million in a state surplus in the form of a tax credit for families with children.

Republican legislators haven’t given a resounding “yes” to the idea. But they haven’t said no. Democrats have called it a political ploy during an election year.

Progressive groups, like Kids Forward in Wisconsin, suggest there might be better ways to funnel money to those who need it. Roughly 671,000 households would benefit from the credit. Only those with children under 18.