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First-time-in-a-generation achievements don’t happen often. But that’s the news Wisconsin heard last week: our state dropped out of the top-10 worst taxed states in the nation for the first time since 1980.

According to a study of the latest-available census data by the non-partisan Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, Wisconsin’s tax burden now ranks 11th overall, down from eighth the previous year.

That drop in the ranking is nice, and a lower tax ranking shows that we’re moving in the right direction, but there’s no doubt that there’s a lot of work to be done. Ask anyone who dreads seeing their property tax bill in the mail or an employee who never gets to see a chunk of the money they earn every paycheck, and they’ll tell you the burden that high taxes puts on their budget.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance study put hard numbers to that burden as well: the latest data shows that our state’s total tax burden for the year was more than $22.3 billion, or about 12.3 percent of personal income. Even more troubling, the study shows that the two taxes that the average person feels the most, the property tax and the personal income tax, are about 25 percent higher than the national average.

At a time when people are struggling through the worst economy in years, it’s our job in the Capitol to bring taxes in line with the taxpayers’ ability to pay. This requires focusing more on your needs, not the wants of bureaucrats and politicians.

Since I was first elected in 1994, I’ve worked with my colleagues to cut taxes every session. We’ve worked hard to keep our promise to get taxes in line with your ability to pay, and we will continue cutting taxes for as long as it takes.

That task was more difficult in the previous two years than I’ve ever experienced before: Democrats in the state Senate proposed a state budget that included a whopping $18 billion in new taxes, and they fought hard for every last dollar.

Working with members on both sides of the aisle, my colleagues and I were able to remove about 98 percent of those tax hikes from the final budget that was signed into law, and include targeted tax cuts for middle-class families, small businesses and seniors, as well as a freeze on property taxes.

It was holding the line on taxes that caused our tax ranking to fall. We were leapfrogged by Louisiana (5), New Mexico (8), New Jersey (9) and West Virginia (10), though we still have work to do in order to catch our neighboring states of Minnesota (19), Illinois (27), Iowa (34) and Michigan (37).

Unfortunately, holding the line on taxes is the furthest thing from some Madison politicians’ minds. Remember the $18 billion in new taxes proposed just this past year? That would have erased all our progress and sent us skyrocketing straight to No. 1 on the list. Especially in this tough economy, that’s a burden Wisconsin doesn’t need.

Sadly, it’s a reality of government that there will always be politicians who think they know how to spend your money better than you do. That’s why it’s up to us to make sure that the taxpayers aren’t drowned out of the conversation, and why it’s essential that the voice of the taxpayer, not just the tax spender, is heard loud and clear in the state Capitol.

Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, represents the 94th District.