This is convergence with a vengeance.

The day that the merger between Coors and Miller was announced, a new study said that Wisconsin’s business climate has dropped to 39^th in the country. Colorado, where Coors is headquartered, was ranked a far-friendlier 13^th.

All of this comes as the Coors/Miller folks are about to sit down to decide where to locate the company's headquarters; and they'll be comparing Colorado and Wisconsin.

Taxes alone won’t determine that decision, but the comparison won’t be pretty;  

According to the Tax Foundation, which dropped Wisconsin’s business-friendliness rank by three full places: "Tax competition is an unpleasant reality for state revenue and budget officials, but it is an effective restraint on state and local taxes. . . . When a state imposes higher taxes than a neighboring state, businesses will cross the border to some extent."

So the debate in Madison over billion dollar tax increases does not take place in a vacuum. While legislators and the governor continue to haggle over the delayed state budget, businesses continue to decide where to locate, invest, and create jobs.

Consider this:

In the last 17 years, according to the Tax Foundation, Colorado’s tax burden has fallen from 22nd highest in 1990, around the national average, to below the national average.. As a result, in Colorado taxpayer income has risen faster than state-local tax collections “thanks largely to the unique Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights amendment in the state’s constitution. “ A similar amendment failed in the Republican-dominated Wisconsin legislature last year. As a result, Wisconsin remains entrenched in the top 10 most heavily taxes states.

Corporate executives inevitably will notice specific differences: Colorado’s income tax system is a flat 4.63% on the entirety of an individual’s taxable federal income, giving it one of the lowest top rates in the country.  In contrast, Wisconsin’s rate is 6.75%. In addition, Colorado’s 4.63% corporate tax is the lowest of any state that levies corporate income taxes.

Sales taxes? The Tax Foundation says that Colorado’s 2.9% general sales tax is “the lowest rate among states levying a sales tax.” Property taxes are about average.

Only four years ago, Governor Doyle seemed to recognize Wisconsin competitive disadvantage. In his 2003 State of the State address, the governor argued, inter alia that “Wisconsin's problem is not that we tax too little. It is that we spend too much.”

He noted that “Wisconsin is already one of the nation's most heavily taxed states. Adding to the burden would make it virtually impossible to attract new jobs while destroying more than 50,000 of the ones we already have. “

“By costing us jobs” the governor explained,” raising taxes would trigger an economic spiral that would cost us revenue too. In the long run -- and perhaps in the short term too -- raising taxes will make the deficit worse, not better.”

“[T]here is probably nothing we can do to help economic growth more than to balance this budget without raising taxes,” Doyle insisted.

During the debate next week, Republican legislators ought to play the governor’s back to him.