May 12, 2008...9:30 pm
BRUTAL BUDGET DEAL IN MADISON
This was a complete cave-in and sellout by Assembly Republicans, clearly on their way to minority status — and deservedly so — under the linguini-spined leadership of Speaker Mike Huebsch.
Madison - Legislative leaders announced a budget-repair package today that nets $209 million from refinancing future payments from cigarette and tobacco manufacturers and delays a $125 million payment for public schools, pushing it into the next budget cycle.
The package is scheduled for quick votes this week in the Assembly and Senate to fix a $652 million shortfall in tax collections that were projected when the budget was adopted last fall.
Approval by the Legislature is also to keep Gov. Jim Doyle from delaying or canceling summer highway maintenance and construction contracts that total up to $261 million.
The deal was announced by Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker (D-Weston), Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch (R-West Salem) and Democratic Rep. Jim Kreuser. The Republican-controlled Assembly will need some Democrats to vote for the budget deal, because some Republicans are expected to reject it.
Legislative leaders said the package would:
- Net $209 million by paying off bonds, approved in 2001, that sold off the first round of payments from cigarette and tobacco manufacturers. The new deal would issue bonds for expected payments from those manufacturers after 2018.
- Delay $125 million in aid to public schools until July 2009, so it doesn’t count as an expense in the current two-year budget. Doyle has repeatedly said he opposes that delay, which raises the possibility that he may veto it outright.
- Lower balances in surplus state accounts, which were designed as a hedge against emergencies, by $97 million. The required budget-ending balance would drop from $65 million to $25 million.
- Require $69 million in spending cuts in current programs.
- Use $22 million raised by increases in the cost of drivers’ license fees. The money was to be used to implement plans related to the federal Real ID requirements, but the money became available when the federal government extended the deadline.
Pure smoke and mirrors. Kicking $125 million in payments to gummint-run skoolz so it doesn’t count against the expenses in the current biennial budget. This is Enron-style accounting tricks endorsed by Speaker Huebsch and his Democrat pals.
Are you seriously telling me the state can’t cut 1/2 of 1 percent of state spending? I mean real cuts, not those current services baseline type “cuts” which are just reductions in the rate of growth? When government is telling families they have to do with less and less, government should be able to do as it keeps telling us. Instead, government tells us it can’t do without a dollar less of our money.
Charlie Sykes has some angry reaction from Rep. Steven Nass (R-Whitewater) and Sen. Neal Kedzie (R-Elkhorn). Those are two votes the GOP cave-in won’t be getting.
One small consolation is that Huebsch didn’t cave on the hospital tax that Gov. Jim Milhous Doyleone wanted so badly, one that even WMC and MMAC were willing to sell its own members out in order to support.
Here’s a real eye opener: this is a “budget deal” to fix a shortfall in the state budget. In other words, a deficit. Tell me how any type of credible budget repair deal to fix a deficit can include any new spending, let alone $86 million in new spending.
Owen Robinson fisks the budget repair deal at Boots & Sabers here.
I agree with the Recess Supervisor, who indicated in the comments thread at B&S that the bill will pass with a lot of Democrat votes, since as many as half of the Assembly Republicans won’t be able to vote for this abortion and still maintain a shred of credibility as conservatives.
I also agree with Dad29: Huebsch should resign. Immediately. He’s an absolute disgrace.
This is abominable, disgraceful, and immoral. This is the kind of crap that would place any private-sector employee in Club Fed for fraud.
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