Here’s a news item I would have expected to be splashed across the state’s front pages: Gov. Scott Walker’s budget doesn’t lower spending, it increases it. And by quite a bit.
The analysis comes to us from the sober-minded Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, whose wonky staff is perhaps as knowledgeable on state finances as any you could find. WisTax found the general fund budget for the 2011-2013 budget will increase spending by a whopping 7.6 percent.
That’s real spending, not a catch-up with inflation. That 7.6 percent hike is more than seven times higher than the 1 percent increase in inflation in the two years prior to Walker’s inauguration as governor.
The general fund budget rose from 26.99 billion in the 2009-2011 biennium to $29.03 billion in Walker’s first budget.
And if you thought this was because of lavish tax cuts by Walker, you’d be dead wrong. As WisTax puts it, “although talk of tax cuts was frequent, actual changes are modest.” Walker’s budget cut all taxes and fees by $140.8 million, which amounts to a negligible .05 percent of total spending, WisTax found.
Remarkably, Walker managed to raise spending by 7.6 percent even as he slashed spending on K-12 education in Wisconsin by 5.7 percent or about $500 million, and spending on the UW System by 80 million or 3.8 percent . How is the seeming contradiction possible?
One reason is that Walker had no federal stimulus spending to rely on, unlike his predecessor Gov. Jim Doyle. Walker savaged Doyle for having “lined up at the federal trough begging for millions in ‘free money,’” as the Republican from Milwaukee put it in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in 2009. Walker rejected the federal money for high speed rail that would have saved the state in the neighborhood of $100 million, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel documented.
A second reason Walker had to spend more was for Medicaid, where spending will skyrocket by 50.7 percent, rising from $2.75 billion to $4.14 billion. Long term, Wisconsin could get some relief on that front from the Federal Affordable Care Act, but Walker opposes that, and as soon as he won office, asked Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to join other Republican attorney generals in suing the federal government in an attempt to overturn the law.
The WisTax analysis might be used by Republicans to argue that Walker’s budget was far less radical than opponents have claimed. But it could also be used by Democrats to argue that Walker didn’t need any revolution to balance the budget, and that the sweeping changes all but outlawing unions had nothing to do with budget issues.
It’s difficult to understand why the WisTax report didn’t generate a headline in the Journal Sentinel. Meanwhile, the analysis undercuts the liberal claim that WisTax is biased against Democrats. The group does have a bias in that it opposes taxing and spending of any kind, but that hasn’t cut consistently against either party over the last few decades.
Who’s Running Away From the Union Issue?
Scott Walker recently mailed me a letter asking for my financial support. There was nothing all that surprising in what it said: He wants to support business and grow jobs, battle “overspending” and “mushrooming debt.” The revealing part was what Walker left out of the letter: not one mention of his law to curtail collective bargaining.
“I asked the unions to pay into their own health insurance (just as their Wisconsin neighbors do) and they said I was being unreasonable. I requested that they contribute toward their own pensions (just as their Wisconsin neighbors do) and they screamed that it was unfair.”
This paragraph, bold text and all, suggests all the “protestors who waved their ‘Recall Walker’ signs and said some cruel things,” as the letter puts it, were upset about the benefit givebacks. But union leaders caved on that issue immediately. All the protests were about curtailing collective bargaining rights. And nowhere in Walker’s letter is this issue mentioned.
Similarly, a letter I received from wealthy conservative Terry Kohler and the third-party Wisconsin Club for Growth, again asking for my support, leaves out the collective bargaining issue. Once again, it’s about a Republican effort to “control spending” and “balance the budget.” You begin to think you’re being asked to support a good accountant. Vote for those conservatives with the green eye shades!
Obviously the GOP has decided that killing collective bargaining rights will not play well with most voters. Interestingly, Republicans have accused Democrats of doing the same thing, as a recent story in the Journal Sentinel reported. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said the Democrats were running away from the issue of collective bargaining. “That’s a loser for them because the average Joe hasn’t bought into that.”
But Republican state Sen. Luther Olsen of Ripon, one of six GOP legislators facing a recall election, suggested another reason his opponents aren’t mentioning the issue: “they figure the Democrats have got those folks in the bag already.”
The Democrats would be foolish to make this a one issue campaign about unions, but Republicans may have more reason to tread carefully. Polls done while the protests were ongoing suggested that most independents were turning against Walker, and that a rematch between him and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett would have resulted in Barrett’s victory. Both parties are working to present the other side as the real extremists, but polls suggest the Republicans may have to work a little harder at it.
The Buzz
-Another round of cuts in the editorial staff at the Journal Sentinel were announced. Pressroom Buzz has the details.
-Milwaukee County Treasurer Daniel Diliberti suggests the position should be appointed, not elected. His reasons are sensible, but it’s still worth asking whether the position is even needed, or could the duties of that office simply be absorbed by county executive staff.
-Why are the Brewers so invincible at home, and horrible on the road? The Sports Nut reads the tea leaves.
-Looking for my take on other recent news stories? Here’s the latest on WUWM.
