GOP Legislature starts hacking at Evers' budget. And they have to tell us how they'll cut $1.4 billion

It’s not really a surprise that the GOP-controlled Joint Finance Committee won’t agree to everything Dem Governor Tony Evers wants in his budget. But it was head-shaking to see the chairs of that committee reveal what they already plan to cut and/or restore in the budget when JFC meets on Thursday of this week.

It is our intent to draft a motion that would remove certain provisions within the Governor's 2019-21 budget recommendations from further budget consideration. The list of items that will be included in the motion is attached. The list includes the page and item number showing where the provisions are described in the Legislative Fiscal Bureau's summary of the Governor's budget. The first item that the Committee will consider at its initial executive session will be the motion to remove those items from further budget deliberations.

Beginning Point
The Committee will use, as its beginning point, the adjusted base, less those items in the motion identified above. Although the Governor's recommendations will be before the Committee, Page 2 it will take a majority vote to include any of the Governor's provisions into the Committee's version of the budget. Similarly, any motion advanced by a member of the Committee will require a majority vote to be adopted.

In going through the list, a few key items stand out to me.

1. The rejection of Medicaid expansion, which would make state taxpayers have to pay 32% more of the expenses on every service, and leave the working poor up to the whims of the Obamacare exchanges instead of have a known range of services under Medicaid. In WisGOP World, apparently federal money given to reimburse people for buying insurance on the Obamacare exchanges is better than a similar (or possibly lower!) amount of federal money being used for actual treatment and care.

2. Evers’ proposed ending of the “Big Giveaway” to manufacturers would be out, as would a provision that would have hit higher earners by reversing a tax cut on non-farm capital gains (aka stocks and other paper-trading) that was put in place by Republicans a few years ago. These two decisions would reduce state resources by $1.02 billion in this budget.

3. The GOPs want to keep Evers’ proposed cuts to income taxes for people making less than $150,000, which total $833 million, but they would prevent expansions in the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Homestead Credit, which will take away tax breaks that would have given nearly $92 million in relief to lower-income Wisconsinites. Tells a lot about the GOPs priorities, doesn’t it?

4. Evers’ proposed freezes on voucher enrollment and related charter/voucher programs are out, and the GOPs plan to retain a tax break for private school tuition paid by richer parents that Evers wanted to get rid of (DeVos money talks!)

5. GOPs will get rid of Evers’ plan to allow for a 2% revenue increase for local governments and tech colleges, and go back to the “0% or new
growth” standard that has been choking those entities for the last 8 years, which will increase the chances of more Scottholes and service cuts. Interestingly, the GOPs didn’t say anything about a 2% increase in state aids that Evers wants to give to those governments, which could lead to a further cut in property taxes, and/or more referenda for everyday services.

6. Evers wanted to end the practice of sending a guaranteed amount of money from the General Fund to the Transportation Fund, and GOPs say they want to keep that funnel going, to the tune of $87.8 million in this budget. The GOPs also want to boot Evers’ proposal to get rid of the state’s minimum markup of 9.18% on gasoline, despite conservatives wanting to get of that markup law for years (Kwik Trip pays big, ya know).

7. But interestingly, the GOP motion says NOTHING about Evers’ proposed gas tax increase of 8 cents a gallon, or the future indexing of that gas tax. It also says nothing on proposed fee increases on heavy trucks and other types of vehicles.

8. All of the Lame Duck provisions that Evers wanted to repeal would stay in place, tying the hands of both the Governor and Attorney General Josh Kaul (unless those provisions are struck down in court), and making government operations less efficient by forcing them to get the JFC to sign off on many things they do.

9. A number of policy statements and changes from Evers will get bootedd. This includes
· Evers’ desire to remove right-to-work laws and increase the state’s minimum wage of $7.25.
· Removing the barrier-laden “reforms” Republicans have put in place to prevent people from getting W-2 and unemployment benefits.
· Removing Evers’ plans for Automatic Voter Registration and other provisions that make it easier for Wisconsinites to vote.
· Removing all items related to Evers’ proposal to legalize medical marijuana and decriminalize small amounts of pot possession. This also reduces a few million dollars that would have come in from licensing and overseeing dispensaries.
· Removing Walker-era limits caps on the amount of money the state’s Focus on Energy can put toward renewables (a "policy item" included in past budgets).
· Requiring the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation to put their contracts online so the public can see them, while making WEDC adhere to clear contract and job creation reporting requirements.

There are a number of other things I am leaving out, but I did run all of the budget parts, using the General Fund statement that was projected in Evers’ original budget, And it was going to be a great reveal...until Mark Sommerhauser of the State Journal beat me to it.

NEW: Legislature's nonpartisan fiscal bureau says the GOP budget changes to be voted on Thursday create a $1.4 billion hole in @GovEvers budget plan:https://t.co/Ltrkiao4jG

— Mark Sommerhauser (@msommerhauser) May 6, 2019

That roughly matches the amount by which Evers wants to increase state spending on K-12 schools, in another sign that GOP lawmakers are unlikely to embrace that proposal.

The GOP changes call for scrapping more than 130 provisions of Evers' budget including an expansion of Medicaid and tax hikes on large manufacturers and some high earners. Republicans unveiled the list last week, but it didn't include the fiscal effect on Evers' plan.

OOPS! Sorry about that, folks! The means we have to pay attention to what those $1.4 billion in budget cuts might be, and also look for traps that WisGOP is trying to set for Evers.

For example, they may try to keep Evers’ income tax cut around but include even more severe budget cuts to programs that Evers (and most Wisconsinites) don’t want to see, which would put the Governor stuck between having to veto his own tax cut, or accept service cuts that will wreck things even more in our already-lagging state. There are ways around this pickle, but expect the GOPs to try to play games like that going forward.

This is what I feared when Evers tried to “have it all” in this one budget, as all of the additional policy and budget items meant that more could be removed. It makes for harder decisions if this thing ever gets to the Governor’s desk, precisely because the GOPs can cut out certain items, but still have a budget that seems palatable to the average voter. And it allows them a chance to give bad-faith arguments against the no-win vetoes that Evers will have to give in order to make the numbers add up.

So the revelation of the GOP's austerity and clear favoring of the rich over the working class in tax policy and social policy is something Dems must hit hard on. Given the failing record of subpar job growth and wages in the Age of Fitzwalkerstan, it'll be laughable to see how the ALEC-GOPs try to impose another 2 years of this garbage onto a state that rejected their positions last November. And we can't get discouraged because they keep this state down, because that's clearly the plan for these GOP lowlifes.