"Blue state bailout"? Wisconsin deserves some of that money, and Evers should force the issue

I noticed that a large number of members of the gerrymandered GOP Legislature recently sent a letter to Wisconsin's members of Congress asking that state and local governments not get extra funding from DC in the next economic relief bill. In doing so, the WisGOPs used a typical boogeyman to claim that such a bailout would reward bad fiscal behavior.

"After years of failing to fund their overly generous pension system, Illinois is already asking for the federal government to bail them out of these series of poor financial decisions. The State Senate in Illinois has requested $44 billion – and that’s just for one state. Wisconsinites can’t afford to bailout reckless budgeting from other states.

"Wisconsin taxpayers should not be responsible for funding bailouts for irresponsible states across the country, like Illinois, New York and California. Please stand with Wisconsin taxpayers and reject the multi-trillion dollar bailouts being considered by Congress."

What's conveniently not mentioned is that "Illinois, New York and California" are already bailing out red states because individuals in these states pay a lot of federal taxes, but don't get nearly as much coming back to them. The Rockefeller Institute traditionally looks at this statistic, and you can see that the 3 "irresponsible" states are in the bottom 10 when it comes to getting money back from DC compared to what they pay in. And you'll note that Wisconsin fares poorly in this stat as well.

And let's add that most places should be donor states in a year when the federal budget deficit was near $1 trillion.

It's even worse when you look at how many of those federal tax dollars are able to be used to fund state government, particularly for Wisconsin. Our state government doesn't get the luxury of having the feds pay for as many of our services like other states do. In fact, Wallethub and Pew Research lists us as 45th in the country for federal assistance in our state budgets.

On the flip side, check out which states are the biggest welfare sucks of federal tax dollars (hint, 9 of the 10 voted for Trump in 2016).

It's a whole lot easier to seem "fiscally responsible" when someone else is paying the bill, isn't it? And if WisGOP really cared about maintaining the standards of service and quality of life in our state, they shouldn't just be asking for more federal aid, but demanding that we get the fair share that we aren't getting today.

And by the way, the FIBs are finally in position to fix one of the biggest handcuffs they have had in balancing their budgets - the constitutionally-requirement that there be a flat income tax in Illinois. Right now, Illinois has a state income tax of 4.95%, no matter if you make $10 thousand or $10 million. That's lower than Wisconsin's income tax rate for everyone that is living above the poverty line, and a lot lower than Wisconsin's 7.65% for the richest individuals.

The voters of Illinois can finally change this in November, where they get to vote on a proposal that would allow for a higher income tax on FIBs that make more than $250,000 a year. It also appears to be paired with property tax relief, which would likely lessen the tax burden in Illinois for most individuals, since "high Illinois taxes" are actually imposed by local communities more than the state itself.

But let's face it, one of the items that GOPs really want to do is to use this fiscal crisis as an excuse to screw over public employees on their pensions (even though Wisconsin's pensions are fully-funded, and have been for a couple of decades), and they are using the screwed-up Illinois pension system to make an apples-and-oranges application to us.

In addition, the Wisconsin GOP wants to use the COVID-19 recession to cause a significant fiscal crisis in Wisconsin, which they hope will cause great political damage to Governor Tony Evers. You're already seeing members of the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee hint at this cynical strategy, starting with co-chair John Nygren.

Ohio Gov calling for $775 million cut i. Spending in just 2 months. WOW buckle up it’s going to get bumpy. https://t.co/uC9ABQyCli

— John Nygren (@rep89) May 6, 2020

Almost like he's salivating at the chance to cut education, health services, and basically anything that might help people and communities in need. With Evers facing re-election in 2022, WisGOPs would love nothing more than to have a Dem governor in charge as the state's ability to recover from the COVID-19 recession is strangled in the cradle.

I saw similar signals from State Sen. Howard Marklein, who does a good job in this blog post explaining Wisconsin's funding challenges in the coming months and years, but doesn't reveal what he and his fellow WisGOPs will ask for in this "fiscal reckoning".

E-Update - A Day of Fiscal Reckoning Is Coming - https://t.co/y82qvXhIJZ

— Sen. Howard Marklein (@SenMarklein) May 8, 2020

While I've said in the past that Governor Evers should try to wait out any further budget actions until they are necessary (likely in 2021), I'm now changing my thoughts on that. If the feds refuse to give extra funds to the states to deal with the fiscal problems caused by a COVID-19 recession that was made much more severe by failures of the Trump Administration, then as soon as we get year-end figures on revenues in August, Evers should call the Legislature into session to deal with the fiscal crisis.

Evers would have the power to do so if his Department of Administration says that we will fall into a deficit that needs to be repaired (which will certainly be the case for 2020-21), and Evers should point out that we could pay many of our bills, but it would require the end of hundreds of millions of tax cuts that the rich and corporate in Wisconsin get today - tax cuts Evers asked to end in the most recent budget. Evers could also use the special session to demand that the state take expanded Medicaid funding, which would allow us to get back more of the federal tax dollars that this state is giving away these days.

This would then force the GOPs in the gerrymandered Legislature on the record to justify why we shouldn't raise taxes on the people who have been getting bailouts that the typical American isn't getting, and to NAME THE CUTS that they would put in ahead of the election. Because it would be a fiscal emergency, the Legislature at the very least has to consider the bills, although the information on page 12 of this document doesn't say whether they can "gavel in, gavel out", which is what WisGOPs have done in the past to avoid taking a stand on issues where their interests oppose the interests of most Wisconsinites. Either way, put them on the spot.

Because if Evers doesn't do anything before the 2020 election, you can bet the GOPs in the Legislature will do much more to him AND US after the election, and try to lay the blame on Evers for the mess that follows. So might as well beat them to the punch.