No matter whose budget you choose, surplus goes away, and more will be needed in 2025

After the GOP-run State Legislature sent the state budget to Governor Evers' desk late last week, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau put out the numbers for both the 2023-25 budget, and the "structural budget" for 2025-27. The structural budget looks at what would happen if the same laws existed for the next budget, without accounting for any changes in costs, program usage, or revenue growth, and the LFB did the same exercise for Governor Evers' budgetwhen it first came out.

What you'll find is that neither the WisGOP Legislature nor Governor Evers would have anything close to a "balanced" structural budget, and both blow virtually all of the billions that are in our state's bank account today over the next 2 years.

But the key differences between the two budgets are in how the budget surplus goes away. Both have sizable one-time increases in spending for Fiscal Year 2024 and 2025, but Evers would have spent more funds overall (particularly on child care, medical care, education, and general government staffing), while Republicans on Joint Finance are cutting billions more in taxes and investing less.

One of the bigger ongoing expenses in Evers' budget would have been taking on more state funds to pay for Medicaid expansion as the $590 million a year in bonus payments from the Feds would go away - a bonus that was on top of the $1 billion+ a year that the state would save if it just took Medicaid expansion. Conversely, the one-time expense of $300 million in the shared revenue "Innovation Fund" would also not have to be spent under the GOP's budget after 2025. But is the lower-tax, lower-spending GOP budget perferable to a higher-service, small-tax cut Evers plan?

I don't think so, and the ongoing funding issues for schools and our state universities are going to continue in 2025. Working Wisconsinites are much more vulnerable with fewer options under the GOP's budget than in Evers', and there were inflation-related cleanups to our tax code that neither side wanted to take on. While it's certainly a step up from Walker-era austerity, no matter what Evers signs this week (and yes, he will sign it - too many things would be held up and tanked if he didn't), our challenges are not going to disappear with this 2023-25 budget.

I will say that Evers should use his veto pen to get the 2025-27 structural balance under $1 billion, and possibly near zero. This can be done by getting rid of WisGOP's tax cuts for the richest Wisconsinitwes along with a $60 million giveaway to banks that WisGOPs put in for the Finance Committee. This also will reduce the cost of adjusting the withholding tables for the state next January 1, and combined with removing some porky earmarks that Republicans put in for road projects and other local services, we should be able to have a couple billion to work with for the next 2 years.

And just because the budget would be signed, it doesn't mean work on improving policies should end for the 2023-25 biennium. Evers can always come back and ask for more and better closer to the 2024 election if the economy stays strong and more money is available, and with new maps looming, GOPs might feel that they have to listen.