Since it's raining up North, I got a few minutes to react to the Senate GOP's "new and improved" budget plan.
First of all, it looks like Fitzgerald and the GOP Senators want to borrow $712 million for,roads, with $350 million from the General Fund.
This is a horrible idea. Apparently it's not just the DOT Fund that the Senate GOPs want to screw up, but the General Fund too. I mean, we already have $1 billion deficits in both these funds, so what's another few hundred to pay off in the future?
Oh, and it looks like the only plan they have for saving money is the same plan they've had for the last 6 years- SCREWING WORKERS, this time by eliminating prevailing wage requirements on construction programs. Hey Wisconsin blue-collars! How is that GOP vote to stick it to the book-learners working out for you tough guys?
Lastly, these guys want to give away another half-billion dollars in this budget by doing WMC's bidding and repealing the personal property tax. This will result in a significant property tax increase on homeowners, or will result in spending ANOTHER $522 million to avoid that unpleasant result.
Right now, I see no extra money being added in revenue that pay for this WISGOP Fantasyland plan, which makes me wonder what is getting cut to pay for it. School aids? Shared revenues? Medicaid?
Here's one thing I do know. SCOTT FITZGERALD AND THE SENATE GOP HAVE NOTHING. They've merely doubled down on the same poser BS that has already delayed this house-of-cards budget by 3 weeks. And I'm betting it'll be held up for a few weeks more, if this empty, no-solutions proposal is an indication.
Extra bonus: the LFB included the entire budget to date, along with Senate GOP proposals. Feel free to dig your way through
ReplyDeleteThe Senate proposal does not include the Gov's proposal to reduce the bottom income tax rate. That is in the same neighborhood, size-wise, as eliminating the personal property tax. So while it doesn't match up exactly in terms of dollars, that's one reason that the Senate version of the budget has enough revenue to eliminate the personal property tax.
ReplyDelete--Tamarine
Yep, I caught that. I'm working on that for a future post, along with a lot of other measures that are in the Senate GOP proposals.
ReplyDeleteLet's just say there is a lot of general tax dollars being used to reduce property taxes on a very short-term basis. And very little cushion left over