New revenue figures might mean that $4 billion in Wisconsin's bank gets larger

Saw that the newest Wisconsin monthly revenue report came out today. The December numbers mark the halfway point of this current fiscal year, and come just ahead of the Legislative Fiscal Bureau's revenue estimates for Fiscal Years 2025-27, which will help form the baseline of Tony Evers' next budget.

And the revenue figures have been coming in strong so far for FY 2025, up by 5.2% overall compared to the same first 6 months of FY 2024, with income taxes up by 8.4%. If those trends hold up for the next 6 months, we will have $450 million more in the bank than what the Wisconsin Department of Administration estimated 2 months ago, and even with the same rate of growth for the 2 years of the next state budget, we would be nearly $470 million above estiamtes for each of those years.

So if we continue to see strong revenue growth for the next 6 months, we could be seeing more than the already-impressive $4 billion that we are projected to have in the bank at the end of June. And we'd have approximately $1.3 billion available to take care of things in the upcoming state budget. But lots to play out between now and the end of the fiscal year, especially with tax-filing season looming. There's also a lot of uncertainty over what (if any) differences may be coming from DC in terms of taxes and spending in the next few months.

These variables make it all the more absurd that the GOP Legislature wants to cut income taxes in the coming weeks, before Evers submits his own budget, and before anyone knows what the fiscal changes will be at the state and federal levels. But that's the entire point of that idiocy, right? To limit the possibilities of using those billions on our many unmet needs in this state by giving it away in the form of tax cuts to the rich.

Let's not do that, shall we? At least not yet. But between sub-3% unemployment and these good revenue numbers, Wisconsin's in a very strong place at the start of 2025, and we need to make the investments to keep things in that good place as long as we can.