As another Wisconsin budget cycle begins, we again are likely to have several billions of dollars that are available to be played with. But as WTMJ host and Journal-Sentinel columnist Kristin Brey notes, just because there's a lot of money in the bank, it doesn't mean that all of our needs are taken care of in this state.
Brey went into more detail
at the JS website as to the problems and costs to our economy that are a result of not using those extra dollars in the bank to take care of these needs. In addition to the numerous years of the GOP Legislature refusing to add adequate funding to either the UW System or K-12 schools, Brey points out that there are other areas that need to be attended to in Wisconsin.
➤A child care industry on the brink? Nearly nine in 10 working parents say child care costs them time and productivity at work. Lost wages and fewer sales mean less tax revenue for local, state and federal governments. The Council for a Strong America estimates the child care crisis already costs Wisconsin families, businesses and governments a combined $1.9 billion every year.
➤Municipal and county governments struggling to provide local services? Despite 2023's monumental Act 12 shared revenue bill last year, local leaders from municipalities and counties across the state say the changes fell short of solving their budgetary challenges leaving some to turn to operational referendums to raise the local property tax levy just to maintain the services they currently provide.
➤Do we have two state prisons that are literally uninhabitable? 2024 was marked by a lot of troubling news about our corrections system. From lengthy lockdowns, to inmate deaths, to spotty medical care and even the arrest of Waupun’s warden and staffers for alleged misconduct and abuse. We also still have two (barely) operating state prisons that were built in the 1800s that state leaders haven’t been able to find the political will to close for almost half a century.
➤A looming assisted living and nursing home crisis? The “Silver Tsunami” is coming, but our assisted living and nursing home quality and accessibility are already under duress. Understaffed facilities, underpaid and undertrained employees, some of the lowest Medicaid reimbursement rates in the country, increased demand for high-needs facilities, all of these problems will only get worse across Wisconsin in the coming decade if left unaddressed.
➤Are middle and lower class people struggling to get by? Republican lawmakers have made it clear that their priority this year is to provide tax cuts. Will they prioritize giving the bulk of the benefits to the more needy filers making less than $100,000 instead of those making more than $100,000?
Even before we get to tax cuts, we need to remember that state agencies have already asked for much more money in this budget to handle their needs compared to the money that might be coming in to the state's coffers. As a result, if all those requests were funded, the Evers Administration says we'd see that $4 billion be gone by the end of this next biennium.
That reality of large unmet needs makes it all the more cynical and absurd that
Assembly Speaker Robbin' Vos and GOP Senate Leader Devin LeMahieu want to pass a tax cut bill before the spending part of the budget is even introduced. And you can bet that tax cut won't be anything that gives most of the benefits to middle and lower-income Wisconsinites - and might not give them anything at all. In addition to what will likely be a regressive scheme, the tax cut would be intended to limit the amount of available funds to make it near-impossible to fund most of the needs that we still have.
That's all the more reason for Governor Evers to veto that scheme and put his own tax package in the larger budget, but I'd also add that we need to wait to see if the Trump Administration and the GOP Congress
are able to impose the austerity measures that they want to sneak through. If that happens, it could reduce a sizable amount of federal money that this state is counting on for support services and infrastructure needs, and there might be a need to add more state funds just to keep Wisconsinites from falling even further behind.
So even though Wisconsin's budget picture is among the best in the nation, with lowered debt and billions in the bank, let's not pretend that there isn't a need to improve things further in how we tax people and choose to invest our tax dollars in. I'd feel a lot more comfortable in the ability to have things taken care of if we still had a Democrat in the White House, but too many dopes chose otherwise this November, and now it would be even more foolish for our state to cut taxes and refuse to continue investments to improve quality of life and economic competitiveness as a result.
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