Final Thoughts on the Budget

I’ve been refraining from a final analysis on the budget for a couple of reasons.  First of all, I’ve been heavily invested in the budget process for months.  I’m tired of it.  I was worn out and needed to recharge my batteries a bit.  Second of all, I needed a bit of time to sit back, gain some perspective, and think it through.  But now I’m ready to offer a few final thoughts. 

Largely, I think that Brian Fraley got it right.  As a conservative, I detest this budget.  It spends far too much.  It taxes too much.  It fails to fix any of the fundamental reasons for our out of control government.  It includes too much pork.  And the unconstitutional raid on the PCF is unconscionable.  I would not have voted for this budget and I applaud those from both parties who voted against it.

But it could have been far worse.  Wisconsin has passed worse budgets.  The governor’s original budget was worse.  And the Senate’s budget was scary worse.  It’s not a perfect budget.  It’s not even a good budget.  It’s a bad budget.  But it could have been a horrible, no good, very bad budget.  I guess that’s kind of a victory.  Sort of. 

On the bright side, politically speaking, the budget process destroyed the Senate.  The Democrats completely overreached on their version of the budget and managed to make themselves completely irrelevant in the process.  Then they walked away with the conviction that they didn’t overreach enough, and changed leadership mid-term.  I suspect that we can look forward to a lot more overreaching by the Senate that will server Doyle well by making him look moderate, but continue to put the Senate on the sidelines of governing. 

Here’s another thought to ponder…I am certain that this budget would have been worse had the Republicans controlled the Senate.  Sad, but true.  Given the history of Republicans when they controlled both houses of the legislature, I have little faith that they would have passed a fiscally conservative budget.  But the radical Senate budget coupled with the revolt of fiscal conservatives in the Assembly forced the Assembly leadership to deal from a hard line.  Kudos to those fiscally responsible legislators who were steadfast in opposing the worst elements of all of the various budget proposals. 

I guess that’s it.  On to the budget repair bill.