Budget “Repair” Puts Wisconsin More Out of Balance
Ellis and Cowles crunch the numbers.
The legislature met this week to adopt a plan to fix a budget that is $652 million out of balance. What they came up with is a cobbled together mess of borrowing, delayed payments, and other gimmicks that barely get the state out of this biennium in the black, but that will leave a deficit of $846 million the next budget begins two years from now, the Republican senators said.
That means state revenues will have to grow by 7 percent to 8 percent just to maintain current state programs. That does not include a penny for inflation, for increased caseloads in medical assistance programs or for the skyrocketing increases in fuel prices, they said.
“To put that in perspective, the last time the state saw an 8 percent growth in revenues was in 1997-98,” Cowles said. “The reason we had to “fix” the budget in the first place is because our revenues only grew by less than 1 percent this year, rather than the 3.8 percent increase projected when the budget was first passed. Anyone who believes we will see revenues grow by 8 percent in the next budget cycle hasn’t been paying attention.”
Kind of like the Assembly version of the budget you once supported that made it more out of whack than what was eventually passed?
Posted by on May 16, 2008 at 2012 hrs
Ol' Army
