Doyle Signs Budget “Fix” With Vetoes

Congratulations, Assembly Republican Leadership… you’ve just been outflanked on the right by Doyle.  Way to set up the caucus for the election. 

Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle carved up a budget-repair deal with his veto pen today, allowing him to make deeper cuts than lawmakers approved and take money from the state’s transportation fund.

Lawmakers voted this week to make $69 million in cuts through mid-2009, but Doyle increased the cuts to $270 million with his veto powers. He also vetoed a restriction that limited how much could come from the state transportation fund.

1. Yup.  Pretty much.  Vetoes the raid on the reserve fund.  Keeps the increase to counties for road maintenance while at the same time, scaling back transportation spending.

   He basically dares the AssGOP to go to the floor and try to argue that deferring a school aids payment is more responsible than borrowing from a segregated fund to pay for present costs.  No matter how great Jeff Fitzgerald seems to think transportation pork is, I don’t see how that’s a winning argument.

   Some voters are fiscally conservative, as we conventionally define it.  But many more voters (including fiscal conservatives), maybe even most voters, believe in fiscal responsibility - that you should pay for what you buy, or maybe not buy it at all.  In the eyes of these voters, the GOP has nothing on the Democrats these days.

   Legislative Democrats load up the budget with policy goodies, and Doyle swoops in to make them look fiscally responsible.  They’re getting the best of both worlds right now politically.  And what are Republicans getting?

   Posted by Recess Supervisor on May 16, 2008 at 1129 hrs




2. Some voters are fiscally conservative, as we conventionally define it.  But many more voters (including fiscal conservatives), maybe even most voters, believe in fiscal responsibility - that you should pay for what you buy, or maybe not buy it at all.  In the eyes of these voters, the GOP has nothing on the Democrats these days.

   How about it Owen?  I made a similar argument a couple days ago, and you said it was one of the best laughs you’ve had in a while.  Are you still laughing?

   I gotta admit though, it is the comment that you put before the snippet from the article that drew my attention the most Owen.

   you’ve just been outflanked on the right by Doyle.  Way to set up the caucus for the election.

   It was thinking like that, that led us to the inane property tax freeze.  Doyle introduced his first budget (and I bet RS can attest to this too) Assembly Republicans walked off the floor openly talking about how they had to get to the right of the Governor.  Forget whether it was good policy, forget whether the short term gains were going to be crushed by the long term harm, we need to get our message back.

   Viola, the property tax freeze sound bite, er policy, was born.  I would have loved to have been in the room when that brain fart was hatched.  “Hey, let’s cut shared revenue, freeze local government transportation aids, and then remove a major tool for local governments to deal with a problem they were elected to confront while the cost of health care and construction is increasing 3 to 5 times the rate of inflation!!!!”

   Posted by on May 16, 2008 at 1157 hrs




3. Good for Doyle.  He’s finally done something I agree with.

   Nationally, the Dems are running candidates to steal the partisan middle-ground from the Repubs.  If they ever have the nads to break away from their socialist party leaders, I’ll have to reconsidered putting that “D” next to my name.

   Posted by Headless on May 16, 2008 at 1225 hrs




4. I swear our side’s leadership has a chip in their head that causes them to do completely stupid things (both on politics and policy) on the eve of State Convention in Election Years.

   That Huebsch hospitality suite oughta be a fun one in Point tonight.

   Anyone else want to point out that if the Dems get all three (Senate, Assembly, Governor) after November, it will be Doyle who can position himself as the “sane, fiscally conservative one” against the big-spending, taxers in the Assembly and Senate for his 2010 re-election bid?

   Just curious…

   I’m beginning to think the only way we ever get back the Governor’s Mansion during the Doyle Governorship is if Obama wins, takes him to DC, and Lawton’s as dumb as we know she is.

   Posted by on May 16, 2008 at 1319 hrs




5. Who knows what this “American Families Agenda” that House Republicans are rolling out is going to end up looking like.  But at least it shows that some Republicans understand that the recent failures of the GOP owe not just to circumstance, but due to the GOP’s lack of anything resembling a cohesive agenda in the post-Gingrich years.

   Let’s face it - had it not been for 9/11 and related security issues, Congressional Republicans and the President would likely have been run out of office by 2004.  That and breaking out gay marriage, an issue that really only appeals strongly to the fringe of the party.  The wheels have been coming off the train for quite awhile.

   Sadly, Republicans at the state level haven’t seemed to figure this out yet.  It’s not even that the AssGOP caucus is too conservative or too moderate.  The biggest problem is that collectively, they don’t stand for anything anymore.  Conservative, moderate, whatever.  Can anyone tell me what that caucus stands for right now?

   In the long term, sending the AssGOP into the minority is the best thing that could happen to them.  They need to start over and rebuild, and you can’t do that while you’re still trying to govern.

   Governor Lawton is indeed the only hope for state Republicans going into 2010.  Walker can’t beat Doyle in a statewide race where Doyle sets himself up to run against his own party - which is exactly what he’ll do.  And if the Dems run the board in 2010, redistricting in 2011 will likely ensure that the Democrats control the Legislature for the next decade.

   The end of a decade is a bad, bad time for a party to tank.

   Posted by Recess Supervisor on May 16, 2008 at 1510 hrs




6. Cheapshot by Owen re the Speaker.

   Posted by on May 17, 2008 at 2126 hrs