The Legislative Fiscal Bureau has its numbers out. The compromise budget represents a 6.6% increase in spending - NOT the 8% that Doyle threw out.
Still very substantial…looks like a win for Doyle.
I think Owen was implying that Doyle was saying on Friday it was an 8% increase in spending.
As someone who started to pay attention to state budgets in 2001, I believe I’ve now seen spending grow $10 billion in that time frame.
*sigh*
You can say that again, Anon. Comparing the state-tax-dollar portion of the spending, Doyle’s getting 90.9% of the difference between his original proposal and the “no-new-taxes” one that came out of the Assembly.
Almost all of the reduction in the increase in total spending comes from less cash grovelled from the feds (read, everybody in the country), and even that is a massive increase.
And for those of you with a thirst for detail, here it is.
http://www.legis.state.wi.us/lfb/2007-09budget/Conference Committee/tableofcontents.htm
I am not sure who the winners in this will turn out to be, but the losers are the taxpayers and a rational approach to determining the needs of the state and the funding of them.
I thought logrolling was illegal in this state?
And from the illustrious Speaker’s email to the Senate and Assembly Republicans
As a point of reference, the US Department of Commerce recently announced that Wisconsin’s
per capita personal income grew at 4.6% in 2006. With the growth in all funds spending
averaging 3.3% annually, the bipartisan budget agreement appropriates almost 1.3% per year
below personal income growth and lives within the taxpayers’ means.
I guess they really were thinking of us after all.