Sporcle of the Day, 9 Jul 10  |   Home  |   Releasing Felons

Looming Deficit

The next governor and legislature is going to have some hard choices to make thanks to Doyle’s reckless budgeting. 

The projections by the Legislature’s non-partisan budget office show the expected shortfall for the 2011-2013 budget has grown by $462 million from the just over $2 billion that was expected a year ago.

It is one of the biggest expected shortfalls over the past decade, nearly as large as the $2.9 billion shortfall that Gov. Jim Doyle faced in his first budget in 2003.

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau said the potential deficit increased because taxes and fees now aren’t expected to grow as quickly and because lawmakers approved some additional spending at the end of the legislative session in the spring.

Posted by Owen at 2003 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

1. This would be the same structural deficit Governor Doyle pledged to eliminate during the 2002 campaign.  As illustrated by a series of reports from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau and Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, each of the four biennial budgets signed by Governor Doyle did not eliminate the structural deficit.  This is Doyle’s principal legacy.  Whoever is the next Governor inherits a mess.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 10, 2010 at 1108 hrs
   
   
   

2. Let’s be honest for once, George.  Isn’t this about where Tommy G. Thompson and Scott McCallum left the Budget which Doyle inherited?

   True, he didn’t improve the situation, but isn’t he leaving it roughly where the Republicans left it for him?

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 10, 2010 at 1524 hrs
   
   
   

3. “Ann,”

   A not-so-careful reading of my post would have established that Doyle inherited a structural deficit.  Otherwise, he could not have campaigned on eliminating it.  He did not campaign on maintaining the status quo.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 10, 2010 at 2046 hrs
   
   
   

4. OK, George, let’s take another whack at it. 

   During Doyle’s first term—two legislative sessions—he faced a legislature controlled by the Republicans.  Both houses.  He introduced his budget bill each session and the Republicans had their way with it.  Of 16 members on Joint Finance, for example, 12 were Republicans.

   Are you saying that these folks bear no responsibility for the abominations they sent him not one but twice?

   Mindless partisanship doesn’t contribute to solving problems.  Unfortunately, that’s the only card you and those of your ilk choose to play.

   I don’t think that Doyle has been a particularly effective Governor either.  Some of it is the national economy, but he never figured out how to deal with legislators, whether of his own or the other party.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 11, 2010 at 1501 hrs
   
   
   

5. Regardless of legislative control, none of the four budgets proposed by Governor Doyle eliminated the structural deficit.  That is what he said he would do.  And claimed to have done in phone re-election ads.  Why didn’t he use his veto to eliminate the structural deficit in any of those four budgets?

   BTW, not sure you are correct about who was in the Senate majority in 2005-06.  Anyway, whoever controlled either house does not change the fact that Governor Doyle did not submit budgets that eliminated the structural deficit.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 11, 2010 at 1532 hrs
   
   
   

6. Time to elect the guy (no women put up by any party, tsk, tsk) promising the biggest tax cuts with the smallest reduction in services!  Eventually, this republican/conservative will borrow like the rest: I america, the kids can sacrafice for the adults’ play.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 11, 2010 at 1533 hrs
   
   
   

7. GOP did control Senate in 05-06.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 11, 2010 at 1536 hrs
   
   
   

8. If what you type is true, George, then how come the Republican leaders in the Senate and Assembly didn’t do the job either?  It was all Doyle’s fault?  He inherited a mess from Thompson and McCallum and he “paid it forward.”  But so did the spineless Republicans—in both houses!

   Danny DeVito once observed that “money talks and [bull excrement] walks.”  True when he said it and true today.

   Both Republican candidates for Governor are writing checks which the state can’t afford to cash.  If we are $2.5 billion in the hole to start the next biennium, slashing taxes isn’t going to balance the budget.

   Yes, supply-side economics works, but what they are promising is more of the same crap that you castigate Doyle for.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 11, 2010 at 1637 hrs
   
   
   

9. In noting that Doyle inherited the structural deficit I clearly acknowledged the role of Thompson and McCallum in creating it. 

   But that was the whole point of Doyle’s 2002 campaign.  He pledged to eliminate it, falsely claimed he did (in 2006), but in fact never proposed a single budget that did so.  Just admit that and forget the need to say “yeah, but republicans are bad, too.”

   It remains to be seen how those elected in November 2010 will handle this issue.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 11, 2010 at 1843 hrs
   
   
   

10. I find it incredibly funny that the lefties still don’t understand that raising taxes doesn’t necessarily increase revenues, but increasing spending ALWAYS has the same effect.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 12, 2010 at 1045 hrs
    
    
    

11. We are among the highest taxed states in the nation…

    And people are talking about RAISING taxes? You just can’t raise taxes enough to cover the spending - because they just keep finding new things to do with the money.

    Cut spending…  Just like you have to do with your own budget.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 12, 2010 at 1212 hrs
    
    
    

12. Cut spending…  Just like you have to do with your own budget.

    When I suggested this in a national thread, the lefties blamed the Bush Tax cuts… Well, in Wisconsin we have raised every tax on the books for eight solid years, and we are still in major budget trouble. Why? Because REVENUE IS IRRELEVANT if you are spending more than you are bringing in. Always is, always will be.

    You cannot balance a budget by raising or lowering taxes, you can only balance a budget by CONTROLLING SPENDING.

    If you REALLY like a certain car, do you buy it even though it is $10K out of your price range, because you might get a raise next year? Well, that is how the government thinks. Spending is what causes debt, the decision to spend money, not a lack of revenue.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 12, 2010 at 1258 hrs
    
    
    

Commenting is not available in this channel entry.