Wisconsin is falling apart and he's on the road campaigning
Wisconsin Republicans have met reality and they don't like it. Their subsidies and tax cuts for the 1% and severe austerity for everybody else have produced
ZERO GROWTH in state revenue adding to their budgetary woes.
Walker, an all but certain presidential candidate, and legislative Republicans have said for months that a revved up economy, fueled in part by their tax cuts, would lead to more tax money than projected through June 2017 and help them mitigate the education cuts.
Yeah, riiiiight. The belief that austerity budgeting, serious cuts to basic services, along with plenty of tax cuts for the rich and corporate (who get subsidies, too!) would all work like magic to create an economic miracle is the real Religion of the Right. They cut taxes and think the Trickle Down Fairy will pour an avalanche of dollars into state coffers to fund their pet projects, corporate subsidies, crony salary increases, and fuel, of course, even more tax cuts for their rich donors.
They remain confused that despite their best efforts over nearly 40 years, the economic miracle never, ever happens. I keep reminding them it's like going to your boss and asking for a pay cut because you're in debt up to your eyeballs and can't keep up with your bills.
"For those of us who have been crossing our fingers and going to church on Sunday, it didn't work," Vos (Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester) Vos, said of the flat tax projections. "We'll figure a way to make it all work out in the end."
(my addition in italics is for clarity, bolding is also mine to emphasize the stupidity)
The stupid .... it burns.
Of course it didn't work. But Republicans are filled with belief (now apparently accompanied by prayer, rabbits feet and 4 leaf clovers) that if they keep on cutting taxes for the rich that one day it's going to work. Apparently that Koch money comes with extra added brainwashing, too, that enable pesky facts and a long history (40 years for anyone counting) of failure to be continuously ignored.
Reality bites.
It's been so easy for them to avoid responsibility for over 4 years. They blamed Democrats and unions and protesters and liberals. Their faithful media stenographers spread the word. But now, they've owned the place for over 4 years, had no protests, got rid of unions, and used their RW generated "who signed the recall petition list" to ensure that signers don't get hired or use their signature to pigeon-hole them as ideologues who should be denigrated or ignored. Yes, a million people are now considered to be no-goodniks.
They have run the state into the ground and there's nobody left to blame. Small wonder they're stroking their good luck charms and praying so hard. Maybe they'll blame Jesus next.
Scott Walker, who should be governing, is off campaigning for President leaving GOP leaders to fend for themselves. While Walker is a slick career politician, the guys he left in charge are nothing more than clowns.
Before leaving the state to "visit" foreign countries and early primary states on the Wisconsin taxpayer dime while claiming he's not running for President, Scott Walker dumped another austerity budget into the hands of his Republican majority Legislature so they could shove it through for his signature.
Laden with even more enormous educational and social program cuts. an attempt to change the mission of our state university system (which was hastily removed after it was discovered and the lame excuses about it being included falling apart nearly as soon as they were concocted), removal of authority for a citizen advisory panel overseeing the Department of Natural Resources, removal of funding for the Citizens Utility Board (so utilities can raise their rates without opposition), and much more horror, it's hit more potholes than Wisconsin drivers (an inside Wisconsin joke because Walkers first 2 budgets removed most of the state shared revenue which led to no money for road repair).
On top of the massive cuts to go even further than his 2 previous budgetary gutting of Wisconsin, Walker included a sweet $220 million to help finance a new arena that the billionaire owners of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team want. They claim that the current arena, The Bradley Center, built in 1988, needs to be replaced (yeah, it's just fine, but billionaire owners want bragging rights over how they got the peasants to build them a brand new, shiny, expensive pyramid to make them happy). Frankly, Milwaukee area taxpayers are STILL paying for a brand new shiny expensive pyramid for the owner of the always losing Milwaukee Brewers baseball team and I'm sick and tired of paying the tab for billionaire whims.
Walker is well accustomed to pleasing billionaires and following their orders at the expense of the citizens and taxpayers he claims to care about (when campaigning). However, the dire fiscal report today has him at least pretending to backtrack on his billionaire giveaway for now.
So severe were Walkers additional educational cuts (he cut nearly $2 billion in his first budget) that even Republican legislators were insisting on providing more money in the budget. With zero growth, there isn't any money and they are certainly not going to change their ways with eliminating corporate taxes and providing loans and subsidies even for businesses that steadily outsource jobs ("investing" in Scott Walker always provides a great big return on the money donated).
(from the first linked article)
Top Republicans signaled they could also increase vehicle registration fees to limit proposed borrowing for state roads. But legislative leaders said they wouldn't delay the phase-in of previous tax cuts or stop expansion of private taxpayer-funded voucher schools to undo more of the $300 million in proposed cuts to the University of Wisconsin System over two years.
To reduce the record $1.3 billion in bonding for road building sought by Walker, Nygren and Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), a co-chair of the budget committee, said they were considering vehicle registration hikes of $25 to $35 a year. The current fee is $75 for automobiles and more for some light trucks.
A $25 fee increase on automobiles and light trucks would raise $204 million over two years.
(information in italics is my addition)
Road builders are major donors to Scott Walker and Republicans so road building projects are heavily financed in Republican budgets. Existing roads in cities and counties are falling to shit, but new road construction is booming.
As long as it's not a "tax", Republicans don't have a problem increasing it. Vehicle registration already costs $75/year - a real burden for low income workers who need to drive to work and seniors. Increasing it to $100 or 110 makes it worse for them. And look at how quick they are to continue the already scheduled tax cuts for the rich from the previous budgets. Perhaps they think that the Trickle Down Fairy will visit this time.
Not one of them thinks that using last years surplus to add even more tax cuts to their 2011 ongoing series of tax cuts was a big mistake. Nor are they thinking about eliminating the scheduled tax cuts to improve state revenue.
Walkers budget doesn't include a scheduled debt payment either. He's deferring it the same way he deferred paying the bills when he was Milwaukee County Executive. He just kept borrowing and deferring the payments until he shipped himself off to Madison to be Governator. Yes, we're still paying the bills he left behind. Of course, he's doing the same thing to Wisconsin (on steroids) because he expects billionaire money to put his fanny in the White House in 2016 and he can leave his mess behind again.
Democrats are outraged at the budgetary malpractice:
"Earth to Walker: It's not working. We know it's not working," said Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee).
"This is tea party budgeting," Barca (Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha) said. "And tea party budgeting is not working for Wisconsin."
(information in italics is my addition for clarity)
Scott Walker is busy (pretending he's not) running for President and spending nearly all of his time out of state while the state he is supposed to be running is imploding. His 2014 reelection campaign promise of "only wanting to be Governor of Wisconsin" turned into a lie right after the polls closed.
It's the Scott Walker Way - get elected to a public office and use that office to campaign for your next higher office. Campaign uber alles. And he doesn't have to clean up the mess he made.
FRIDAY NEWS DUMP UPDATE:
It's Friday, so here come the dumps (already):
Facing looming fiscal disaster, Scott Walker is chiming in on the proposals that have been put on the table to deal with zero growth in tax revenue. He's declared an increase in vehicle registration "off the table" to fund road construction (i.e. repaying the campaign investment by the road builders):
"A vehicle registration fee, you have no choice," Walker told reporters at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee. "If you want to drive, you have to pay it. And to me, if you don't have a choice, it's a tax.
"And, so, unless it's offset somewhere else, which I don't see any realistic path to that — to me, I think adding new revenues, whether it's a gas tax or vehicle registration fee, I think that goes at odds with what I said during the campaign."
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. Not that the fee increase is off the table, but that Scott Walker is actually, physically
in Wisconsin! Since election night he's barely stepped foot in the state he told voters was the only job he wanted.
Increasing the gasoline tax is similarly off the table with Republican members of the State Legislature who prefer not to piss off gas guzzling, status symbol SUV and pickup truck owners in their voting base.
Walker already borrowed $991 million for road construction 2 years ago - an amount Republicans in the State Legislature called "unsustainable". So what will he do to pay back his major campaign donors by keeping road construction going?
WALKER KILLS OFF AGENCY MERGERS DUE TO ANOTHER ATROCIOUS WEDC AUDIT
Oh, yeah. WEDC keeps on failing.
Part of Walkers budget merged a few state agencies into the Wisconsin Employment Development Corporation (WEDC), a quasi-private organization he created (and put himself as head) in order to "create jobs". It's been anything but a job creator except for creating jobs for political cronies and the offspring of Walker donors.
WEDC has mostly been used to funnel tax breaks and subsidies to Walker donors. Within a couple of years, audits showed that not only did WEDC lose track of those loans (and whether or not any had been repaid), but also didn't hold businesses accountable for creating jobs or preventing outsourcing.
In his latest budget, Walker proposed "streamlining" (i.e. cutting) government by merging several unlike agencies to save money and to bring other agencies under the control of WEDC despite that agency's history of miserable failure. The latest audit, released today, is equally bad:
The audit released Friday found:
■ Companies receiving state incentives were not always required by contract to submit information such as payroll records to verify the job creation and retention targets contained in those contracts.
■ In 2014, WEDC decreased its balance of past due loans by $4.2 million by amending 13 loan contracts to defer loan repayments, writing off nine loans, and forgiving two more.
■ In its policies for awarding tax credits, WEDC did not include all of the requirements contained in state law. Agency officials also did not consistently evaluate whether businesses met all the eligibility requirements that were included in its policies.
■ WEDC's October 2014 economic development program report didn't contain accurate and complete information on program outcomes such as the numbers of jobs created and retained. In addition, WEDC didn't verify the accuracy of information submitted by companies on the numbers of jobs they had created and retained using taxpayer money.
■ WEDC staff waived loan origination fees of $114,000 for five companies despite the fact that policies at the time didn't allow that. The agency has since stopped requiring the fees.
Most of the auditors' recommendations can be summarized in two suggestions: ensuring that WEDC's policies reflect the requirements placed on the agency in state law and that its staff then follow those policies.
Walker is now shelving his planned mergers.
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