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11/25/2008
Burri: Why Gov. Doyle is exaggerating a crisis
We’ve seen deficits in Wisconsin before, but nothing like this. This is the Mother of All Deficits – a budget hole so big we might not be able to fill it, no matter what we do.
At least, that’s according to Governor Jim Doyle, who announced late last week that revenues are way, way down. State tax revenues are expected to fall 2.2 percent during this fiscal year (ending June 30), and 3.9 percent next year.
That, combined with the deficit we were already expecting, puts Wisconsin in the red by $5.4 billion.
Makes you wonder if Wisconsin isn’t “too big to fail.”
But wait! Is it really that bad?
Todd Berry, president of the non-profit Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, says Gov. Jim Doyle's new estimate of a $5.4-bllion budget deficit between now and mid-2011 is "unreal" and based on "double counting."
In an interview, Berry said the $5.4-billion number assumes that state agencies will get an additional $2.8 billion in spending they requested for the next two years -- a "fictitious" assumption.
See, Governor Doyle is calculating the “deficit” as if the agency requests are a done deal. As if state agencies will get everything they want, simply by having asked for it.
They won’t, or they shouldn’t. If Governor Doyle simply says “no budget increases,” then boom. Over half the “deficit,” wiped out. Fell swoop.
Sure, what’s left is still pretty big, but it’s not unprecedented. It’s not historic. It’s not entirely ridiculous in its size.
So why, do you suppose, is Governor Doyle out trumpeting the bigger, scarier number? It’s as though he wants a historically, ridiculously enormous deficit.
In fact, he probably does.
This is the Commander Scott theory of forecasting. You remember Commander Scott – “Scotty,” chief engineer of the starship Enterprise. The guy who coined the phrase “he’s in a wee bit of a snit, isn’t he?”
His method of securing his own reputation: estimate that any repairs to the ship will take far longer than they’ll actually take. He can’t change the laws of physics, Captain, but he can make it look like he is.
Back to Jim Doyle, who can’t change the laws of accounting, Captain, but can make it look like he is.
Over-estimating the deficit equals political cover. Cover from Republicans, sitting in their tree stands just waiting for those tax increases to trot by. Cover from special interest groups. And, maybe most importantly, cover from his own party.
Governor Doyle can see the writing on the wall: he knows there’s a vast pool of unresolved liberal ambition out there. The dam is straining. About to burst. And the more water that gets through, the more voters will want to shore that sucker up.
That puts Doyle – up for re-election in 2010 – in a bit of a spot. He can’t simply stand by and watch his fellow Democrats do all the things they really want: raise taxes, kill School Choice, give illegal aliens citizen-like privileges, raise more taxes, take over health care, make Wisconsin a welfare Mecca, and destroy the school funding system which, flawed or not, has held property taxes in check for a dozen years.
That’s a recipe for electoral disaster.
But he can’t disappoint the liberal and Democrat grassroots, either. So. He creates – or, rather, exaggerates – a crisis. Uses faulty numbers to make the budget look really, really bad. Come 2010 – he hopes – he’ll have successfully triangulated between Republicans and Democrats and, more importantly, he’ll be a media hero for “solving” the “biggest budget deficit in Wisconsin history.”
He’s got to be thinking: if only the agencies had asked for even more!
Lance Burri is a contributor to the Badger Blog Alliance and occasionally blogs at his own site as well.
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| 2009 |
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• Important votes Tuesday, including Appleton Common Council
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• Speaker Huebsch: Governor turns down Federal Aid?
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• I'm doing the Jerry Bader Show, today, the 11th
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• AASD Retirement Costs Burdensome
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