Curmudgeon's Corner
cur-mud-geon: anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner
Badger Budget Re-Visited
The budget put to bed by the Democrats and Governor Doyle last week contains some bad news, actually quite a bit of bad news. That bad news will continue to seep out over the next weeks and months.
First, we are now being told that the new budget was put together with the knowledge that it contained a $2 billion structural deficit based upon a state review just released. Given the economic problems and the likely loss of tax revenue at the state level, we'll fall short $2 billion by the end of the current two-year budget period. Nothing like continuing to spend, spend, spend when there is a hole in your wallet.
We were all told, of course, that the "budget hole" had been fixed. I guess that is similar to being told that our taxes are not going up. We all ought to know better by now.
Second, we in Germantown are being hit with school revenue sharing cuts that are currently estimated to be about a 9% reduction over last year. That percentage amounts to some $1,225,000 that will have to be "found" in the Germantown School District. There are some who maintain that the school revenue sharing cuts have been made in largely Republican areas. I've not taken the time to look at that possibility but it is intriguing.
Remember, this is the same budget that killed the QEO rules and that significantly loosened the controls over the arbitrators who will now be deciding the amounts that teachers and other WEAC members will receive each and every year.
The school district will have to increase class size and eliminate teachers, and very likely will be unable to avoid increasing its tax needs even then thus raising our property taxes, as well.
Finally, remember that this is all laying at the doorstep of the governor who is now being "cute" and "coy" so far as telling us if he is going to run for a third term. He is sitting on $10 million in campaign funds and he doesn't seem to be attracting any kind of neat job offers from President Obama. It seems that the president doesn't want Doyle on his hands either, but is more than happy to leave us dangling out here on the very limb (the Wisconsin economy) on which Doyle is chopping.
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The Curmudgeon Blog today is titled "GOP of NO".
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