No Runny Eggs

So, the bipartisan Party-In-Government is about to “fix” a $652.3 million deficit in the current budget with, at least in part, what is claimed to be $69 million in reduced spending. Let’s take a look at what the state spent out of the general fund last fiscal year (numbers courtesy the Department of Administration) and what they’re going to spend out of it this fiscal year and next fiscal year, both with the present budget and with the semi-negotiated “fix” (numbers courtesy the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, with a $125 million upward adjustment to the “fix” for school payments pushed into the next budget, a net $121 million upward adjustment related to the tobacco re-refinancing, and a $69 million downward adjustment for the unspecified cuts the LFB considers “revenue”):

General spending in FY2007 doubled – $26.662 billion
General spending in FY2008-FY2009 current budget (as of now) – $27.952 billion
Net increase of spending in the current budget over FY2007 doubled – $1.290 billion (or if you prefer an averaged annual increase, $645 million per year)
General spending in FY2008-FY2009 “fix” (includes a net $177 million in upward adjustments outlined above) – $27.969 billion
Net increase of spending in the “fix” over FY2007 doubled – $1.307 billion (or if you prefer the averaged annual increase, $653.5 million per year)
Net increase in spending in the “fix” over the current budget – $17 million

That’s right, sports fans. The bipartisan Party-In-Government is planning on using a self-created budget crisis to increase spending even more. It’s time to send this barrel of pork back to the drawing board.

If you’ve read anything this morning, you know that Fred Kessler (D-Milwaukee) is pushing for an effective perpetual appointment of Supreme Court justices, with automatically-renewing 10-year terms unless a supermajority of 21 state Senators vote to revoke the appointment. Now, Dan Bice, late of the Spice Boys but still with the Journal Sentinel, is reporting Red Fred is going to be facing disciplinary charges from the Office of Lawyer Regulation regarding his conduct during his wife’s hotly-contested judicial race in 2004. Bice doesn’t mention it, but if my memory serves, the final arbiter of those disciplinary charges is the same Wisconsin State Supreme Court that the voters just unpacked.

Revisions/extensions (6:20 pm 4/3/2008) – I get (uncredited) results; either Bice or Greg J. Borowski, who posted it on the All Politics blog for Bice, put in a mention that the complaint could well make it to the state Supreme Court.

Or am I just imagining things when I think of that when I see Jim “Craps” Doyle (WEAC/Potawatomi-For Sale) uttered this after us meddling voters undid his packing of the state Supreme Court – "It is a tragedy that such a fine judge and good human being was trashed during the campaign. Justice Butler has served with distinction and honor on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and I thank him for his fairness, his sense of justice and his lifelong commitment to public service."

No, it’s not a tragedy. It’s a sign of sanity.

Yes, he called it. The moonbat half of the Cheddarsphere is acting like there’s a full moon and they’re fresh out of blood.

I’ll get the popcorn.

Yesterday, the Senate ‘Rats voted to try to tax and spend their way out of a problem created by taxing and spending. What a fucking surprise; they’re ‘Rats after all. Higher taxes and higher gubmint spending is all they know.

Revisions/extensions (2:40 pm 3/26/2008) – This one’s too long to put in italics and keep XHTML validity because I have to put the tag before every single paragraph.

Oh, just for shits and grins, let’s do some math for the effects through June 2009 using the Journal Sentinel numbers (note; positive numbers are increases to the general fund, negative numbers are decreases from the general fund):

– Expected budget shortfall before Senate “action”: -$652 million (say, wasn’t that about the amount government grew?)
– Taxing out-of-state operations of multi-state companies: $130.5 million
– Reducing the corporate tax rate: -$5.2 million
– Taxing hospitals (at a rate of $416 million in exchange for $408 million in additional federal funds Medicaid taxes, not exactly a money-maker for the hospitals): $125 million to the general fund
– Playing with trains between Kenosha and Milwaukee: -$200 million (with the side “benefit” of increasing the car rental tax from $2 to $15 to pay for the “local contribution” to this boondoggle)
– School payment delay from June 2009 to July 2009: $125 million (do note that this bill comes due in the FY 2010-2011 budget)
– More child care subsidies: -$18.6 million
– Various spending cuts: $127 million (do note that this is not only the last item in the news story, but the one item that the Journtinel did not put a solid dollar amount on, noting that it was $40 million more than what Jim “Craps” Doyle wanted and $350 million less than what the Assembly wanted)
– Expected budget shortfall after “Senate” action: -$368.3 million

Not exactly a fix, sports fans. Do take special note of the actual effect of the hospital tax; the only entity making out in this is state government.

I find it rather interesting that some of the same actors attempting to silence Rick Esenberg and raising every specious “argument” against Judge Mike Gabelman are themselves silent about Justice Louis Butler’s very-cozy relationship with a Milwaukee law firm.

(H/T – Brian Fraley)

Assembly Minority Leader James Kreuser (D-Kenosha) will run for Kenosha County Executive in a special June election, and said that, if he wins, he will run for re-election to that office instead of his Assembly seat. Since he was the odds-on favorite to become the third-most-powerful non-judicial politician in Wisconsin (Assembly speaker) if the ‘Rats get a net of at least 3 seats in November, Brian says it’s safe to say that the Democratic Party of Wisconsin isn’t confident that Hillbama will have coattails that extend all the way down to Assembly races. One can dream that there is not any coattails, but that the 3-year-old conventional wisdom is completely wet.