Minor Thoughts from me to you

Jeremy Shown does his part to "explain to the kids" what Governor Walker's education cuts are and how students will be affected by them.

The student/teacher ratio here in Wisconsin is about 15 students for every teacher.  I suspect your class may have more than 15 students because this ratio probably includes teachers who specialize in small groups of students that need extra help.  Regardless, a ratio of 15 is right at the national average.  A political ad that is running on TV here in Green Bay alleges that the Governor's cuts to education could increase class size to "35 to 40 kids in a class."  Again, this sound like it is intended to scare people into opposing the governor.  It's too bad that so many people will be convinced by an accusation that is almost certainly untrue.

Worth a read and something I agree with.

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Scott Walker has intended to cut state spending by $2.4 billion all along. The Budget Repair Bill, that limits collective bargaining, was intended to give local governments more tools to reduce costs besides just eliminating programs.

Christian Schneider details some of the ways that Walker's repair bill will help cut costs.

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Wisconsin's Senate Democrats have finally proposed their own financial fixes, for the 2009-2011 budget shortfall. The Recess Supervisor pokes fun at it.

In other words, $79MM in additional cuts made by DOA that they say they can't find yet, $43MM of payments delayed to the 2011-13 budget that will cost us $7MM to execute, and a $43MM raid on the statutory balance requirement.

Man, this would make Jim Doyle blush.

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A revolt grows in Jersey - NYPOST.com

New Jersey voters just sent another loud reminder of their disgust with out-of-control taxes.

Of 537 school budgets up for a vote in the Garden State, 315 -- a whopping 59 percent -- went down in flames Tuesday.

That's more than the state's seen in decades.

Why so many rejections?

Because some 80 percent of those budgets sought property-tax hikes.

As if Jersey isn't already a national leader in property taxes.

As if ObamaCare, the stimulus and Washington's trillion-dollar deficits hadn't sent actual taxpayers into a lather.

Homeowners, in particular, have had enough.

Median tax bills in six Garden State counties are among the 10 highest in all of America. As a share of income, levies in Passaic and Essex lead the nation -- with Bergen, Union, Hunterdon and Hudson not far behind.

School boards -- and teachers unions that refused concessions -- must have been dreaming if they thought voters would rubber-stamp tax hikes yet again.

No, this time taxpayers were paying . . . attention.

Fact is, last November's election of Republican Gov. Chris Christie in Democratic New Jersey was no fluke.

Woo-hoo!

Governor Jim Doyle is once again threatening to shut down the Wisconsin government. He's so desperate to pass a budget, he's trying to scare us with stories of shut down prisons and canceled university classes.

"In order to fund essential services that are needed to protect the health and safety of Wisconsin residents, a partial shutdown may well be necessary. The Legislature's failure has left the state with no other option but to plan for the disaster they have caused."

For instance, the Department of Corrections and the UW System are expected to run out of money in April, he said.

Doyle said he needs to find significant cost savings in Corrections by then to keep running the prisons. That might mean canceling contracts with county jails that house some prisoners and furloughing workers, he said.

For the System's 13 four-year universities and 13 two-year colleges, the governor said it would be irresponsible to open the campuses for the second semester in January if they would have to close their doors in April.

Doyle said he doesn't have a date to put the plans in place and he would like "to put that off as long as possible."

Owen Robinson points out that the State has plenty of money to keep things running.

The state of Wisconsin is currently operating under the previous budget. Because of the natural increase in tax revenues from a growing economy, Wisconsin's government will actually take in about a billion MORE dollars even without any tax increases. Also, the budget included COL and other built in increases. So if a budget is not passed, Wisconsin can and will spend more money than it did last year.

If Doyle chooses to shut down government services even though they are getting as much or more tax dollars than last year, then he can have at it. It would show his utter weakness as an executive to manage the state. A manager from Best Buy could keep the store open without a budget increase. I would think that the governor could do at least that.

Once again, our governor is looking increasingly inept, incompetent, and powerless. Good. That's exactly how I like the executive branch to look. We don't NEED to pass a budget in order to keep the state safe and secure. Therefore, I don't think we should pass a budget until we get the right one. Right?

Last night, the State Assembly voted on Governor Doyle's new "compromise" budget. (The Democrat controlled Senate had passed it earlier in the day.) Thankfully, it went down in flames.

The path ahead for the stalled state budget was left in the dark Monday night as two Democrats and all but one Republican in the state Assembly voted to reject a compromise proposal by Gov. Jim Doyle, defeating the plan on a 53-44 vote.

A third Democrat who did not vote formally signaled he also opposed the proposal.

And in the wake of the defeat of the plan -- which earlier Monday was approved on a straight party line vote in the Democrat-led Senate -- neither side in the budget stalemate said they had any immediate new offer to put forward to end the impasse.

I bet you're wondering who that Republican quisling was. I was disappointed to learn that it was no other than my own representative, Brett Davis.

I've learned that when you're working on a nearly $58 billion budget bill with 132 other elected officials with strong opinions, you are not always going to get your way. It doesn't mean you have to give in, but there is a place for true compromise and it's time. Not just by the leadership of both political parties, but by every legislator that has a vote. This action must happen soon or state residents will soon see the dramatic impact of not having a budget. To me, no state budget is an unacceptable answer. I'm calling on my fellow legislators to join me. We must move the state forward.

Here's my response.

Dear Representative Davis,

I was disappointed to read of your vote in favor of Governor Doyle's budget, on Monday evening. I moved into your district in August of last year. Throughout the past 14 months, I've been watching your actions in the Assembly with great interest. I happily voted for your reelection last November and was pleased to see that you won reelection, in spite of a close race and a big effort from the Democrats. I looked forward to your continuing efforts on behalf of your constituents.

Today, I feel that you've let us all down. Governor Doyle's "compromise" budget was nothing of the sort. It still included an 8.3% hike in state spending -- at a time when the state still faces structural deficits. The budget also included unacceptable new taxes, for a state that's already one of the highest taxed in the nation.

Like many of your constituents, I believe that education and health care are important. However, I think we are smart enough to recognize that we must spend money in a responsible manner. Supporting Governor Doyle's goofy raise hospital taxes to lower hospital costs proposal is not responsible. Nor is supporting a $1.25 per pack increase in the cigarette tax.

You will be up for reelection in just 13 short months. If you had voted for a fiscally responsible budget, I'd have been willing to help explain to my fellow voters why your vote was the right one. If you had voted for a fiscally responsible budget, I'd have been willing to explain how the Democrats played politics with the budget in an effort to force Republicans into voting for an irresponsible budget. But, you voted for an irresponsible budget.

Fortunately, the budget failed. You have another chance. I'll be watching your upcoming votes. Are you willing to do the right thing? I hope so.

Sincerely,

Joseph A. Martin

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle said today he would call the state Legislature into special session to consider a compromise budget bill.

The Legislature is 100 days late in passing a new, two-year budget, and Wisconsin is the only state without a taxing and spending plan. Without a budget, the state continues at last year's taxing and spending levels.

Leaders of the Republican-led Assembly and the Democratic-led Senate have met in private with Doyle aides for more than two weeks but have not reached a compromise. The closed-door talks began at Doyle's insistence after a larger group of negotiators had previously made no progress in resolving differences between the two chamber's budget proposals.

The compromise bill Doyle said he would introduce for the special session is still being drafted. But he said it would include the full cigarette tax increase, a $418 million tax on hospitals and $430 million in spending cuts compared to his original $58.2 billion budget proposal. It would also include a transfer of an undisclosed amount from the medical malpractice fund.

The bill would not include Doyle's proposed tax on oil company revenues or deal with the state's road fund, which he said would be dealt with in a later special session.

Doyle also said his compromise would not include a $15 billion universal health-care plan proposed by Senate Democrats or an increase he previously proposed in a tax on people selling their homes.

I dunno. I still prefer going on with no new budget. The state will continue operating under the old one -- which means no new taxes and no new spending. I can think of worse things that could happen.

The Recess Supervisor has some commentary on the situation:

Mind you, Jim Doyle is currently working in a political environment where Corky Thatcher would look like Albert Einstein. What he's doing isn't exactly hard. He sits back, watches both sides look like idiots for three months, and now comes in to play the role of serious grown-up. The press and the public afford him all kinds of clout because Mike Huebsch and Judy Robson look like a couple of third-graders fighting over the lead in the school play.

Doyle, of course, is effectively forcing the AssGOP to show its hand. For months, Mike Huebsch has talked about compromise, while members of his caucus like Steve Nass are slipping out the back door and giving word to the base that the caucus isn't going to compromise and doesn't care if we have a budget. So there's seems to be a bit of disagreement on where, exactly, the AssGOP caucus stands on the budget.

I'm not saying that Doyle's bill can't be improved upon, or that further compromises cannot or should not be made. But it's high time that the AssGOP decides once and for all to fish or cut bait on this budget, and live with the consequences either way. Either it accepts that compromising with Democrats means raising some taxes, or it walks away for good and takes its case to the voters.

My money is on fish. There aren't enough zealots in that caucus to hold progress up.

The Capital Times is one of the local newspapers, here in Dane County, Wisconsin. I refuse to subscribe to it, as it's pretty much a mouthpiece for the local Democrat party and the "progressives" of Progressive Dane. My most frequent name for the Cap Times is "that liberal rag".

Ahem. I say all of that to set the stage for this article on the budget stalemate. For starters, it's titled "Republicans Face Tough Choices in Budget Battle". It start out like this:

As state budget talks drag on, Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, faces a series of increasingly difficult choices.

He can give Senate Democrats and Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle some or all of the tax and spending increases they want -- a move that would cost him support within his own party and could force him to seek up to 25 Democratic votes to pass the budget in his house.

Or Huebsch can exercise the so-called "nuclear option" by refusing to give in to the Democrats on taxes and blocking adoption of a final budget -- a move that would blow up the entire budget process and throw the state into fiscal uncertainty.

All of which is true enough, but incredibly slanted. After all, Democrats "face tough choices in the budget battle". They could compromise too. But they won't. And the Cap Times is on their side, so it pretends that only the Republicans can (and should) compromise. Instead that liberal rag presents the entire battle as one Republican obstruction after another. Never mind that the Democrats have ignored every budget compromise that Speaker Huebsch has presented.

I think what I'm trying to say is, there's two sides to every story. It'd be nice of the local papers ever presented more than one side.

I'm having fun watching the budget stalemate, here in Wisconsin. In case you weren't aware, we're the only state in the nation without a finished budget. Right now, our Governor is a Democrat, our Senate is controlled by the Democrats, but our Assembly is controlled by the Republicans. The Governor and Senate are pushing for a budget that includes new taxes and new spending. The Assembly is pushing for a budget with limited new spending and no new taxes.

So far, the Assembly is winning -- by virtue of the fact that they've gone 13 weeks without caving to Democrat demands and giving away the house on taxes. Frankly, I'm stunned. I never thought the Assembly Republicans had that much collective spine in them.

I think the Democrats are growing desperate. Despite supposedly having a superior bargaining ability, they've been completely unable to push through their preferred version of the budget. Now, they're proposing that police offers "arrest" any lawmakers who don't show up for budget negotiations and force them to negotiate.

Their "Budget Deadline Enforcement Act" is cute, but it can't pass without Republican backing. I think that's hilarious. The Democrats have been reduced to making empty threats to try to hide their impotence.

Fortunately, last year's budget stays in effect until a new one is passed. That being the case: Go, Republicans, Go!