FUBAR Financing
by Kerry Thomas
July 25, 2009
Methinks wisconsin State Senator Jim
Holperin doth protest
too much.
In his attempts to rebut a
critique by Tom Tiffany of his first six months in the Democrat-controlled
Wisconsin Senate, Senator Holperin parrots the Democrat talking point that the
Democrats “eliminated a $6.6 billion deficit, and left the
state with a $270 million surplus.”
Two observations here:
Where else but in the minds of these liberal politicians can
you steal money from segregated funds, including stealing
money from the e911 emergency dispatch fund, and call it balancing the
budget? Where else but in the minds of
liberal politicians can you borrow $2.2 billion and say you’ve balanced your
budgets? Where else but in the minds of
liberal politicians can you increase spending by 7% and call it a cut?
Senator Holperin says suspending Stewardship funding for two
years would “save only
$7 million …saving
$7 million on Stewardship would not eliminate one single tax or fee increase.
You'd need $2 billion more in cuts to do that.”
So let’s see. If you
save “only” $7 million from one program, that wouldn’t be enough to balance the
$6.6 billion budget deficit?
Shazam! Good enough reason not
to save $7 million.
Senator Holperin asks how sending more state money to Milwaukee private schools
make sense? Here’s how, Senator.
First, it’s
called School Choice, choice being the operative word in this program. Parents are given a certain dollar amount to
be paid to the school of their choice in order to pay for their child’s
education. These dollars are less than
the total amount spent per-pupil by the local public school. If the parents choose to send their child to
a private school, the private school gets the money. It also means the public school doesn’t have to spend the higher
per-pupil dollars to educate that child.
The child gets a better quality education, and the public school spends
less.
As Tiffany
pointed out “The Wall Street Journal estimated taxpayer savings at $180 million
since school choice originated. “
Senator Holperin asks “What about Trinity Lutheran? Where's the state help for them?” Good question, Senator. Why won’t you expand School Choice state-wide? (Oh, that’s right. Some of the Democrats’ biggest campaign contributions come from the teachers’ unions, who’d actually have to compete against private sector schools for those School Choice dollars.)
According
to Senator Holperin “five programs make up about 83% of all general
tax-supported spending (school aid, medical assistance, courts/prisons, the
University, and local aid (shared revenue))….’belt tightening’ means cutting
some or all of these five programs. You can't get enough spending cuts to
prevent tax increases any other way.”
Deficits
aren’t caused by a lack of revenue.
Deficits are caused by excessive spending.
No one is
suggesting the State cut all funding for any of these five programs. Simply freezing the funding levels or
reducing them by a small percentage would go a long way towards balancing the
budget.
Senator
Holperin’s statement is true - if you use FUBAR financing.
Under
bureaucratic FUBAR financing, simply spending the same dollar figure from one
year to the next is a spending cut.
Actually reducing the dollars spent, even if only by 1-2%, is too
drastic a measure. But Senator Holperin
insists his 7% spending increase balanced the budget.
And of
course Democrats couldn’t possibly find any way to reduce, or just freeze, the
UW system budgets. (That was one of
those five programs that make up for 83% of tax-supported spending.)
I noticed
Senator Holperin never addressed Tiffany’s claim that the Senate Democrats
added 21 policy items and 24 pieces of pork to their budget, which will cost
Wisconsin taxpayers over $48 million. I
guess that must have been another one of those “only $48 million” items, right
Senator?
One other
little item that slipped its way into the budget battle was the repeal of the
QEO. No longer will school districts be
forced to ask the taxpayers before they raise spending. No longer will teachers’ unions be forced to
live with a 3% increase in pay every year.
Can you say “hike my property taxes.”
Why is it
that government bureaucrats can never manage to live within our means? Remember how the Lottery was going to reduce
property taxes? Remember about 25 years
ago when Wisconsin faced a similar budget situation? I’m sure Senator Holperin does, as he was in the Assembly back
then. The Democrat solution then was to
“temporarily” raise the state sales tax from 4% to 5%.
FUBAR
financing. Available wherever liberal
Democrats control your government.