MADNESS IN MADISON

Ok, can we all admit now that the Governor's budget skills were less than honest and forthright? It is time to STOP electing people who cannot say no to spending. NOT ONE mention in this article about cutting taxes...

Madison - Gov. Jim Doyle gave a grim assessment of the state budget Tuesday, saying the deficit would top $5 billion through mid-2011, making it by far the biggest budget gap in state history. The Democratic governor also endorsed plans to impose taxes on oil companies and hospitals - ideas he has pushed for two years but that Republicans who controlled the state Assembly blocked. Doyle's tax proposals have a much better chance after last week's election because Democrats will now run both houses of the Legislature and the governor's office.
Doyle said he hoped to avoid increases in the sales tax and income tax, but could not rule them out. "Let me just say this: I am going to do everything humanly possible to avoid any general tax increase," he said. "We got through the last significant deficit (in 2003) without raising taxes and that is what I really want to accomplish here. I just want to say, having said that, if you finally get to a point where you would just have to destroy schools or have such high tuition increases at the university that ordinary people wouldn't be able to afford it, you know, then you have to look at everything. But I think people know me well enough by now to know that I work to do these budgets and I've worked very, very hard to do them without tax increases." The $5 billion shortfall includes up to $500 million in the current budget, which runs through June 30. Doyle stressed the deficit may continue to balloon as the scope of the national economic crisis becomes clear. When Doyle came into office in 2003, he inherited what at the time was a record deficit of $3.2 billion. He balanced that budget, but each subsequent budget has opened with a sizable gap between revenues and expenses. That's because Republicans and Democrats have solved each budget with one-time fixes, relying on accounting tricks, increased borrowing and transfers from the state's transportation fund. Now, resolving the budget gap will be the sole responsibility of Democrats. Democrats captured the Assembly in Tuesday's election for the first time in 14 years, giving Democrats a lock on running the government.

And of course, this comes from the Democratic Part chairman. At least he admits there will need to be some spending cuts.

State Democratic Party Chairman Joe Wineke said today that Democrats who control the Capitol should consider a temporary increase in the income tax to fix the state budget, as long as they also cut some spending programs. “Sometimes, you just have to bite the bullet,” Wineke said in an interview with a Journal Sentinel reporter on the WisconsinEye public affairs network. He said he thought voters would understand a one-time surcharge to finally fix the state’s budget, which he said has been running a deficit since the 1990s. Wineke was the second Democratic official to call for a temporary increase in the income tax to fix the 2009-’10 budget, which Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle has said faces a budget deficit of more than $3 billion. Former Gov. Tony Earl made a similar suggestion in an interview last week. In 1983, Earl signed into law a 10% temporary income tax surcharge to pay for state services in the face of another national recession.

Try this on for size tomorrow. Go into your boss' office and say you need a wage increase of, say 10 percent. But you are also willing to cut back your spending, but at a percentage you won't disclose. Think he will go for it?