THIS IS WHY PEOPLE TURN AGAINST POLITICS

Can we just accept the fact that James Doyle will go down as one of the least trustworthy governor's in the history of Wisconsin? OK, if you won't go that far, how about one of the most ethically challenged? Still won't go that far? How about most fiscally irresponsible? Why the outrage? Simply put, the news of the past week shows just how far the Governor and his party will stoop to secure their electoral future at the risk of our children and grandchildren. Let's present the evidence:

DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I PROMISED
Back in 2002, when Doyle was running for governor, he made the following statement -“I have said this before and I'll say it again, I believe that the state budget is a powerful and important financial document, but should not be a political vehicle to hide hundreds of policy items that deserve separate consideration and debate.” Now that is the kind of leadership Wisconsin was looking for. Except that seven years later, with his party controlling both houses, Doyle has done a complete 180-degree turn and is trying to use the budget to shovel through controversial issues which demand their own day in the sun for debate.

In Wisconsin, it has been common practice for more than a decade to take all items that do not directly relate to the budget out of the document before the debate begins. Governors have stuck these items in their budgets, hoping they would pass under the radar screen and keep some special interest group happy. The Joint Finance Committee would then remove the items, issue some press releases railing on the Governor (if he was from the other party, of course), try and stick some of their pet issues into the budget and start the process all over again.

Therefore, on Tuesday, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, a non-partisan agency, issued a list of 80 policy items in the budget, which included such issues as repealing the QEO and banning smoking in public places. Republican lawmaker Robin Vos had requested the list. Ready to debate the budget? Well, not quite.

The Bureau also wrote a memo for the chairs of the Joint Finance Committe, Mark Miller and Mark Pocan, both Democrats, with a different set of criteria for identifying non-fiscal items, which included any "item (that) has no effect on state appropriations or state or local revenues in the 2009-11 biennium" and that the provisions "could be accomplished without statutory directive, such as reports, studies, and audits." LFB identified 11 items of the 80 in the first memo that have a state or local fiscal impact.

Miller and Pocan identified 45 non-fiscal items they plan to pull from the budget, including photo enforcement for traffic violations, reassigning executive branch employees and doing away with a requirement for a cost-benefit analysis before entering into state contracts. They left in the repeal of the QEO, a statewide smoking ban and various tort reforms, including changes on requirements for car insurance and joint and several liability, and establishing domestic partner benefits. Needless to say, each of these items would generate a healthy and wide-ranging debate if they were held up on their own merits under separate legislation. I am not saying that I am opposed to each of these issues, but let's give them their day in court, or at least the Capitol.

Of course, it costs money to implement all of these changes, and that is where this debate starts to have an impact on your wallet...

ROSY GLASSES FOR ALL
In 2007, Governor Doyle delivered his budget address for the current bienium. He said that it had "taken a long time to recover from the financial mess created in the 1990s, but this is the budget that turns the corner." He pointed out his budget had created a small surplus in 2005 and a surplus in 2007, though most economists will argue that if we used standard, accepted accounting rules, and stopped the gimmicks of fund transfers and conviently moving obligations out to future budgets, neither budget would have shown a "real" surplus. The kicker in his speech came when he promised "a surplus of $130 million in 2009. Now that’s progress."

Where is that surplus? Buried under a $5.9 billion deficit, which the Governor has now deftly blamed on the policies of the Bush administration, despite the fact that he has introduced four state budgets, each containing structural deficits and raised state spending 32 percent. Of course, Doyle will waive his magic wand, and the deficit will vanish, thanks to $4.5 billion in stimulus money, $3 billion in additional taxes, and another overly-optimistic view of the future. The Doyle administration is projecting general fund tax revenue growth of 2.5% in Fiscal Year 2010 and 4.1% in 2011.

All this shows is that the Governor was a poor student of economics, and even less intelligent when it comes to history. According to the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, during the mild recession of 2001, it took the state three years to see any real revenue growth. I use the term mild in comparison to the deep, dark recession we are currently in. Would it not be better to take a more pessimistic view of the future in order to build in safeguards and failsafe measures for the proposed budget? Not when you makes claims that your proposed budget will help the middle class

SO WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU AND ME
The bottom line is that you and I will pay more to Madison, at the same time economic worries are at an all-time high for this era. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau analyzed the Doyle budget, and estimated that it would increase property taxes for the median Wisconsin home by $91 (a 3.2 percent increase) on this December’s tax bill and another $134 (another 4.5 percent increase) the following year. Senate Republican Leader Scott Fitzgerald, who hails from Dodge County, pointed out that "while the report estimates that the median-valued home will lose approximately $6,800 in value over the next two years, the owners of that same home will be forced to pay $316 more in property taxes." This from the same governor who railed on his predecessors' budgets for “expensive new programs,” the “excessive use of one-time money,” and “runaway deficits”.

Mark Pocan, one of the men responsible for the inclusion of the non-fiscal items in the budget debate, has even go so far as to claim that the budget "goes to great lengths to minimize negative impacts on average working families." He also claims that we paid more annually in state taxes under the Thompson-McCallum administrations. Excuse me, but Pocan has shown he is another poor student of history. Wages were increasing, home values were increasing, and we actually had s budget surplus during that time. That is not the case today.

In the end, there is only two certainties in this classic case of he said, she said, they said. Wisconsinites need to stop making jokes about Illinois' former governor, when our own has shown his past promises aren't worth the paper they are written on. And we are all going to pay now and later for the failure of our state's leaders to make tough decisions at the risk of alienating their base for the benefit of our state.