Late night passage of Wisconsin budget offers no changes
The mood has definitely changed in Madison. The Assembly passed the 2011-13 biennial budget without the crowds of protesters, throngs of press or cries of shame when the final vote arrived. Instead the Democratic caucus seemed resigned to the fact that they could not stop the bill they fought so long to halt.
That doesn’t mean there wasn’t dissent, as Assembly Democrats offered amendments to restore public school funding, stop the expansion of school choice, restore Earned Income Credits and end corporate tax breaks. But the 60-vote majority allowed the Republicans to easily table each one. Add to that the GOP leaders’ decision to hold this budget adoption in an extraordinary session, which would allow the suspension of the rule that requires a 2/3 majority to approve tax increases, and the Democrats didn’t have a chance to change the fiscal path laid out by Gov. Scott Walker.
The GOP reveled in the recent news from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau that the Joint Finance Committee’s budget would result in a $306 million surplus at the end of the 2011-13 biennium. Walker’s original budget proposal would have left a $31 million structural deficit heading into 2013-15. But the LFB added that the budget adopted by the Assembly (and soon to be adopted by the Senate) will increase property taxes on the typical Wisconsin home by $26 in the first year and $28 in the second. Walker’s would have only increased that tax by $23 and $13, respectively.
Additionally, the LFB released a memo earlier in the week that showed the JFC budget would increase fees by $111 million, something the Republicans said they wouldn’t do during last year’s campaigns. That fee increase and the shifting of funds from certain designated funds to the general fund was jumped on by dissenting Democrats.
Rep. Brett Hulsey (D-Madison) calls the measure “Walker’s Wasteland Budget” that is turning Wisconsin into a backwater state.
“I’ve lived in the south and this budget takes us backwards in every single category.”
But the Republicans could not be swayed as they took credit for doing what the taxpayers told them to do in November: balance the budget and restore fiscal sanity to the state. Tom Larson (R-Colfax) said he campaigned for his seat on the promise he would fix the budget, and he was happy to go home and tell the 12,000 citizens who voted for him that the Republicans got it done.
The budget will spend more than $66 billion over the next two years, cut public school funding by $1.6 billion, restrict spending and enrollment for public health and safety net programs and cut technical college and UW System funding.
A Long Day
Debate was to begin Tuesday but was rescheduled to Wednesday morning to accommodate Republican leaders waiting for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to hand down a decision on Act 10. No matter how the court ruled, the GOP leadership was ready to amend the budget presented by the JFC to reconsider the elimination of collective bargaining.
Once that was settled, the GOP still had loose ends to tie up before finally calling the session to order at 2 p.m. Wednesday. One of those loose ends was the elimination of expanding parental school choice to Green Bay. Not all Republicans are on board with the idea in both the Assembly and Senate, and the community was not completely sold on it either. JFC Co-Chairman Rep. Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said the legislature will reconsider the issue at a later date, after some public relations can be done in the community and the public’s temperature can be taken in regards to the feasibility.
Minority Leader Rep. Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) showed the same fire on the budget that he did in March when he battled the Budget Repair Bill.
“This budget is an attack on middle class families,” Barca said. “I cannot believe this is what your constituents sent you here to do.”
But Vos defended the budget bill, saying that voters sent them to Madison to clean up the mess created by the Democrats over the last two years.
“We said it was time for government to go on a diet and that is exactly what occurs in this budget.”
The Democrats offered over 30 amendments to restore funding, change policies and cut hidden taxes and fees. Each went down in defeat, most along straight party lines.
Education amendments
The Democratic caucus opened with an amendment to restore $1.3 billion to public K-12 education. They sought to implement the “Save Our Schools” proposal, halt the expansion of the school voucher program, require background checks for voucher school employees, restore funding for STEM and Gifted and Talented programs, move Walker’s Reading Task Force from the Department of Administration to the Department of Public Instruction and keep the maintenance of effort requirement for public libraries.
Vos argued that choice needed to be expanded to the Racine Unified School District, because its graduation rates, teen pregnancy and poverty levels are just as high if not higher than Milwaukee Public Schools. He said Milwaukee County has 86 teen pregnancies for every 1,000, while Racine County has 94 for every 1,000. Vos added that the graduation rate in Milwaukee among economically disadvantaged students is 60%, while Racine is worse at 52%. He credited school choice for the reason that Milwaukee is seeing better graduation rates than other impoverished counties.
“You have made it apparent that the status quo works perfectly fine, but I am not satisfied with that,” he said.
Rep. Cory Mason (D-Racine) responded to Vos with a memorable “Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining” reply.
Hulsey offered an amendment to freeze tuition to UW System schools once a student enrolls, restore technology grants and job training programs offered at technical colleges.
“The Walker Wasteland Budget devastates higher education,” Hulsey said. He added that the more one learns, the more one earns – citing statistics that show those with Associate degrees earn 23 percent and those with a Bachelor’s degree earn 66 percent more than a high school graduate.
A seperate amendment to restore funding to technical colleges, which were referred to by the Democrats as “taxpayer creators,” also failed.
Health Care Amendments
Numerous amendments were offered to restore or increase funding for BadgerCare, FamilyCare and SeniorCare. The GOP had reversed Walker’s plan to make seniors apply for Medicare Part D before being considered eligible for SeniorCare. But Democrats wanted a promise from the GOP that they would continue to seek the federal waiver that would maintain SeniorCare services. The impassioned pleas fell on deaf ears as each amendment to restore or extend medical services to citizens were tabled with majority partisan votes.
Then Theresa Berceau (D-Madison) rose at 11:15 p.m. to give her only statements on the floor. She pleaded with her Republican colleagues to restore funding for reproductive and preventative health services provided by clinics run by Planned Parenthood. Among the services offered are pregnancy screenings, STD testing and cancer screenings for both men and women. The GOP plan would eliminate services to over 12,000 people in nine counties.
“This plan to end reproductive services is like throw momma from the train,” she said. “You are doing this for an ideological reason at the bidding of a special interest. You are going after this service because you want to get rid of Planned Parenthood…you are penalizing these clinics because you want to stop clinics that provide abortions. This is an abomination, especially when I think of the women on the other side of the aisle who are willing to deny women access to health care.”
Berceau contacted the counties affected to learn if they could absorb the patients currently seeking services at the reproductive clinics. She said none of them said they could take on all of the clients that would be without care when the clinics closed.
“It would be nice if you would value the lives of all born women and not do this for your rabid base,” she concluded.
Her assertion that the move is influenced by pro-life forces on the right was confirmed by the comments of Andre Jacque (R-Bellevue).
“This would remove the Title V funds (dollars for maternal and reproductive care) from those facilities that provide abortions with taxpayer funds,” he said. “We should end Wisconsin and the nation’s largest abortion provider receiving tax dollars.”
His comments were more than Rep. Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee) could take. She told her colleaugues on both sides of the aisle to stop quoting Gandhi, talking about the dawn and dusk of life and other rhetoric.
“This budget shows we care about children,” she said, “until the minute they pop out of the womb. Then we say the hell with them. The hell with their education; the hell with their parents; the hell with them. This amendment is about STD screenings. It is about cervical cancer screenings and last but not least, it is about family planning.”
She added that Rep. Michelle Litjens (R-Oshkosh) was appalled by the number of births being paid for with state tax dollars, especially in Milwaukee.
“But when you have family planning in place those births go down. So if you’re concerned about that, why is your intention to rid us of a program that would end that? ”
The amendment was tabled on a 62-36 vote, with Reps. Peg Krusick (D-Milwaukee) and Tony Staskunas (D-West Allis) voting with the Republicans.
Policy Amendments
The Democratic Caucus attacked the GOP on alleged earmarks, pork and hidden policy changes in a fiscal bill. To end these moves, Barca offered the “Truth in Budgeting” amendment. This package would have removed all fund raids and bond refinancing from the budget, eliminated changes to WiscNet and restored federal broadband grants, repealed payday loan loopholes and auto title loan allowances, removed the sales tax exemption for junk mail, and repealed a $300,000 earmark for the Bay Area Medical Center in Marinette, along with a $10,000 earmark for the Sheboygan Space Station.
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison) said this amendment was being offered to “keep (the Republicans) honest by taking out the raids and earmarks” that they campaigned against.
Jorgensen had fun with the space station, beginning his comments with “Sheboygan, we have a problem.” He added that it wouldn’t be much of a space station for $10,000; but the state could probably get a lifetime supply of Tang for that kind of money.
“You’re choosing the Sheboygan Space Station instead of the Sheboygan children.”
The bill now moves to the Senate, where Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) has said a vote will be completed by Friday.
Any time a politicians says improve or reform they mean “it’s gonna cost ‘ya’. Walker is forcing the economy into his surreal altered reality world. I’m sorry, he is nuts.
And here, in this morning’s paper, is yet another sneaky: Item number 27. The statement judged by PolitiFact Wisconsin to be “mostly true” is “An amendment inserted by lawmakers into the state budget ‘exempts scientific researchers from all state animal cruelty laws.'”
And that’s just what it does!
Mercy!
Gov. Walker believes that the wealthy should rule the state, and his gutting of our public education system and shoveling money to expensive private schools is simply another means to favor the wealthy, to prevent the less well-off from being able to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, and to ensure that Wisconsin maintains a healthy slave population to help the rich get richer. What is even worse is that Walker thinks God told him to do this. You can convince people to do anything if you can convince them that the instructions came from God.
Yes. He cuts across the board with no attention to the big problems requiring more complicated solutions. Like he is cutting education in an already underfunded education system, saying vouchers and private schools will fill the void. He says the union bill is behind us. Is he really that daft?