Reports indicate the state is headed for a disastrous $5 billion state budget deficit. The worst way to get out of a hole is to keep digging, i.e., increasing taxes and fees. And yet, it seems Wisconsin will continue its fiscally irresponsible practice of increasing taxes and fees at a time when they are least affordable.

Case in point: The Wisconsin Division of Emergency Management wants to increase the fees for businesses that are required to file emergency planning notifications or that store hazardous chemicals by a whopping 35 percent. Wisconsin hasn’t increased the fees since they were first implemented in 1990 and now is not a good time to start.

More than 7,000 facilities in Wisconsin would be affected by the fee increases. Currently, the emergency planning notification fee is $800 per facility and would increase to $1,080 under the proposed rule. The inventory form fee would increase across all levels of reporting requirements, ranging from $205 to $1540. The emergency planning notification fee is a one-time fee. The inventory form fee is an annual fee.

The additional fees are expected to increase revenues by $471,000; however, there is a larger issue to consider. If this is any indication how the state, in general, is going to address its fiscal crisis, as compared to other states that are cutting rather than increasing taxing and spending, Wisconsin’s economic problems will only become more severe.

Once again, gimmicks and tricks were used to balance the state budget that I voted against.

The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance (WTA) reports, “Increased tobacco taxes, higher vehicle fees, and expanded health care for the poor are a few ways the 2007-09 state budget differs from its predecessors. But when it comes to “balancing the books,” new and old budgets have a lot in common: fund transfers, one-time or unsure revenues, accounting shifts, GAAP and structural deficits, borrowing, and slim balances.”

The state budget contains increased spending, tax increases and a huge structural deficit of $892-million the Legislature will have to grapple with in two years.

Here is the entire WTA report.

• Partial veto to remove references to eligibility criteria related to financial need.
• Partial veto to allow DOA to pay costs of operating the Office of the Wisconsin Covenant.

• Partial veto removes  non-fiscal policy items related to modifying board membership, eliminating limit on bonding and other changes.

• Veto removes independent purchase of telecommunications services.
• Veto removes requirement for information on instructors at registration.

• Veto removes levy limits on technical college districts.
• Veto removes limits on workforce advancement training grants to small businesses and statutory grant ceiling.

• Partial vetoes affecting loans for pulp and paper mill.
• Veto eliminates phaseout of PECFA program.

• Partial veto affecting CWD and Wildlife Damage Funding and language inhibiting the department’s pursuit of alternative solutions to the deficit facing the wildlife damage fund.
• Partial veto relating to JFC stewardship review because the review of land acquisitions should become effective with the reauthorized program on July 1, 2010.
• Veto affects the musky fishing season and catch and release bass fishing.

• Veto removes quarterly reports requirement.

• Veto affects several sections related to information technology requirements.

• Technical veto related to Kenosha County Circuit Court Branch 8.

• Vetoes affect juvenile correctional services deficit and limits on department flexibility to effectively manage juvenile corrections programs over time.

• Veto removes requirement DHFS request a federal waiver in order to offer health opportunity accounts to BadgerCare recipients and to provide the JFC an implementation plan.
• Veto affects requirement DHFS develop and implement disease management programs for conditions identified by health risk assessments for recipients and requires the programs be similar to programs developed and use by the Marshfield Clinic under the Physician Group Practice Demonstration.
• Veto affects requirement DHFS provide supplemental reimbursement to pharmacies participating in the Medicaid, BadgerCare and SeniorCare programs to compensate for any reduction in drug product costs reimbursements under the federal deficit reduction ac.
• Veto deletes report on FoodShare employment and training program participation.
• Veto deletes sunset of program for reducing fetal and infant mortality and morbidity.
• Veto deletes decrease in expenditure authority related to the Council on Developmental Disabilities because the provisions duplicate changes accomplished elsewhere in the budget.

• Veto restores original intent of allowing both firefighters and law enforcement officers the opportunity to use collectively bargained alternative disciplinary appeal procedures instead of circuit court.

• Veto removes three-tier liquor distribution system because “I object to inclusion of policy of this nature in a budget bill.”
• Partial veto affects inventory tax for moist snuff to make inventory tax consistent for cigarettes and moist snuff.

• Partial veto of levy limit language affects “restrictiveness” of the limit for 2007, “which would negatively effect the provision of police and fire services.” The veto will allow local governments to increase their levies for 2007 by either the percentage increase due to net new construction or 3.86 percent.

• Vetoes affect reports and approvals.
• Vetoes and write-downs affect state bicycle and pedestrian facilities program appropriations.
• Veto removes value engineering for highway improvement projects.
• Veto removes requirements for DMV service center operations.
• Veto removes authority of municipalities to issue permits for activities along state trunk highways within municipal limits when DOT has denied the project.
• Veto removes vehicle immobilization and impoundment for repeated parking violations language.
• Partial veto of construction schedule for STH 23 major highway development project because the proposed schedule is “unattainable and may negatively affect other highway projects.”
• Veto removes requirements for JFC supplemental funding for the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee Commuter Rail extension project “because it infringes on the department’s ability to continue preliminary work on the project to determine its scope and final feasibility.

Tonight the state Senate approved the state budget, 18-15. All Senate Republicans voted against and all Senate Democrats voted for the budget. The Senate approved the budget at about 7:40 pm. Here is the state Senate roll call.

The state Assembly approved the budget shortly before 7:00 tonight. The vote was 60-39. Here is the state Assembly roll call.

The budget process isn’t over. Governor Doyle now gets to review the budget and apply his powerful veto pen. Remember, the Governor vetoed into the last state budget a huge amount of spending that was never approved by the Legislature.

Stay tuned to my blog for further state budget updates.

In order to lower taxes in Wisconsin, one of the highest-taxed states in the nation, there must be reduced spending.

The budget compromise announced Friday night has, according to one of Governor Doyle’s aides who was quoted in the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel, an increase in spending of eight percent. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau reports the amount of spending in the compromise increases by 6.6 percent. The current rate of inflation is 2.76 percent. Wisconsin will never get a grip on its huge tax problem if it continues to approve budgets with runaway spending.

Wisconsin residents cannot afford this budget compromise. Wisconsin employers project average pay raises of 3.31% in 2008, down from actual increases of 3.39% this year and 3.4% in 2006, according to a survey of 300 companies by MRA-The Management Association Inc. based in Pewaukee.

Governor Doyle’s office has informed the Wisconsin State Journal the compromise leaves the state with an astounding structural deficit of $889-million. When residents in Wisconsin have some of the lowest per-capita income in America and can least afford more spending, it is irresponsible to approve a budget that once again relies on the VISA card.

This budget deal expands an already bloated state government by including items like the cigarette tax increase, Governor Doyle’s Wisconsin Covenant, and an expansion of BadgerCare. It also includes a raid of the Patient’s Compensation Fund.

We are told we are to be happy that after several months of delay, there has been a breakthrough in the budget stalemate. I am sorry but I find little reason, if any, to celebrate.

The idea should never have been to produce a budget just to have a budget. The appropriate end game should have been to secure a budget that is sound and strong and that puts the taxpayer first. Unfortunately, the taxpayer loses in this budget.

The Governor, Democrats, and editorial boards have perpetrated a great hoax on the citizens of Wisconsin. For months, they riled up Wisconsinites by proclaiming Wisconsin didn’t have a budget. This simply was untrue. Wisconsin was working off the 2005-2007 budget. The state continued to operate with an increase in revenue due to the growing economy. The increased revenues are funding state programs and services. There was not a budget crisis and there was not a rush to produce a budget, especially one that increases spending by eight percent.

Finally, this budget episode is a dramatic illustration that elections matter. In November of 2006, voters re-elected Governor Doyle and turned control of the state Senate over to Democrats. Many times in the past Governor Doyle has stated he would not raise taxes. His budget proposals speak otherwise.

Governor Doyle proposed a budget earlier this year that included $1.75- billion in tax and fee increases. Senate Democrats went even higher, proposing a budget that in one proposal alone, government health care, raised taxes by over $15-billion to start, the largest tax increase in the history of the United States.

The 2007-09 state budget needed to address the needs of taxpayers, first and foremost. The budget compromise fails miserably. For that reason, I cannot and will not be supporting the budget compromise.

Now that Governor Doyle has failed twice to get a budget through the state Legislature, he is resorting to scare tactics by threatening a partial shutdown of state government.

To hear the Governor speak, state employees would face layoffs, university campuses would close, and contracts with county jails would be cancelled.

The press keeps reporting that Wisconsin is the only state without a budget.

The fact is, Wisconsin has a budget. Wisconsin continues to operate under the 2005-2007 state budget. State employees are working. State programs and services are being administered.

The current state budget impasse is an embarrassment for Governor Doyle. Keep in mind, he proposed a budget at the beginning of the year. It is Governor Doyle’s budget and his job to work with and engineer it through the Legislature. Governor Doyle has proposed two irresponsible budgets that contain unacceptable levels of taxing and spending. Forty-nine other governors have managed to secure budgets. Governor Doyle has failed because he insists on incredible increases in taxes and fees that Wisconsin taxpayers cannot afford.

The Governor is now pressing the panic button, telling taxpayers that a government shutdown is possible because the state is running out of money. My question to Governor Doyle is: how did we get to this crisis?

Wisconsin is operating under a budget. It is now October, and Wisconsin is four months into a 24-month biennial budget. If we are to believe Governor Doyle that only four months into the biennial budget that Wisconsin is in danger of running out of money, where is all the money going, Governor? How and where are you spending it all?

Governor Doyle is desperately and frantically attempting to scare Wisconsin taxpayers to pressure the Legislature into supporting his bloated tax and spend budget. Don’t buy into this deplorable tactic.

Wisconsin Eye has video of the entire state Senate floor session from Monday, October 15, 2007 on its website.

You can watch the session here.

Go to 10.15.07 | State Senate Special Session Part 2.

Click on WATCH.

The segment that includes my floor speech begins at 2:17: 35 and ends at 2:30: 52

Today, I voted against Governor Doyle’s second budget proposal because of the high level of taxing and spending. My constituents overwhelmingly have told me it would be better to have no budget than a budget that has such huge increases.

In all my years in the Legislature, I have never seen the drastic differences in the amount of the budgets proposed by the Governor and Senate Democrats and the Assembly Republicans. The tax increases supported by Democrats are not only the largest increases in the history of Wisconsin, they are the largest increases in the history of America. Those increases are the defining difference between the budget philosophies of the two parties.

My constituents have many reasons that they oppose the Democrats’ budgets. Topping their list is the large increase in taxes.

The elderly approaching retirement age tell me they have had enough and are at the breaking point. Though they love Wisconsin, the tax burden has them reluctantly considering moving to another state.

Younger families with children in school do not have the out the elderly can utilize. It is more difficult for families to uproot themselves, so they stay and struggle to find a way to pay the bills that never seem to stop growing.

Our goal is to grow our economy and have successful schools, but the task becomes more difficult with a budget that proposes the largest tax increase in the history of the United States.

Other states have passed budgets months ago because they had better than expected revenues, in large part, because they held the line on spending. As a result, they are considering tax cuts or spending for programs like education and transportation. Don’t we wish this were the debate we were having today?

Senate Republicans offered an amendment today to take up the Assembly bill that funded K-12 education at the level the Governor proposed in his budget. The bill also funded local municipalities. I supported the amendment so that schools and local governments could address their budgets and not force huge property tax increases.

I urged Senate Democrats to behave with common decency and approve the education and local government budget.

Today’s action by the Senate Democrats is a clear indication they continue pursuit of massive tax increases and will not listen to overtaxed taxpayers. Wisconsin families cannot afford that kind of budget.

The state Senate will take up Governor Doyle’s second budget proposal at 1:00 this afternoon.

You can watch the state Senate floor session on Wisconsin Eye.

You may listen to the discussion on the Senate floor about the ramifications of the budget on state taxpayers.

The Wisconsin Department of Administration (DOA) has issued a report comparing estimated school aid numbers under the Governor’s budget and current law.

The Republican-controlled Assembly approved Assembly Bill 506 (AB 506) to fund local school districts while state budget negotiations continue. AB 506 funds school districts at the same level as the Governor’s budget. The Democrat-controlled Senate refuses to schedule Senate floor action on AB 506 to appropriate state school aid.

State Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster is using current law to prepare aid estimates for schools. The DOA’s report calculates the amount of aid that school districts may lose as a result of the Senate Democrats’ refusal to take action on AB 506.

The difference between the Governor’s budget and AB 506 funding of schools and current law is staggering:

Total statewide general aid under the Governor’s budget (AB 506 funding is identical) for 2007-08: $4, 713, 118, 878.

Total statewide 2007-08 general aid under current law, without an approved 2007-09 state budget: $4,626, 381,114.

There is a difference of $86, 737, 764 that school districts statewide will lose because Senate Democrats will not schedule a floor session to approve AB 506 to fund schools.

Remember this the next time Democrats claim Republicans do not care about public education.

The non-partisan Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance (WISTAX) has a report that attempts to explain the long delay in Wisconsin’s budget process. WISTAX says there are two obvious reasons for the stalemate:

“Two of these factors were prominent in three prior budget delays—one in 1971 and two in the 1990s. First, major disagreement over creation of a university system held up the first of the three budgets. Second, in all three cases, partisan control of the legislature was split, making compromise between the two houses difficult. Wisconsin is currently one of only 12 states with divided control.

This year, both issue differences and party politics are in play. The combination makes the 2007 budget unusually difficult to pass. Waged to an unusual degree on national rather than state issues, the 2006 election led state Republicans to lose three seats and control in the upper house and eight seats in the lower house. With U.S. politics largely unchanged from two years ago, Democrats sense an opportunity to expand their senate majority and to capture the assembly. Republicans, on the other hand, fear being shut out of state government leadership for the first time in a generation.

If one number best summarizes the current deadlock, then, it is 2-0-0-8. The political stakes are unusually high, and both major parties are aggressively positioning themselves for the next election. For Democrats, health care is both the banner under which they hope to run and the weapon they plan to use against their GOP opponents. For Republicans, tax hikes, mainly to fund expanded health care, are the issue they hope to use against Democrats. In a top-10 taxed state, they say Wisconsin taxpayers cannot bear proposed tax hikes. Whether the budget contains the tax/fee increases recommended by the governor ($1.75 billion, b) or by senate Democrats ($9.5b), the GOP views them as excessive.”

WISTAX also says the public and the pres are partially to blame for the budget impasse. You can read the entire WISTAX report here.