Conservatively Speaking
State Senator Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) represents parts of four counties: Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, and Walworth. Her Senate District 28 includes New Berlin, Franklin, Greendale, Hales Corners, Muskego, Waterford, Big Bend, the town of Vernon and parts of Greenfield, East Troy, and Mukwonago. Senator Lazich has been in the Legislature for more than a decade. She considers herself a tireless crusader for lower taxes, reduced spending and smaller government.
They call this repairing the budget?
As you know, the Legislature approved and Governor Doyle acted on, with some vetoes, the budget repair bill. I voted against the budget repair bill because it didn’t repair anything.
The structural deficit at the time the governor signed the 2007-09 state budget into law (that I voted against because it increased taxes and fees by $763 million) was $896 million. A structural deficit occurs when spending is put off into the next budget cycle or spending commitments are made into the future without adequate revenue.
The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB), the highly regarded analysts who crunch all the budget numbers for the state, has released a memo reporting that following the enactment of the budget repair bill (2007 Act 226), the structural deficit has ballooned to $1.682 billion dollars.
How is this a budget fix?
This kind of budgeting is risky and irresponsible. We have merely created another budget crisis for the near future.
The state needs to get far more serious about getting its fiscal house in order, once and for all.
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