Wisconsin: State budget shortfall projected at $928 million over two years

[Scuba]

Kansas, Part II


http://bloggingblue.com/2015/01/state-budget-shortfall-projected-at-928-million-over-two-years/

But remember, Gov. Walker’s fiscally responsible!

To keep the state doing what it does now through mid-2017, Gov. Scott Walker and lawmakers have to come up with $928 million in spending cuts or tax increases, according to estimates released Friday by the Legislature’s budget office.

The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau found that to continue current operations, state officials have to find $283 million this year plus another $648 million over the following two-year budget beginning July 1.

The shortfall in the state’s main account becomes even larger — more than $2 billion — in the unlikely event elected officials seek to provide all of the added spending requested by agencies through June 2017 and the additional tax cuts promised by Walker in his successful re-election campaign last year.

Not to be cynical, but somehow I suspect Wanker will use this self-created (via tax cuts for wealthy donors) fiscal crisis to further punish the poor by cutting Medicaid services and further erode our public schools.

[BeyondGeography]

1. Trés original!

[alterfurz]

2. lather, rinse, repeat...

[Still In Wisconsin]

3. looks like the UW System is going to take a massive, massive hit

I work at a UW System Campus, and we're being told to expect something "orders of magnitude more severe that the reductions we saw in Walker's first budget." This from a person I trust who is not at ALL prone to hyperbole.

[Scuba]

4. Education is the enemy of oligarchs. Welcome to DU, from another 'still in Wisconsin'. I'll ...

... stay and fight these criminals 'til the end.

[Still In Wisconsin]

5. I'm not going anywhere either.

I have two kids in school who would be uprooted. My wife has a job she likes. Add to that the fact that I am fifty years old and in academia that makes me basically un-hirable for anything more than temporary/adjunct type positions.

But the bottom line is this is our goddamned state. Badgers don't give up their den, they rip the living hell out of whatever tries to take their homes or harm their families. Walker is from Colorado (no offense meant toward Coloradans) and we're just his (well really his puppetmasters') little experiment/ test subjects.