Sunday, June 30, 2013

King Scott

By Jeff Simpson

While we all know Scott Walker did not have the intelligence, fortitude or work ethic to finish college, we have been given a glance at one of his favorite topics - folklore!

No not the stuff that Christian Schneider writes, but real folklore(you know fables that are at least based on reality)!  We will find out today when Scott Walker signs the most extreme regressive budget that this state has ever seen, that scott walker is a big fan of Robin Hood(luckily Disney made a movie so he could comprehend it).   Unfortunately for Wisconsin, it seems that he picked King Richard as his hero! 

As the nonpartisan Wisconsin Budget project points out...that this budget is "robin hood in reverse":

The Capital Times: How would you sum up this latest budget process?
Jon Peacock: The first word that comes to mind is "disappointing,” but that is such an understatement. Call it a "dismaying" budget because there were so many missed opportunities. Actually, this is a "Robin Hood in reverse" budget in a lot of ways.

"Robin Hood in reverse" because it takes from the poor to give to the rich?
Yes, and near the top is the fact that we diverted federal block grants intended for low-income families, used them to supplant state funding for the Earned Income Tax Credit, then used the state funds to help pay for tax cuts for the very well off.

What are the three worst things in the budget sent to the governor’s desk?
No. 1 would be inadequate support for public schools, coupled with the likely erosion of future support by opening up the vouchers statewide. No. 2 is the magnitude of the income tax cut that will create a large hole in the next biennial budget and insure the continued erosion of state assistance to things like education, which are much more effective in making our state economically competitive. No. 3 is the lack of support for local governments generally, particularly cities and counties. Their aid is frozen and their property tax levies are severely restricted. Those restrictions will fall especially heavily on poor communities like Beloit or Racine where you don’t have growth in the tax base and they will be losing ground to inflation.
That’s a huge reversal from a long tradition in our state of trying to help poorer communities by having aid formulas that try to equalize opportunities across the state. That’s true too for K-12 education, where much of the funding going to public schools is going to categorical aids that get divided evenly among all districts instead of trying to focus aid on districts that need it more. That’s been a gradual shift and a largely overlooked one: that we’re undermining the principal of trying to equalize opportunity.

Anything else?
There was the blown opportunity to restore pubic faith in the legislative process. The public faith was tarnished two years ago by a lot of what happened and there was a lot of talk at the beginning of this session about working across the aisle. We saw none of that in the budget. Worse yet, there was an increase in the number of inappropriate, nonfiscal policies that got put into the budget.
Is this the best we can do?   

1 comment:

  1. He gave the masses a tax cut that will buy them one beer a week. That will buy votes. Who cares if the schools continue to go downhill and the streets don't get fixed? Who cares if there will be a massive budget deficit? Free beer means votes!