For the second time, our elected officials are meeting to see if they can come to agreement on our state's budget. The last budget bill our governor, senators and assemblymen worked on ended up a day late and dollar short.
Let me rephrase that … nearly 150 days late and now $652 million dollars short.
As early as August of last year, tax experts like Todd Berry from the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance were saying the budget our elected officials were working on back then was at least $200 million in the red. And yet, our elected officials deliberated for months on a budget they finalized in late fall only to have our state's Legislative Fiscal Bureau say several months later that it was over $600 million dollars off.
How do independent experts like Berry know we are going to be in a deficit nearly six months before our state's Fiscal Bureau officially tells our legislature? More importantly, why didn't our elected officials do something about our spending back in the fall? Instead, we are now back at the drawing board trying to fill more holes in our budget because our elected officials don't know how stop spending.
Whether you are a Republican or Democrat, holding the line on spending is not a partisan issue, and the Independent Business Association of Wisconsin wants our elected officials
to do just that - hold the line on spending.
According to the Fiscal Bureau, the deficit is over $400 million and ideas like a hospital tax, accounting tricks such as delaying state aid to schools and some spending cuts are all being considered. The state, and more importantly the state taxpayers who will be responsible for the decisions of our elected officials, should demand that we get rid of our deficit in the same way we handle deficits in our own homes - cut spending.
Of all three proposals, the Assembly Republicans cut spending the most (roughly $360 million of spending cuts, compared with roughly $80 million by the governor and only $40 million by the Senate).
While we applaud the Assembly's efforts to cut spending, it doesn't go far enough. If our deficit is $415 million, then we should cut spending by $415 million. It is frustrating to see accounting gimmicks used in an effort to balance a budget - like the proposal of delaying state aid to schools. That only pushes the problem of spending too much into a different budget year.
What is really disturbing is the hospital tax proposal found in two of the budget repair bill proposals. Proponents claim the hospital tax will result in higher Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals, which will lower health care costs and all of this is possible because we get free money from the Feds in their federal match of our increased Medicaid payments.
First, who do these politicians think the feds get their money from? Yes, you guessed it, from us taxpayers. It's not free money, it's our money. Secondly, do these same politicians want those of us who pay for health care to trust hospitals that they will lower health care costs because they are getting higher Medicaid reimbursement rates?
After the last 10 years of double-digit increases to health care costs, consumers don't trust anyone, least of all providers who continue to build these extravagant hospitals. There is nothing in this proposal that guarantees hospitals won't simply pocket the increased reimbursement rates and add to their already large profits.
And let's be perfectly honest - even if hospitals are required to detail the increased payments and show how those dollars are being used, because we don't have true transparency of costs, such detailed accounting is meaningless.
If this is our government's attempt of reforming our Medicaid system, it's a poor one at best and is certainly a Band Aid approach to what should be a major overhaul of a failing system.
Our elected officials didn't get the budget right the first time around - let's hope they get it right this time. It's up to us, the electorate, to hold our elected officials accountable, since we are the ones financially responsible for their actions.
Bob Collison is a business owner and the current chairman of the Legislative Committee of the Independent Business Association of Wisconsin (IBA), the oldest state-based business association concentrating on issues facing small and independent businesses. For additional information, visit www.ibaw.com.
3 Comments
Why didn't our elected officials do something about our spending back in the fall?
Because, Bob, the state legislature is being paid to spend dollars, not save them. And honest business leaders and voters, alike, can't see that they are getting ripped off. You may want legislators to be responsible, but the special interests that fund the elections want exactly the opposite.
The problem is indeed bipartisan because the fat cats have learned to pad the pockets on both sides of the isle. Anti-taxers like Vukmir and Huebsch claim they want lower taxes, but when push comes to shove they want campaign contributions even more. It's ironic that the spending they now want to cut started under the Thompson/Republican regime. But today it's convenient, then it wasn't.
Your own organization would benefit greatly from Healthy Wisconsin. The whole state's economy would. But the insurance and health care special interests want the status quo, and have been willing to chip in a couple million dollars to legislative campaigns to pay for that privilege.
Live with it, or change it.
If you want to fix the system, pressure the R's to get behind full public funding of campaigns. At $5 per taxpayer per year it's a massive bargain. Only then will you see balanced budgets and low taxes.
See http://www.WiCleanElections.org
Bill Collison is right. The hospital assessment is a scam. No one is addressing the central problem of why the state was not sufficienlty funding the program for years. This shortfall has been around and us citizens have been paying the resultant higher medical cost for years. Why is it an issue of grave importance now? Is it any worse than it has been?
This is another tax grab plain and simple. What guarantee do we have that the Govenor will put the additional tax revenue to the stated purpose? I site the "road fund" he raided as an example. If it isn't "raid" protected then we have accomplished nothing. What steps is the state making to insure they can adequately pay the medical bills in the future? The federal funding sought in this tax scheme is still tax money paid by us. Mr. Lohman's comments about who to blame is ridiculous. The elected officials past and present are to blame. Not one party. We keep electing officials who are fiscally incompetent. Mr. Lohman, I have seen your kind before instead of blaming specific people in goverment and holding them personally responsible you blame the system. Each person elected has the choice to do right or do wrong. They are not victims of the "system". To suggest that goverment can "fix" the election system is ludicrous. The can't even properly run the medicaid system. Through the years they could have made it a priority but they choose to increase the size and scope of state goverment without addressing their fundimental responsibilities.Don't blame the system, blame specific people. Don't take more freedoms away to fix a system.
>>> They are not victims of the "system" ???
Todd, with all due respect, that is naive. The system is corrupt. Newcomers enter it promising to clean it up, and soon learn that if they want to survive they have to play by the established rules. The first rule is to start fundraising for their next election. The second is to be cooperative with leadership.
That business leaders can tolerate this corruption is beyond me. If they had an employee taking money from a vendor on the side, and then passing company assets to that vendor, they'd fire him. Perhaps even have them jailed. But what do they do when a politician is doing the same thing? They write a check.
Don't think for a moment that this is a partisan issue. The Dems are as bad as the R's, and our beloved governor is one of the worst offenders. But the Dems are more inclined to pass reform "now." Maybe not tomorrow, but today. But the R's are blocking reform "today," and they must be forced out of the assembly. And if the Dems block it, they must be forced out. And that cycle of turnover must continue until the system is fixed. They've done it in Arizona and Maine; we can do it here.
You can see my report on Doyle here: http://www.throwtherascalsout.org/Governor-Doyle.htm