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.

To put it in perspective, that adds up to a budget problem that’s roughly two-thirds the size of the more than $3 billion projected shortfall that Walker faced when he took office in January 2011.

Meanwhile, our part-time governor will be spending some time this weekend at a Republican presidential candidate forum in Iowa, because that’s seems to be what he thinks the taxpayers of Wisconsin are paying him to do.

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12 thoughts on “State budget shortfall projected at $928 million over two years

      1. So typical with you guys. You can’t even defend the governor at this point, but you still support him blindly. Was Obama mentioned once in the article? No, but you had to bring him up anyway, because you have nothing else at this point.

        1. Some pretty off topic and rash generalizations from troll-land. First of all the topic is the actions of our supposed, “governor,” and a budget shortfall that is showing up in evaluation of HIS budget. Your KKK connotations duly noted about your assessment of the POTUS. There are legitimate criticisms of him, why don’t you submit a diary if you can actually name those legitimate criticisms.

          Next, your presumption that MaseMan wants the government to financially support “everyone,” is typical right-wing blather spouted when you have no actual defense of a failed fiscal austerity policy or of the people promoting it, Walker and the Republican majority, four years now in the making, continual failures at even keeping up with the minimal economic growth elsewhere in this country. It’s not that even high of a hurdle they’ve failed to get over.

          Already profitable business owners and investors being handed $2.2B without peeing in a cup first and in some cases using that money to ship jobs out of the state has done what to improve living standards for any Wisconsinites beyond dividends for a small group of rich owners? Let us know exactly what that did to improve in any fashion, the future outlook for state finances. You can’t.

          Finally being too lazy to open up your own character map or even do a copy and paste to put the ® in front of your usual repugnant and ignorant comments which at first glance would alert people to another instance of your repeated drudge, should in itself be enough to ban you from the site.

          1. Maybe not directly, Jimmy Boy, but you alluded to him – typical troll tactic that supposedly leaves (transparent) “plausible” deniability in case somebody calls you out. If you insist you didn’t reference the President, then we have no choice but to conclude that your blathering is even more nonsensical that it first appears.

            The failure, at all levels, is yours, Strawman. It must take quite a brass pair to come over here and wave your cape at the big boys, after the daily drubbings you take from the small fry at WEAU.

            1. LOL. I alluded to Mary Burke, not Obama. Take a breath you’re letting Walker drive your emotions again.

              1. OK, I’ll be generous and assume you’re not lying, and that you really were alluding to Mary Burke. Burke wasn’t mentioned in the OP, so my comment still stands. You have nothing else at this point, and can’t even defend Walker’s actions without deflecting.

          2. I made the initial assumption that your 1/24, 3:08pm comment likely referred to Doyle since the discussion was about “Guv,” Walker’s failures. But your bigoted distain ‘lazy black man,’ meme and reference today at 12:55 am was unmistakably a racist jab at Obombya and you still haven’t said one freaking thing about the topic of Walker’s austerity program running the state into a financial bottomless pit.

            Accusing Doyle of failure is not a defense of Walker or his merry band of idiots laying waste to anything of value in the state. It’s called a diversionary move to avoid the truth.

            And you are a bald-faced liar to boot.

    1. The Capital is never open for business, but the Capitol has regular hours for legislators and the executive branch. Maybe Gov “T for transparency,” will actually resume publishing his official work calendar to remove any questions about his 3 or 4-day “work,” weeks. Maybe he should pee in a cup before getting all the taxpayer funded travel perks he has as he campaigns around the country and now around the world. Where is the MJS in reporting the record of who is paying for what in the governor’s supposed weekend free time?

  1. Walker and his legislative majority now have the “Perfect Storm” to shrink government and consolidate more power in the governor’s office! This budget will be his campaign mantra to the Republican party, especially the extreme right wing of the party, to set him apart from the other presidential candidates. We will suffer greatly because of it. But it’s not about us, its about him, it’s always about him! This budget will be his talking point to deflect from all the other issues about which he cannot speak intelligently. The budget will be the message and the blue print that he wants the country to follow. It is smack from his idol’s[Reagan] playbook and he will rant on about government being the problem! He will whitewash the tremendous debt that Reagan’s policies left behind and the sorry economy that resulted.

    1. Jerry- This is indeed the game. “Shock Doctrine” economics, to screw things up, sell off services to campaign contributors, and help the 1%-ers in Walker’s and WisGOP’s little club at the expense of all of the rest of us.

      Budget deficits and overwhelmed, inefficient services are a feature in right-wing world, not a bug. And it is not accidental. I just wish they’d cut the services in the 262 area code and rural NE Wisconsin first, since those were the people who wanted this. They should be the ones who feel the effects.

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