Have you heard those new TV ads Republican Gov. Scott Walker is running touting how he eliminated Wisconsin’s budget deficits?
Don’t believe a word Walker says, because Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch has the truth, which is that Wisconsin has projected budget deficits for fiscal years 2012 and 2013.
What’s more, if we use Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) to take a look at Gov. Walker’s first biennial budget (as Walker himself promised to do as a candidate), we’d have budget deficits in the billions of dollars.
We examined Walker’s first budget, the 2011-13 biennial budget, to see if he lived up to his promise to balance the budget using GAAP.
There’s a chart every two years in the state budget demonstrating the bottom line under GAAP. The chart in the Walker administration’s Budget in Brief shows that the 2011-13 budget was not close to balanced by that standard.
In fact, the document shows that based on GAAP accounting, the state would have been left with a deficit of $3 billion by 2012-13 under Walker’s budget. That compares to the $2.9 billion GAAP deficit he inherited at the end of Doyle’s term, the state’s financial statements show.
So when Gov. Scott Walker says he’s eliminated Wisconsin’s budget deficit, he’s all rhetoric, no reality. Scott Walker didn’t eliminate Wisconsin’s budget deficits; he simply kicked the can down the road the same as his predecessors.
Wow…have you even read the attachment? It clearly says we WOULD have a deficit IF the changes aren’t made in Medicaid. He had to send the prospective budget out to get approval to make the changes in Medicaid from the federal government. The letter at the end clearly states that. And don’t tell me you didn’t know that because I’ve seen dozens of posts about how evil walker is for taking benefits away from poor people. So in summation he did balance the budget. We don’t have a deficit and you can’t comprehend your own sources.
Exactly. And the Medicaid money was from the Feds. The program HAS to be cut now because we now have to pay for it. We didn’t before and yet Doyle still ran huge deficits. Walker didn’t “cut” Medicaid in the sense that he devoted less in state funding to the program. He simply cut it in the sense that less is being spent on it since we don’t have the money from the Feds anymore. It floors me that people are unable or unwilling to comprehend this. It is disingenuous, at best. At worst, it’s an attempt to smear Walker by twisting the facts rather than looking at the situation objectively. If you don’t like what Walker has done, that’s fine, but at least be honest about the reasons. Don’t go attacking the guy when it is unwarranted. That ends up hurting your cause more than it helps.
On second thought, keep it up. People see through this nonsense and it will make it that much easier for us to reelect Walker not only in 2012, but in 2014.