Saturday, May 30, 2015

Walker, GOP legislators play the big cut/small back fill $$ game

[Updated 5:28 p.m.] There it is again - - that phony budgeting game played so well by GOP elected officials in the name of trimming budgets: Walker announces a major state budget cut - - for the UW system, for example - -  then GOP legislators save the day by putting back a small portion of the cut and the budget-cutters come out as heroes.

Like here:

UW cut trimmed but tenure, shared governance changes infuriate faculty
And here:
GOP plan reduces cuts to UW System funding
Yes, thank goodness the GOP had a plan!

The stories below the headlines are rich in detail, but many people look only at the headlines, and readers' conclusions could easily be, 'Hey, good for the GOP. Their 'plan' is helping out poor old Bucky.'


And it's much like the Walkerites' plan to slightly raise K-12 public school funding which Walker had proposed cutting - - though the proposed legislative increase is not to the level Walker cut in his first budget, with his legislative allies' enthusiastic approval.


That cut was the largest in the nation at the time, by some estimates

And this proposed slight increase heroically inserted Friday into the budget by GOP legislators will be negated by their fresh, short-to-long term budgetary transfer of gobs of public education dollars to so-called choice, private and parochial schools, the legislature's non-partisan analysts have determined.


Thank goodness the GOP had a k-12 education plan, too.


Update - - Don't forget this version of Walker's game: Invite people to a news conference announcing your expansion of a plan to assist seniors and the disabled - - but leave out of the announcement that the feds forced you to do it. True story, circa 2011.

I'd said a couple of weeks ago his shell game could continue because Walker played it when he was Milwaukee County Executive.


He'd heroically budget cuts - - honoring taxpayers - - and then the County Board would try as best it could to finance a restoration.


Walker would say after the budget was approved that he'd continued an unbroken string of budgets that froze taxing and spending, and then he'd heroically submit his next budget based on the budget which the Board had increased.


As I'd written recently about his current scorched-earth budget:

Here's how he plays the game: He deeply cuts a program - - this time, state educational TV, and there have been others (in the last budget, a smidgen returned to schools after budget #1's huge cuts), and we're not done yet - - and the legislators heroically add back a portion. 
He gets to play the arch-fiscal conservative and perennially campaigning 'friend-of-the-taxpayer,' the legislators play the 'moderates, and the public, their programs and the staffers get the shaft.

The larger game - - promoting a brain drain from Wisconsin campuses among faculty and students believed to be leftist commies, and Democrats.

Thank goodness the GOP has a plan for that! 

7 comments:

Boxer said...

What a fun game.

Anonymous said...

James, don't forget the bait and switch that took place with long term care. Back on 5/14 the JFC republicans issued a press release that claimed they took out the Governor's provisions to "protect long term care in Wisconsin". Last week they put the Governor's changes back in with minor tweaks. They are all a bunch of lying sons of bitches with no honor.

Anonymous said...

It would have been a lot more lucrative to require an "administrative fee" on all grants. Those fees could be paid directly to DOA to fund a bunch of jobs for his cronies. If I were Walker I would restore all the UW System cuts and then skim the grants that will be lost because of his cuts. I win-win as he will look like a hero to alumni and reward a bunch of unemployable GOP faithful. Sometimes these guys aren't devious enough.

Anonymous said...

Anon 3:25

Scott Walker is The Lords work and talks to God everyday. I know this because they printed several stories about Scott Walker's Holiness in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. It is true. Scott Walker is the new son of God. That commie Jesus is being pushed aside and a new New Testament is being written before our eyes. This blog, evidently, is heathen at best and at worst, absolutely satanic. Scott Walker is One with Our Lord. MJS told me so.

God said it. MJS repeatedly reported it and I believe it!

Anonymous said...

What is really over the moon is that he was re-elected in November after campaigning that all was well in Wisconsin and a fiscal surplus was awaiting us. In January he submits a budget that cuts funds for needed programs drastically and the media make no mention of the obvious lies just 1 month previous. This man is covered in Teflon and continuously gets away with this bait and switch governance. I'm still holding out hope that WEDC and John Doe will bring forth the truth and justice that we deserve and that will free us of his vindictiveness.

Anonymous said...

The lack of support for the UW system from the legislature means that anyone who can leave will leave. Even if Walker were to return to Wisconsin today and announce that he is rescinding the cuts and changes to tenure and governance, people like me will leave due to the uncertainty of our employment status. Remember how Walker used "uncertainty" to reject medicaid money under the Affordable Care Act? And the federal train money? And dozens of other federal funds for everything from expanded broadband to clean water funds? Now he is creating uncertainty for Wisconsin employers and businesses by eliminating their best source of employees: kids who grew up here, were educated here and want to stay here.

my5cents said...

Back fill game is right. Do they think we are too stupid to see what they are doing. Well, I guess some of might be since they keep voting these guys back into office term after term after term. Too bad there is no learning curve in the Republican mind.