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Doyle: No tax increases
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Gov. Jim Doyle vowed Tuesday to fix Wisconsin’s budget
shortfall and further develop the economy without major cuts in education or
health care, all while keeping his promise not to raise taxes.
Doyle told a group of Wisconsin entrepreneurs he has asked
state agencies to make budget cuts to balance the books and is convinced the
state can recover from the projected $652 million shortfall.
“I feel confident that we can do this in a way that does not
raise taxes — in a way that we make cuts, but we make cuts in the areas that do
not harm the basic priorities of this state, [which are] assuring that our
school system is good, assuring that we continue to expand access to higher
education and making sure that the basic health care plans of Wisconsin are
available,” Doyle said.
According to the governor, Wisconsin is entitled to $450
million in health care funds from the federal government, and while a major part
of the money would go back to support hospitals, the remaining $125 million
could be used to help overcome the state’s deficit.
“There’s about $450 million of federal money sitting right
there on the corner of the table that we can go and get from the federal
government and get it in a way that hospitals get paid more,” he said.
Doyle added he is expecting to protect the budget money allocated
to the University of Wisconsin, but all
state agencies “may have a little share in this to get it done.”
“I think we can get this done without any significant cuts
to the university. I think we can get it done in a way that doesn’t slow the
growth agenda of the university and doesn’t cut into the financial aid of the
students,” he added.
University of Wisconsin System is already implementing
saving strategies by cutting expenses on travel and hiring and leasing
locations for meetings and conferences, spokesperson David Giroux said.
While sending faculty and administration to academic
conferences is important to furthering the quality of education, the system
would rather “cancel a few trips than cancel a few classes,” according to
Giroux.
“That is the challenge. We can’t overemphasize this enough,”
Giroux said. “This will not be easy, to preserve any of the momentum that we
have while also cutting funding.”
Carrie Lynch, spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Russ
Decker, D-Weston, said she expects the Senate to approve Doyle’s proposal
before the Legislature ends session in mid-March.
Lynch said though she is confident the Senate could support
and pass legislation by next week, there is no predicting how long the
Republican-controlled Assembly would take.
Speaking at the Business Day in Madison Tuesday, Doyle said
he would continue to invest in companies that commit to research by lowering
state taxes and added he would also promote renewable energy research
statewide.
The governor also praised Wisconsin’s 80 percent increase in
exports in the last five years and said Wisconsin could double that amount in
six or seven years if the state stays in the current economic path.
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Yeah, heard that before. I was wondering why I had to pay $75 to register my car this year, as opposed to $55 last year. And a pack of cigarrettes costs $1 more. Thanks for not raising taxes Doyle!
CUT SPENDING! If we can’t afford it, we can’t afford it! Stop trying to drive the rest of us out of the state. Not only are the baby boomers entering retirement and stopping earning money (paying taxes), they’re leaving Wisconsin because the taxes are so damn high. My working parents are already talking about it.
And we all know that Doyle is doing nothing to bring any new high-paying jobs into the state to replace them. Every UW student and graduate knows they can simply go over the border to IL and make a shitload more money and have many more job opportunities than anywhere in WI. Not to mention TX, WA, CA, NY, and nearly everywhere else in the country.
When oh, when will we address the fact that the State of Wisconsin pays state employees an average of 50 percent more than the Wisconsin tax payer working in the private sector. We can no longer afford or ethically have private sector employees pay exorbitant taxes to enable much higher wages, benefits and pensions to state employees. Long term state employees can retired in their early 50’s with a fat pensions and benefits. I can only imagine the resentment there will be in 10 to 20 years when the majority of baby boomers are still having to work well into their 60’s and 70’s. Yet they will be having a large portion of their income confiscated to pay state employee pensions and benefits that retired some 20 year earlier than they will ever be able to. This issue will need to be addressed and soon.