State Democrats, after besting the Republicans in Tuesday’s elections to earn a majority in the state Assembly, now have control of the governor’s mansion and the Legislature, but their troubles have just begun as they now face a $3 billion budget deficit.

With the change of leadership in the Assembly comes a change in priorities. According to Lee Sensenbrenner, spokesperson for Gov. Jim Doyle, the governor sees this as “a promising situation” to push through legislation previously blocked by the past Republican majority.

“We want to make sure that families who have an autistic child get health insurance for that child,” Sensenbrenner said. “It’s something they tried to pass in the Legislature last year but didn’t get done.”

Sensenbrenner added that the governor also looks forward to the Legislature taking on more clean energy legislation to advance Wisconsin’s energy independence.

However, the main issue in the upcoming year will be balancing the budget, which was projected to be $3 billion in deficit.

“Everything has to be on the table. … There are very serious cuts to come,” Sensenbrenner said. “When we see the exact fiscal situation brought on, when we see that in greater clarity, we will address what specific steps need to be taken.”

According to Doyle, education will be a priority of the new budget because it is important for sustaining the economy once it improves.

While the Democrats may have plans of their own, Republicans are worried that with their new majority, the Democrats will push through an agenda that will end up hurting taxpayers in the end rather than helping them out.

“Their first solution to the budget is tax increases, and I think that’s going to be their Achilles’ heel,” said Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford. “In two years, the people of this state are going to regret sending a Democratic majority to Madison.”

John Murray, spokesperson for current Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, agreed, saying the Republicans will make sure the priorities being pushed by the Democrats are affordable for taxpayers.

He added anything that comes before the Republicans by the governor or the Democrats will receive a high level of scrutiny.

“You are going to see Republicans regroup and redouble our efforts to protect taxpayers, and I think you are going to see a stark difference between the tax-and-spend methods of the Democrats against Republicans protecting the taxpayers.”

Murray, Suder and Doyle agree that the upcoming budget is going to be very tight with limited resources and that every agency and item will be looked at with great scrutiny.

“We need to look at every single state agency, including the Legislature, and go line item by line item and keep the programs that work, protect our most vulnerable and reduce and eliminate programs that are not working very well or not working at all,” Suder said.

Overall, the state government is going to have to tighten its belt, and according to Suder, the last thing the Legislature should do is raise taxes.