Is it herbal beer?
“....The $1.3 billion in transportation borrowing would be about 30% above the $991 million in loans in the current two-year budget. A coalition of the transportation industry and local governments said Walker’s plan would mean that one in four dollars in the road fund would go toward paying off debt.
“That is a significant, ongoing and growing expenditure that seriously weakens the transportation building blocks that support our state’s jobs, economy and quality of life,” said a written statement from the group, which includes the Transportation Development Association, the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association and the Wisconsin Counties Association.
.......Walker would keep the state gas tax steady at 32.9 cents per gallon, despite calls from his transportation secretary to raise it. Two cents from the existing gas tax is meant to go toward cleaning up leaking underground fuel tanks, but Walker would use more than half the money that surcharge generates — $21 million a year — to pay for roads.
He would end the program for underground fuel tanks in 2017, which would allow the 2-cents-per-gallon tax to be used entirely for transportation in the future.
In addition, Walker would issue $220 million in state bonds to help finance a new professional basketball arena but provide no other new borrowing for state buildings. The loan would be paid off by growth in income taxes from Milwaukee Bucks players, employees and visiting teams.
In all, the state would have the authority to issue $1.56 billion in bonds over the next two years — the lowest amount in a decade.....
...Walker’s budget would also keep property taxes in check by sending roughly $300 million in state aid to schools but earmarking it for holding down taxes.
The tax freeze is drawing wide praise from Republicans who control the Legislature. But Democrats and some Republicans criticized the proposal for giving no new money to public schools while it expands taxpayer-funded private voucher funds.
The expansion of private schools would be funded by taking the state tax dollars that would have otherwise gone to the students’ local public school. That pot of money would then be divided up among the participating voucher schools so each private school got the same amount per student.....”