Posted on 02/19/2011 3:01:25 PM PST by Qbert
It has taken hold with conviction: the idea that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker ginned up a phony budget crisis to justify his bold bid to strip state employees of most bargaining rights and cut their benefits.
A volley of e-mails, blog posts and inquiries to reporters followed a Madison Capital Times editorial on Feb. 16, 2011, that said no state budget deficit exists for 2010-’11 -- or if it does, it’s the fault of Walker and the Republicans in the Legislature.
Liberal MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow joined in Feb. 17, accusing Walker of manipulating the situation for political gain.
"Despite what you may have heard about Wisconsin’s finances, the state is on track to have a budget surplus this year," she said. "I am not kidding."
She added a kicker that is also making the rounds: Walker and fellow Republicans in the Legislature this year gave away $140 million in business tax breaks -- so if there is a deficit projected of $137 million, they created it.
Maddow and others making the claim all cite the same source for their information -- a Jan. 31, 2011 memo prepared by Robert Lang, the director of the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
It includes this line: "Our analysis indicates a general fund gross balance of $121.4 million and a net balance of $56.4 million."
We were curious about claims of a surplus based on the fiscal bureau memo.
In writing it when it was released, reporters from the Journal Sentinel and Associated Press had put the shortfall at between $78 million and $340 million. That’s the projection for the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 2011.
Walker himself has settled on $137 million as the deficit figure, a number reporters have adopted as shorthand.
We re-read the fiscal bureau memo, talked to Lang, consulted reporter Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel’s Madison Bureau, read various news accounts and examined the issue in detail.
Our conclusion: Maddow and the others are wrong.
There is, indeed, a projected deficit that required attention, and Walker and GOP lawmakers did not create it.
More on that second point in a bit.
The confusion, it appears, stems from a section in Lang’s memo that -- read on its own -- does project a $121 million surplus in the state’s general fund as of June 30, 2011.
But the remainder of the routine memo -- consider it the fine print -- outlines $258 million in unpaid bills or expected shortfalls in programs such as Medicaid services for the needy ($174 million alone), the public defender’s office and corrections. Additionally, the state owes Minnesota $58.7 million under a discontinued tax reciprocity deal.
The result, by our math and Lang’s, is the $137 million shortfall.
It would be closer to the $340 million figure if the figure included the $200 million owed to the state’s patient compensation fund, a debt courts have declared resulted from an illegal raid on the fund under former Gov. Jim Doyle.
A court ruling is pending in that matter, so the money might not have to be transferred until next budget year.
To be sure, the projected shortfall is a modest one by the standards of the last decade, which saw a $600 million repair bill one year as the economy and national tax collections slumped.
But ignoring it would have meant turning away eligible Medicaid clients, which was not an option, Lang said.
This same situation has happened in the past, including during the tenure of Doyle, a Democrat. In January 2005, a fiscal bureau memo showed a similar surplus, but lawmakers approved a major fix of a Medicaid shortfall that would have eaten up that projected surplus.
Reporters who cover the Capitol are used to doing the math to come up with the bottom-line surplus or deficit, but average readers are not. (The Journal Sentinel’s Stein addressed these and other budget questions in a follow-up story.)
So why does Lang write his biennial memo in a way that invites confusion?
Lang, a veteran and respected civil servant working in a nonpartisan job, told us he does not want to presume what legislative or other action will be taken to address the potential shortfalls he lists.
Admittedly, the approach this time created the opportunity for a snappy -- and powerful -- political attack.
But it is an inaccurate one.
Meanwhile, what about Maddow’s claim -- also repeated across the liberal blogosphere -- that Walker’s tax-cut bills approved in January are responsible for the $137 million deficit?
Lang’s fiscal bureau report and news accounts addressed that issue as well.
The tax cuts will cost the state a projected $140 million in tax revenue -- but not until the next two-year budget, from July 2011 to June 2013. The cuts are not even in effect yet, so they cannot be part of the current problem.
Here’s the bottom line:
There is fierce debate over the approach Walker took to address the short-term budget deficit. But there should be no debate on whether or not there is a shortfall. While not historically large, the shortfall in the current budget needed to be addressed in some fashion. Walker’s tax cuts will boost the size of the projected deficit in the next budget, but they’re not part of this problem and did not create it.
We rate Maddow’s take False.
“Shortly thereafter we elected a Republican governor and discovered the shortfall had been under-reported by a billion dollars due to Doyle’s shenanigans. And today, now that a Republican is actually doing something about the shortfall, suddenly history is rewritten and the lapdogs report we actually have a $122 million dollar surplus. Maddow is lying to our faces.”
—I say it’s always best to start with the assumption that they’re lying to you, and then there are fewer surprises...
I hear that is how she got this gig? She lied her way into the interview. She lies constantly. I had to stop even going to MSNBC.
The DNC is 100% confident that Wisc will in the future not have a deficit.
Then the DNC/Soros,Mega Hollywood, should give the state the money to make up the deficit till the red ink is gone.
Put up , just as we taxpayers do each and every day, or shut up.
Madcow lied?
NO .. who would have thunk it?
dear MSNBC;. how much more evidence do you need that this disgusting excuse for a journalist is not fit to be in your organization? How many times has she jumped on issues just for the sake of being partisan, not just this Wisconsin budget issue, but also Sarah Palin and egypt (based on a satire site, that she fell for?)?
Maddow is a horrible journalist, and I use the term “journalist” loosely. She has no crediblity, and therefore no trust. And with no trust, she is useless in the news.
You have clowns like her, Matthews, Olberman (thank God you wised up to that), Schultz, and ODonnell....complete lunatics who obscure the facts, are on record for making racist comments, and are completely insane.
dont’ listen to me, your poor ratings show the lack of trust.
So, MSNBC....it just perplexes me, but are you TRYING to fail? Really?
“Then the DNC/Soros,Mega Hollywood, should give the state the money to make up the deficit till the red ink is gone.”
Fine by me.
Shoot, with all the big dollars Spielberg and his buddies squandered on Feingold’s election, they could have fed hundreds of “poor” teachers (making a hundred grand in salary and benefits combined...)
A simple internet search would have allowed her to check to see if that was actually true before she reported it.
“So, MSNBC....it just perplexes me, but are you TRYING to fail? Really?”
But it doesn’t matter if they fail, or not. They’re owned by GE, and GE got bailed out by Obama.
Who can believe anything she says. She’s just a shrill for the liberals. She probably gets her talking points from the WH press secy. office.
Is she really a woman or a man? Can we believe her either way? I wouldn’t believe her if she told me the sky was blue; I’d have to look to be sure. Its not really too big a deal what she says anyway, nobody really watches her show anyway.
They aren’t trying to fail.
it is a conscious decision on their part to be the first choice for newstalk for the far left.
They want to “win” that demographic slice. It is small - but it is a real slice.
They have no intention of valueing their credibility. It is not their goal, and not what their viewers want to see. Their viewers want to hear insane left wing rhetoric - and that is the product PMSNBC is making for them.
I bet one of her two viewers is skeptical of the budget surplus spin...
It has already been made known that the governor is inheriting a 3bn+ DEFICIT you lying POS Nazi Socialist propagandist.
Yep...we don’t need no stinkin’ businesses to create jobs. /s
There are lies, damn lies and the falsehoods reported as fact on MSNBC.
IF it were true that WI had a “surplus” wouldn’t other states be emulating them in droves? And I love how liberals say that the “surplus” was spent on giving tax breaks to businesses. Gee, wouldn’t want WI to HIRE people, would we?
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