Today's assignment, class, is to compare and contrast the following two statements:
"The two-year, $66 billion budget would ... cut state aid to schools by $800 million over two years and put tight limits on property taxes to help clear the way for sizable tax cuts for manufacturers, multistate corporations and investors."
-- Mllwaukee Journal Sentinel, today
"Since 2003, Wisconsin’s biennial budget has increased 33 percent to over $62 billion. The Pew Center for the States has identified Wisconsin as a state in fiscal peril."
-- Scott Walker's official web site, before the new, much higher state budget mentioned in the Journal Sentinel; the site touts Walker's commission to attack waste, fraud and abuse in state spending. [The language is still online at the governor's web site as of this writing.]
Class, note that the 2009-11 budget -- crafted by Jim Doyle and Democrats -- exceeded that $62 billion figure cited by Walker's web page, but was still nearly two percent smaller than the budget Walker now will be given to sign into law. Therefore, class, please answer these specific questions:
If, as the governor apparently believes, $62 billion is a number that's too big, how can $66 billion be a number that is just the right size? And how do you increase spending, while cutting local government and school aids and public worker compensation and Medicaid and other family assistance programs by ten-figure sums?
Clearly, class, Wisconsin lawmakers are now officially math-challenged. Or maybe they're just math-dismissive. Discuss.