Great reporting by Brian Beutler over at TPM this afternoon. While it's been widely discussed that Walker himself was responsible for the potential deficit in the current Wisconsin budget, Beutler tracked down Pat Kreitlow, a former Democratic state senator, who provided critical background to the crisis. It turns out the whole entire thing was manufactured out of whole cloth by a right-wing governor determined to find an excuse to destroy public sector unions.
The Wisconsin budget cycle is two years, not one, and the state this year is finishing out a budget originally enacted by Democratic governor Jim Doyle in 2009. Doyle's budget, as the law requires, foresaw a surplus for the fiscal year that ends this coming July 1.
In the event unforeseen events cause the budget to go into severe deficit, Wisconsin law requires a "budget repair bill" to close the gap. Due to a series of budget modifications enacted by Walker since he took office last month, the state is now projecting a slight deficit this year, but not one severe enough to require a repair bill. Walker has introduced one anyway, and it is that bill that is causing all the commotion in Madison.
Wisconsin does face a projected $3 billion deficit in its next budget, and Walker is arguing that the only way he can close that gap is by taking away workers' rights to bargain collectively. His argument, however, ignores the fact that Doyle and the Democratic-run leg in 2009 closed a gap nearly twice as large.
Beutler also reports today that Walker had expressed a desire last fall to decertify public employee unions in the state, but backed off the initiative when he realized he didn't have the power to do so. As Beutler puts it:
"Anything from the decertification all the way through modifications to the current laws in place," Walker told the Milwaukee Press Club in December. "The bottom line is we want to have a better ability to control what we do when it comes to wages and benefits."
It turns out destroying the unions outright isn't an arrow in his quiver. That's something only the unions themselves can do. But he could achieve the same basic goal by simply not negotiating with them, if Republicans change the law.
Elsewhere on TPM, Marshall published this map outlining which states mandate and which states prohibit collective bargaining by public employees.
It's telling which category Walker is trying to move Wisconsin into, to undo in a single fell swoop Wisconsin's long tradition of labor activism and progressive reform.
Updated by litho at Fri Feb 18, 2011, 07:58:50 PM
GOP dominated Assembly backs off its plan to ram through the budget repair bill, according to wispolitics.com. Assembly is adjourned until Tuesday, and the bill will be subject to amendments when it reconvenes. Still no word on what may happen in the Senate, as the Dem Senators remain out of state.