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Conservative observers have gone from puzzled to troubled to alarmed at how the budget cycle is shaping up.
The historic budget surplus of $7 billion had given fiscal conservatives hope that tax cuts would be in the offing, perhaps a move to a transformational flat tax for all Wisconsinites. But it’s been nearly 2 months – an eternity in budget season – since we’ve heard a peep about tax cuts.
In the meantime the republican majorities in both houses have been headed down the path of big spending increases, continuing to fund programs that should be cut, and increasing funding for other programs that have traditionally been relatively easy for conservatives to hold the line on. Sure, the Republicans are not spending as much as Gov. Evers proposed overall but they have increased spending over what the governor requested in several areas.
We realize that divided government is messy and will not be perfect but we thought the Legislature held the purse strings. With bigger majorities in both houses, we had hoped they would use this leverage to force Governor Evers to downsize an already incredibly bloated state government (approximately $8 billion All Funds spending increase in the 2019-2021 budget and $6 billion All Funds spending increase in the 2021-2023 budget) and force Evers to accept needed reforms in education, the justice system, the tax system or government spending in general.
The messaging on the revamped bill sounded more like they came from the democrat playbook than the party of smaller government:
Already supporters of the legislation are bragging about the victory, but it’s hard for even half-hearted fiscal conservatives to see this massive expansion of government, a $268 million tax increase to force taxpayers to pay for deliberate mismanagement of public pensions, and the biggest increase in education funding in state history (not to mention giving the same schools hiding mental health issues from parents a central role in student mental health treatment) – all without significant guide rails to protect parents and taxpayers – as a win.
Any time you can end a tax, that is a good thing. The shift of the personal property tax to the general fund (which was also included in the Governor’s budget) does lift the burden of an outdated tax from a small group and spreads it to everyone. And the increased funding for School Choice is a win. But the legislature gave much away to the governor to get the Choice dollars, moving to or near to the governor’s position on most of the elements, and achieving no concessions other than School Choice on topics that conservatives have been pushing. No transformational tax reform. No election reforms, no parental bill of rights, no protecting kids against indoctrination and no end to the teaching of CRT in our schools.
Even if Republicans add one or two more of these elements to their budget as it makes its way through the legislative process, it will be a meaningless gesture. If a conservative win or a common sense reform is not a part of this grand deal, it will be vetoed by Evers and there will be nothing the Republicans can do about it. They do not have the votes necessary to override a veto.
Are legislators running scared of what incoming Supreme Court Justice Janet Protaziewicz might do to draw them new districts or what Walker-era reforms might be thrown out, believing that bringing home the bacon and kowtowing to local politicians is the best way to protect themselves from political opposition?
There are many questions that remain unanswered about the deal itself and where exactly this budget is heading.
Who is looking out for the taxpayer? Who is speaking out for fiscal responsibility? Who is looking out for the hard-working families who are finding it difficult to make ends meet in Biden’s economy? Who is speaking out for our children and their future?
We hope all of these questions are answered soon before it is too late.
| For Liberals | For Republicans | For Taxpayers | Notes | |
| $1 billion increase in K12 funding; a $325 per pupil increase. The governor’s budget had a $350 per pupil increase, and a $1 billion general aid increase. Gov. Evers, Superintendent Underly, and the education establishment have been deflecting their responsibility for our children’s dismal academic performance by convincing the media and the public that the reason our children are struggling is that Republicans have starved our schools despite billions in recent education spending increases. Evers can now claim victory on one of his biggest priorities. |
Some, maybe all, Republicans will brag this is “biggest investment in public education, ever.” | No accountability for the education establishment or reform of education to ensure we have better outcomes in general. Nearly 60% of our children are failing (below grade level) in English Language Arts and Math. This funding increase does not recognize the large spending increases given to schools in recent budgets or the massive amount of federal ARPA funds, perpetuates the liberal talking point that more taxpayer money will fix everything in K12 education. Just giving schools $1 billion more in spendable revenue does nothing to ensure better outcomes. More choice students will improve overall academic achievement outcomes but there are far more students in public schools who will continue to fail and still be indoctrinated every single day. |
This “deal” closely mirrors the general aid and per pupil increase in the Evers budget. In making this deal with the Governor, Republicans did not get a parents’ bill of rights, a ban on Critical Race Theory, a requirement that schools teach standard English, real math, a ban on gender indoctrination, not even a ban on drag queen shows in schools. Nothing. Without reforms, this only throws more money at the schools that will continue to teach our kids to hate the country, that 2+2 does not equal 4 and that perfection and turning in your homework is a trait of white supremacy. |
|
| $50 million for a new literacy plan and reading specialists - $30 million more than Evers proposed in his budget. | $50 million for a new literacy plan, more education bureaucrats and no accountability for DPI or schools for their failure to teach our kids to read. While we would never call out or question Superintendent Underly about the fact that almost 60% of our kids are failing math and English Language Arts on the Forward Exam, now we can at least tell parents we fixed the literacy problem with a new $50 million program to force schools to do what schools should have been doing all along - teaching all of our kids to read by third grade. | $50 million in new education spending and more education bureaucrats for what should be one of the only basic responsibilities of our schools - teach our kids to read. No accountability for DPI or schools for their failure to teach our kids to read. Without accountability or other reforms, parents cannot be assured that this new literacy package will even begin to fix the problem. Bureaucrats who are currently responsible for our dismal scores and declining academic achievement will keep their jobs, take this new funding to grow their fiefdoms and make modest improvements for a small number of kids. |
Republicans added $30 million above the $20 million proposed in the Evers budget. We have been drawing attention to the literacy problem in our state for years. This is potentially the most important and critical provision for the future of our state in any of these packages. So we want to believe in this one and we will examine it very closely. We worry that legislators who want to cozy up to the education establishment will water this down so nobody at DPI has their feelings hurt or blame is properly placed for this education disaster. If the provision holding back young children who struggle to read is real and will actually be used as needed, this is a win. In talking to local educators, few of them like this idea, so we are concerned that the effectiveness of this new literacy program will be dampened. Decades of school spending increases have resulted in lower scores, but this money will change everything. If Superintendent Underly and the ultra-liberal education establishment is left to their own devices, they will undermine the entire operation and our kids will continue to drown in failure. |
|
| Higher reimbursement levels for Choice and Charter kids - $9k for K8 and $12 for high school. Evers’ liberal base and WEAC hate this one. Could he be counting on the new liberal majority on the State Supreme Court to overturn this provision or the entire Choice program? |
Higher reimbursement levels for Choice and Charter kids - $9k for K8 and $12 for high school. Choice advocates believe that this could double the size of the Choice program. | Higher reimbursement levels but no expansion of Choice slots, and while we understand that the Choice expansion has to be connected to the massive increase in K12 funding, there is no accountability for lousy public schools or assurances that schools will stop indoctrinating our children in this agreement. | Their bargaining netted them in return…no parents’ bill of rights, no bans on CRT, no bans on grooming, gender indoctrination or pornagraphic books, not even a ban on drag queen shows in schools. If/when this does lead to a significant increase in students participating in the Choice or Charter programs, that will be a significant win for conservatives and a huge blow for the partisan wing of the education establishment. |
|
| Increase of $30 million/budget for Evers’ mental health initiative which reimburses schools for hiring social workers, psychologists and counselors. | Supporting $30 million for children’s mental health. | Gov. Evers and public health decisions caused the mental health crisis in our youth by shutting down the schools. No safeguards to ensure that parents are notified when there is a problem or a requirement that parents must be consulted or involved with treatment. | Puts the same people who are forcing gender indoctrination and CRT on children in charge of their mental health. The school social workers and counselors will be more of a barrier between parents and their kids’ mental health. | |
| Increase special education reimbursement 3% for a total of 33% at a cost of $97 million. | The $97 million increase builds on the increases provided in previous budgets. | |||
| Shared Revenue - 20% minimum increase for every municipality (up from 15%). This is a total increase of 36.5% in state aid. The Evers budget included $576 million new funding for shared revenue. |
Republicans say there’s so much money for locals in the plan it will be hard for anyone to vote no. They won a 35.6% increase in state aid to locals. They worked their way up from a 10% minimum increase to the 20% in the final plan (except Milwaukee which gets a 10% bump and places with a population over 110,000 get 15% more) started at a minimum 10% increase for every local government in state aid. All new local revenue will be required to be used for law enforcement, fire, EMS, public works and transportation. Municipalities will no longer be allowed to pursue race-based hiring, unless of course the federal government requires diversity considerations to qualify for federal aid or a grant. Republicans will say that all of this increase in government spending is a good thing because this is government spending that we like. |
Local government is about to grow. They will all have an average of 35.6% more state aid to spend. Some municipalities get over 700% more, at least one gets over 800% more. We have been growing the size and scope of government at the state level for years, now government at the local level will grow as well. Hallelujah. Data shows that spending at the local level has increased at a greater rate than inflation or household median income in Wisconsin. But, that doesn’t matter, the locals claim to be impoverished. |
Evers’ budget proposed 1 cent of sales tax for shared revenue, an increase in shared revenue of $576 million/year. Republicans bargained to get 1% of the sales tax used for shared revenue. Their $276 million increase in state aid added to the $300 million Innovation Grants total….$576 million. Evers created a new $1.5 billion pot for locals in February, the legislature created a $1.5 billion pot in May. Remember, Evers campaigned on added funding for police and public safety when a significant portion of the money he directed to local police was used for sensitivity training. Does anyone really believe this prohibition on race-based hiring will actually stop the liberals in Milwaukee, Madison and everywhere else from pursuing their holy DEI grail? Will the legislature be willing to remove significant funding from those units of government who are caught violating this provision in the future? |
|
| Milwaukee and Milwaukee County can increase their local sales tax increase with a 2/3rds vote of board (the voter referendum is out). Milwaukee politicians have been desperate for their own source of tax revenue, a new source of tax revenue that does not have taxpayer protections built in like the property tax, so they can spend it as they see fit, and dramatically grow their own fiefdoms. | New Milwaukee city and county leaders earned the trust of Legislative Republicans who agreed to allow them to raise local taxes by over a quarter billion dollars per year. | Taxpayers will have no say on the tax hike. Allowing Milwaukee to use the sales tax to pay towards the Milwaukee pension nets non-Milwaukeeans to contribute. The skim from the sales tax that is not required to go towards fixing the pension problem will allow Milwaukee politicians to fund their pet local projects. |
Flip-flops on both sides: Evers proposed a referendum for a smaller tax increase in the last budget, the legislature flip-flopped on their opposition to local sales taxes to bail them out of self-created problems. Adding language to prevent the expansion of the streetcar is positive. Maybe we could have added a provision to force Milwaukee to charge riders a user fee that actually covers the full cost of operating the system? Much more important than preventing Diversity Equity and Inclusion being used in hiring for a government job is stopping radical Critical Race Theory from continuing to poison the minds of our children and impeding academic achievement. Much more important. |
|
| Maintenance of Effort requirements for public safety for all municipalities as a condition of the shared revenue increases. Milwaukee has to meet the same public safety MOE with their shared revenue increase ($21.7 million). Milwaukee also is required to divert at least 10% of their new sales tax collections - every year for 30 years - to maintain and expand police and fire. |
Police and fire spending/staffing is protected in local budgets. Locals’ public safety efforts are frozen in time. The bill claims the sales tax will end in 30 years. But the bill required 10% of the money raised from the tax to be spent for ongoing expenses, making it virtually impossible to sunset. |
There are no provisions included to push the justice system to make changes that would follow through on arrests made by more police - particularly needed in Milwaukee. There is a pattern of criminals being out on the streets on low/no bail or released because cases are dismissed for not being tried speedily enough. And many of those out on no bail or a lenient sentence commit more crimes. The effectiveness of hiring a dozen or two more police officers will be greatly undercut unless the liberal’s scold-and-release treatment of criminals remains. |
||
| Evers’ proposed budget repealed the remaining portion of the personal property tax, this gives Evers back the $200 million tax cut he originally had in his budget proposal. | Repeals the rest of the personal property tax, a $200 million tax cut. | While the repeal of any tax is a good thing, this is a tax paid only by a small subset of taxpayers. The size of this tax cut, $200 million, pales in comparison to the size of the $7 billion surplus, which really is the amount taxpayers have been overtaxed to fund our current government. | This was never a point of negotiation; this was on both Evers’ and the republican legislature’s priority list. | |
| Police officers in MPS - Milwaukee liberals will hate this provision and see it as a sign of oppression that police officers are there to keep children safe. | 25 police officers in MPS schools and require school districts to keep track of crimes committed at school. | There are well over 100 different schools in MPS. Are the kids in the other dozens of schools worth less? | If the school district continues with its no discipline policy because it would be racist to hold individuals accountable for their behavior, nothing will change. The police officers will be at some of the schools to stop, God forbid, an attack on the school but all the violent behavior between students or staff, bullying and general mayhem that occurs on an almost daily basis will continue unabated. This provision should have been coupled with | |
| Innovation fund - a pool of taxpayer money that apparently is necessary to convince/bribe/pay off local units of government to be efficient and work together delivering services to Wisconsinites. | Really? Instead of just doing what is right for the taxpayer and for hard-working families in this state, local officials need to be bribed to be efficient? |
For Liberals |
For Republicans |
For Taxpayers |
NOTES |
| $1 billion increase in K12 funding; a $325 per pupil increase. The governor’s budget had a $350 per pupil increase, and a $1 billion general aid increase. Gov. Evers, Superintendent Underly, and the education establishment have been deflecting their responsibility for our children’s dismal academic performance by convincing the media and the public that the reason our children are struggling is that Republicans have starved our schools despite billions in recent education spending increases. Evers can now claim victory on one of his biggest priorities. |
Some, maybe all, Republicans will brag this is “biggest investment in public education, ever.” | No accountability for the education establishment or reform of education to ensure we have better outcomes in general. Nearly 60% of our children are failing (below grade level) in English Language Arts and Math. This funding increase does not recognize the large spending increases given to schools in recent budgets or the massive amount of federal ARPA funds, perpetuates the liberal talking point that more taxpayer money will fix everything in K12 education. Just giving schools $1 billion more in spendable revenue does nothing to ensure better outcomes. More choice students will improve overall academic achievement outcomes but there are far more students in public schools who will continue to fail and still be indoctrinated every single day. |
This “deal” closely mirrors the general aid and per pupil increase in the Evers budget. In making this deal with the Governor, Republicans did not get a parents’ bill of rights, a ban on Critical Race Theory, a requirement that schools teach standard English, real math, a ban on gender indoctrination, not even a ban on drag queen shows in schools. Nothing. Without reforms, this only throws more money at the schools that will continue to teach our kids to hate the country, that 2+2 does not equal 4 and that perfection and turning in your homework is a trait of white supremacy. |
| For Liberals | For Republicans | For Taxpayers | Notes | |
| $1 billion increase in K12 funding; a $325 per pupil increase. The governor’s budget had a $350 per pupil increase, and a $1 billion general aid increase. Gov. Evers, Superintendent Underly, and the education establishment have been deflecting their responsibility for our children’s dismal academic performance by convincing the media and the public that the reason our children are struggling is that Republicans have starved our schools despite billions in recent education spending increases. Evers can now claim victory on one of his biggest priorities. | Some, maybe all, Republicans will brag this is “biggest investment in public education, ever.” | No accountability for the education establishment or reform of education to ensure we have better outcomes in general. Nearly 60% of our children are failing (below grade level) in English Language Arts and Math. This funding increase does not recognize the large spending increases given to schools in recent budgets or the massive amount of federal ARPA funds, perpetuates the liberal talking point that more taxpayer money will fix everything in K12 education. Just giving schools $1 billion more in spendable revenue does nothing to ensure better outcomes. More choice students will improve overall academic achievement outcomes but there are far more students in public schools who will continue to fail and still be indoctrinated every single day. | This “deal” closely mirrors the general aid and per pupil increase in the Evers budget. In making this deal with the Governor, Republicans did not get a parents’ bill of rights, a ban on Critical Race Theory, a requirement that schools teach standard English, real math, a ban on gender indoctrination, not even a ban on drag queen shows in schools. Nothing. Without reforms, this only throws more money at the schools that will continue to teach our kids to hate the country, that 2+2 does not equal 4 and that perfection and turning in your homework is a trait of white supremacy. | |
| $50 million for a new literacy plan and reading specialists - $30 million more than Evers proposed in his budget. | $50 million for a new literacy plan, more education bureaucrats and no accountability for DPI or schools for their failure to teach our kids to read. While we would never call out or question Superintendent Underly about the fact that almost 60% of our kids are failing math and English Language Arts on the Forward Exam, now we can at least tell parents we fixed the literacy problem with a new $50 million program to force schools to do what schools should have been doing all along - teaching all of our kids to read by third grade. | $50 million in new education spending and more education bureaucrats for what should be one of the only basic responsibilities of our schools - teach our kids to read. No accountability for DPI or schools for their failure to teach our kids to read. Without accountability or other reforms, parents cannot be assured that this new literacy package will even begin to fix the problem. Bureaucrats who are currently responsible for our dismal scores and declining academic achievement will keep their jobs, take this new funding to grow their fiefdoms and make modest improvements for a small number of kids. | Republicans added $30 million above the $20 million proposed in the Evers budget. We have been drawing attention to the literacy problem in our state for years. This is potentially the most important and critical provision for the future of our state in any of these packages. So we want to believe in this one and we will examine it very closely. We worry that legislators who want to cozy up to the education establishment will water this down so nobody at DPI has their feelings hurt or blame is properly placed for this education disaster. If the provision holding back young children who struggle to read is real and will actually be used as needed, this is a win. In talking to local educators, few of them like this idea, so we are concerned that the effectiveness of this new literacy program will be dampened. Decades of school spending increases have resulted in lower scores, but this money will change everything. If Superintendent Underly and the ultra-liberal education establishment is left to their own devices, they will undermine the entire operation and our kids will continue to drown in failure. | |
| Higher reimbursement levels for Choice and Charter kids - $9k for K8 and $12 for high school. Evers’ liberal base and WEAC hate this one. Could he be counting on the new liberal majority on the State Supreme Court to overturn this provision or the entire Choice program? | Higher reimbursement levels for Choice and Charter kids - $9k for K8 and $12 for high school. Choice advocates believe that this could double the size of the Choice program. | Higher reimbursement levels but no expansion of Choice slots, and while we understand that the Choice expansion has to be connected to the massive increase in K12 funding, there is no accountability for lousy public schools or assurances that schools will stop indoctrinating our children in this agreement. | Their bargaining netted them in return…no parents’ bill of rights, no bans on CRT, no bans on grooming, gender indoctrination or pornagraphic books, not even a ban on drag queen shows in schools. If/when this does lead to a significant increase in students participating in the Choice or Charter programs, that will be a significant win for conservatives and a huge blow for the partisan wing of the education establishment. | |
| Increase of $30 million/budget for Evers’ mental health initiative which reimburses schools for hiring social workers, psychologists and counselors. | Supporting $30 million for children’s mental health. | Gov. Evers and public health decisions caused the mental health crisis in our youth by shutting down the schools. No safeguards to ensure that parents are notified when there is a problem or a requirement that parents must be consulted or involved with treatment. | Puts the same people who are forcing gender indoctrination and CRT on children in charge of their mental health. The school social workers and counselors will be more of a barrier between parents and their kids’ mental health. | |
| Increase special education reimbursement 3% for a total of 33% at a cost of $97 million. | The $97 million increase builds on the increases provided in previous budgets. | |||
| Shared Revenue - 20% minimum increase for every municipality (up from 15%). This is a total increase of 36.5% in state aid. The Evers budget included $576 million new funding for shared revenue. | Republicans say there’s so much money for locals in the plan it will be hard for anyone to vote no. They won a 35.6% increase in state aid to locals. They worked their way up from a 10% minimum increase to the 20% in the final plan (except Milwaukee which gets a 10% bump and places with a population over 110,000 get 15% more) started at a minimum 10% increase for every local government in state aid. All new local revenue will be required to be used for law enforcement, fire, EMS, public works and transportation. Municipalities will no longer be allowed to pursue race-based hiring, unless of course the federal government requires diversity considerations to qualify for federal aid or a grant. Republicans will say that all of this increase in government spending is a good thing because this is government spending that we like. | Local government is about to grow. They will all have an average of 35.6% more state aid to spend. Some municipalities get over 700% more, at least one gets over 800% more. We have been growing the size and scope of government at the state level for years, now government at the local level will grow as well. Hallelujah. Data shows that spending at the local level has increased at a greater rate than inflation or household median income in Wisconsin. But, that doesn’t matter, the locals claim to be impoverished. | Evers’ budget proposed 1 cent of sales tax for shared revenue, an increase in shared revenue of $576 million/year. Republicans bargained to get 1% of the sales tax used for shared revenue. Their $276 million increase in state aid added to the $300 million Innovation Grants total….$576 million. Evers created a new $1.5 billion pot for locals in February, the legislature created a $1.5 billion pot in May. Remember, Evers campaigned on added funding for police and public safety when a significant portion of the money he directed to local police was used for sensitivity training. Does anyone really believe this prohibition on race-based hiring will actually stop the liberals in Milwaukee, Madison and everywhere else from pursuing their holy DEI grail? Will the legislature be willing to remove significant funding from those units of government who are caught violating this provision in the future? | |
| Milwaukee and Milwaukee County can increase their local sales tax increase with a 2/3rds vote of board (the voter referendum is out). Milwaukee politicians have been desperate for their own source of tax revenue, a new source of tax revenue that does not have taxpayer protections built in like the property tax, so they can spend it as they see fit, and dramatically grow their own fiefdoms. | New Milwaukee city and county leaders earned the trust of Legislative Republicans who agreed to allow them to raise local taxes by over a quarter billion dollars per year. | Taxpayers will have no say on the tax hike. Allowing Milwaukee to use the sales tax to pay towards the Milwaukee pension nets non-Milwaukeeans to contribute. The skim from the sales tax that is not required to go towards fixing the pension problem will allow Milwaukee politicians to fund their pet local projects. | Flip-flops on both sides: Evers proposed a referendum for a smaller tax increase in the last budget, the legislature flip-flopped on their opposition to local sales taxes to bail them out of self-created problems. Adding language to prevent the expansion of the streetcar is positive. Maybe we could have added a provision to force Milwaukee to charge riders a user fee that actually covers the full cost of operating the system? Much more important than preventing Diversity Equity and Inclusion being used in hiring for a government job is stopping radical Critical Race Theory from continuing to poison the minds of our children and impeding academic achievement. Much more important. | |
| Maintenance of Effort requirements for public safety for all municipalities as a condition of the shared revenue increases. Milwaukee has to meet the same public safety MOE with their shared revenue increase ($21.7 million). Milwaukee also is required to divert at least 10% of their new sales tax collections - every year for 30 years - to maintain and expand police and fire. | Police and fire spending/staffing is protected in local budgets. Locals’ public safety efforts are frozen in time. The bill claims the sales tax will end in 30 years. But the bill required 10% of the money raised from the tax to be spent for ongoing expenses, making it virtually impossible to sunset. | There are no provisions included to push the justice system to make changes that would follow through on arrests made by more police - particularly needed in Milwaukee. There is a pattern of criminals being out on the streets on low/no bail or released because cases are dismissed for not being tried speedily enough. And many of those out on no bail or a lenient sentence commit more crimes. The effectiveness of hiring a dozen or two more police officers will be greatly undercut unless the liberal’s scold-and-release treatment of criminals remains. | ||
| Evers’ proposed budget repealed the remaining portion of the personal property tax, this gives Evers back the $200 million tax cut he originally had in his budget proposal. | Repeals the rest of the personal property tax, a $200 million tax cut. | While the repeal of any tax is a good thing, this is a tax paid only by a small subset of taxpayers. The size of this tax cut, $200 million, pales in comparison to the size of the $7 billion surplus, which really is the amount taxpayers have been overtaxed to fund our current government. | This was never a point of negotiation; this was on both Evers’ and the republican legislature’s priority list. | |
| Police officers in MPS - Milwaukee liberals will hate this provision and see it as a sign of oppression that police officers are there to keep children safe. | 25 police officers in MPS schools and require school districts to keep track of crimes committed at school. | There are well over 100 different schools in MPS. Are the kids in the other dozens of schools worth less? | If the school district continues with its no discipline policy because it would be racist to hold individuals accountable for their behavior, nothing will change. The police officers will be at some of the schools to stop, God forbid, an attack on the school but all the violent behavior between students or staff, bullying and general mayhem that occurs on an almost daily basis will continue unabated. This provision should have been coupled with | |
| Innovation fund - a pool of taxpayer money that apparently is necessary to convince/bribe/pay off local units of government to be efficient and work together delivering services to Wisconsinites. | Really? Instead of just doing what is right for the taxpayer and for hard-working families in this state, local officials need to be bribed to be efficient? |
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