TPM DC
February 17, 2011
Brian Beutler
 Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) |
Wisconsin's new Republican governor has framed
his assault on public workers' collective
bargaining rights as a needed measure of fiscal
austerity during tough times.
The reality is radically different. Unlike true
austerity measures — service rollbacks,
furloughs and other temporary measures, that
cause pain, but save money — rolling back
workers' bargaining rights by itself saves almost
nothing on its own. But Walker's doing it
anyhow, to knock down a barrier and allow him
to cut state employee benefits immediately.
Mad in Madison: Wisconsin Workers Protest Against Governor's Budget Proposals
Furthermore, this broadside comes less, than a month after the state's fiscal bureau — the Wisconsin equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office — concluded, that Wisconsin isn't even in need of austerity measures and could conclude the fiscal year with a surplus. In fact they say, that the current budget shortfall is a direct result of tax cut policies, Walker enacted in his first days in office.
"Walker was not forced into a budget repair bill by circumstances beyond his control", says Jack Norman, research director at the Institute for Wisconsin Future — a public interest think tank. "He wanted a budget repair bill and forced it by pushing through tax cuts..., so he could rush through these other changes. The state of Wisconsin has not reached the point, at which austerity measures are needed."
In a Wednesday op-ed the Capitol Times of Madison picked up on this theme:
In its Jan. 31 memo to legislators on the condition of the state's budget the Fiscal Bureau determined, that the state will end the year with a balance of $121.4 million.
To the extent, that there is an imbalance — Walker claims, there is a $137 million deficit —, it is not because of a drop in revenues or increases in the cost of state employee contracts, benefits or pensions. It is, because Walker and his allies pushed through $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups in January.
You can read the fiscal bureaus report here or here (PDF). It holds, that "more, than half" of the new shortfall comes from three of Walker's initiatives:
- $25 million for an economic development fund for job creation, which still holds $73 million because of anemic job growth
- $48 million for private health savings accounts — a perennial Republican favorite
- $67 million for a tax incentive plan, that benefits employers, but at levels too low, to spur hiring
In essence, public workers are being asked to pick up the tab for this agenda. "The provisions in his bill do two things simultaneously", Norman says. "They remove bargaining rights and having accomplished that, make changes in the benefit packages." That's, how Walker's plan saves money. And when it's all said and done, these workers will have lost their bargaining rights going forward in perpetuity.