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.

But Walker is maintaining the state is broke and that rolling back the rights of unions that didn't support his campaign for office is necessary to fix a budget shortfall.  Even though taking away collective bargaining rights won't remove any dollars from the State's finanial obligations - unless the bill gets passed and he startes taking away employee entitlements.  Interestingly, law enforcement and firefighter unions are exempt from his plans.   Also interesting is that the law enforcement and firefighter unions largely endorsed his candidacy for Gov.

But I digress, back to the financials and away from the political debt settling.  So if Wisconisn is "broke" the why did the governor in his first month in office approve $140 million in new special-interest spending that includes:

• $25 million for an economic development fund for job creation that still has $73 million due to a lack of job creation effectively creating a $25 million hole which will not create or retain jobs.

• $48 million for private health savings accounts, which primarily benefit the wealthy. A study from the federal Governmental Accountability Office showed the average adjusted gross income of HSA participants was $139,000 and nearly half of HSA participants reported withdrawing nothing from their HSA, evidence that it is serving as a tax shelter for wealthy participants.  (HSA participants contribute pre tax dollars lowering their tax liability on earnings, thus can be used as a tax shelter if those particpants don't use the money)

• $67 million for a tax shift plan, so ill-conceived that at best the benefit provided to ‘job creators’ would be less than a dollar a day per new job, and may be as little as 30 cents a day. Furthermore the state already has 73 million in reserve for job creation, so why is this necessary?  Hint:  Its another tax giveaway. 

BUT THE STATE IS BROKE!

Walker is using the office of the governor to conduct political warfare, brazenly, on those who had the audacity to endorse a different candidate for office, and this is clearly obvious since he felt it necessary to carve out exemptions for the unions that supported him.  He is also trying to cover a budget shortfall that was largely created by the giveways that were the very first acts he committed to as Governor.  

This post has been removed.

....Recall how we got here. How is it that only in desperation will unions accept a deal that still leaves them better off than everyone else? How did we achieve not just next year's $3.3 billion deficit but the decade of structural deficits before? Easy: It's because labor costs for years have been outstripping taxpayers' capacity. That in turn was caused by officials, elected in a union-dominated political environment, buying labor peace via benefits, where it's harder for voters to see the costs adding up."

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.

But Walker is maintaining the state is broke and that rolling back the rights of unions that didn't support his campaign for office is necessary to fix a budget shortfall.  Even though taking away collective bargaining rights won't remove any dollars from the State's finanial obligations - unless the bill gets passed and he startes taking away employee entitlements.  Interestingly, law enforcement and firefighter unions are exempt from his plans.   Also interesting is that the law enforcement and firefighter unions largely endorsed his candidacy for Gov.

But I digress, back to the financials and away from the political debt settling.  So if Wisconisn is "broke" the why did the governor in his first month in office approve $140 million in new special-interest spending that includes:

• $25 million for an economic development fund for job creation that still has $73 million due to a lack of job creation effectively creating a $25 million hole which will not create or retain jobs.

• $48 million for private health savings accounts, which primarily benefit the wealthy. A study from the federal Governmental Accountability Office showed the average adjusted gross income of HSA participants was $139,000 and nearly half of HSA participants reported withdrawing nothing from their HSA, evidence that it is serving as a tax shelter for wealthy participants.  (HSA participants contribute pre tax dollars lowering their tax liability on earnings, thus can be used as a tax shelter if those particpants don't use the money)

• $67 million for a tax shift plan, so ill-conceived that at best the benefit provided to ‘job creators’ would be less than a dollar a day per new job, and may be as little as 30 cents a day. Furthermore the state already has 73 million in reserve for job creation, so why is this necessary?  Hint:  Its another tax giveaway. 

BUT THE STATE IS BROKE!

This post has been removed.

This post has been removed.

This post has been removed.