My criticism of the Grant County GOP Chairman’s take on Phil Garthwaite’s Budget

Rep. Garthwaite was recently handed a free pass from Lancaster’s only media source to print anything he wanted to say about the budget. Although all of Grant County’s print media outlets are owned by the same company as the Lancaster paper, none of them ever seem to show Garthwaite the same unabashed love that the Grant County Herald Independent lavishes on our Rep. in Madison. Their “stories” about Garthwaite wouldn’t pass as editorials in a tabloid but I digress. Who am I to complain about ethics in journalism?

At any rate, here is a response to Rep. Garthwaite’s comments about the state budget as published in the Grant County Herald Independent. The following comments are written by Grant County GOP Chairman David Kuhle:

Governor Doyle is claiming that the 2009-11 budget was the first enacted on schedule since 1977. Both the 2003-05 and 2005-07 budgets were passed by the legislature before their July 1st start dates, but Governor Doyle delayed signing for a month in order to use his Frankenstein veto pen to strike out words, letters and whole pages to create new laws not intended by the legislature. Since then, Republicans were successful in amending the state constitution to prohibit the governor from making law with his veto pen.

Wisconsin has deficit spent to ‘balance’ the budget for years due to government officials creating more entitlements than we had money to pay for. Wisconsin law requires that budgets be balanced. Included in this budget is this disclaimer to avoid breaking the law:
“Specify that the current law requirements that revenues exceed expenditures in each fiscal year would not apply in 2010-11.”

This budget increases Wisconsin’s general obligation bonds from $5.9 billion to $8.8 billion and revenue bonds from $2.8 billion to $3.5 billion, making us the 15th most indebted state in the country.

Rep. Phil Garthwaite’s quote, “Fixing this record budget deficit wasn’t an easy task. We cut spending and waste from every level of government” is misleading. This budget was not fixed. Democrats compounded Wisconsin’s fiscal mess.

Refusing any fiscal amendments from Republicans, Democrats own this budget. Wisconsin spent $29 billion in 2008-09 and this budget will spend a two-year average of $31 billion, an increase in spending for this two-year budget of $4 billion, with tax and fee increases of $3.6 billion.

Garthwaite is quoted, “I kept transportation dollars flowing by mandating that the DOT repave highway 61 between Dickeyville and Lancaster.” Ridiculous. No representative can mandate the government do anything. The 61 project was originally scheduled to be completed already, then backed off several years, and now moved up to this budget.

Top-Ten bad things in the Democrat-only 2009-11 budget, quoting the non-political Legislative Fiscal Bureau. 1) Auto insurance will increase because liability minimums have doubled. 2) Capital gains taxes increase 75%. 3) $10 million for health insurance benefits for homosexual partners. 4) $30 million in pork projects including: $110,000 for Gay Straight Alliance for Safe Schools, $400,000 for Native American Tourism of Wisconsin, $5 million for the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, and $37,900 for a chat room in the Child Advocacy Center in Green County. 5) Eliminated the 3.8% compensation minimum for teacher union members. 6) Doubled nursing home fees. 7) Requires private construction projects to pay union-equivalent wages if any government financing is involved. 8) Increase day care fees by 50 % per child. 9) Increase assisted living home fees by 27%. !0) Doubled garbage fees.
Contrary to Rep. Garthwaite, the Democrats did not ‘balance the books’. They borrowed our children’s future to reward their political friends.

Most of this commentary is accurate, however, I must point out some of the Chairman Kuhle’s mistakes:

1. Auto insurance premiums are also increasing because of “stacking,” “ghost car,” and other changes in the budget. Stacking and ghost car mean this: If you own two insured cars and one uninsured junker that sits in the yard, and your son takes the junker and crashes it into something, then the owner of that something can now sue you on your other TWO policies. Stacking by its self means that you can be sued for value of the policy of the truck you drive, the minivan your wife drives, and your two collector cars in your garage. That comes on top of the new mandates that Chairman Kuhle mentioned.

2. The Capital gains tax, when combined with the new income tax, is actually more than an 75% increase on many small businesses.

3. The cost of providing free state health care and retirement benefits for the boyfriends, girlfriends, roommate, gay partners, etc… of state employees is actually estimated at $15 million rather than $10 million.

4. There are more than $37 million in pork projects in the budget and more than $1 billion in earmarks.

5. The nursing home bed tax more than doubles from $75 per month, per nursing home bed to $170 per month, per bed.

So to recap, Chairman Kuhle is only wrong in his analysis of Garthwaite’s budget in that the budget is actually much worse and taxes much more than the Chairman initially thought.