Study calls for state spending restraints

Unfortunately, we've heard this before. In fact, the story reports that state government established a commission to address this issue in the mid-80's that was ultimately ignored.

Wisconsin taxpayers lost 21.4% of their personal income to taxes in 2002, higher than the national average of 19.9%, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute report says. That year, state and local governments spent $34 billion.
In addition to Wisconsin governments' outspending the national average by 7.7%, personal income in the state lagged the national average by 2.8% in 2002.

And this group has NO credibility on this issue. To cite that we've had to "cut vital programs and lay off teachers" without any facts to support the statement is typical. To then call the taxpayers idiots - "not a single person in their right mind" - is just plain offensive! Why cite laying off teachers rather than get serious and cut costs at the top (administration) and work toward fiscal responsibility, rather than viewing themselves as 'the benevolent employer' willing to give all a job and a fair wage.

Stan Johnson, president of the state's largest teachers union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, said that spending controls clamped on public schools in 1993 have forced school districts to cut vital programs and lay off teachers. Therefore, "not a single person in their right mind" would want new limits on public schools, he said.

Finally, the last paragraph says it all. Just as the recommendations by the commission in the mid-80's was ignored, this too will never see the light of day.

But in a Capitol in which officials are elected every two or four years, "the idea of long-range planning is very hard to sell," he said.