David Michael Miller
The way to think about Gov. Tony Evers’ first budget is as the opening bids in a long process of negotiation.
As predicted, legislative Republicans declared his budget dead on arrival upon introduction in February and vowed to create their own taxing and spending document from scratch.
What that means is that Evers will just veto what they send him and they’ll have to try again until they pass a budget that Evers will sign. The budget is supposed to be done by July 1, but it’s not unusual for the process to stretch out into the late summer or fall as it did last time, even when Republicans controlled everything.
It would be good if the Republicans would just sit down with Evers and hammer out a deal before then, but that seems unlikely because they’ll want to take the next several months to posture for their base and to make a case against what’s in a budget they have already rejected. Expect to hear the word “socialism” a lot.
As an opening gambit, Evers’ budget touches a lot of liberal bases without going too far. It’s aggressive but not so aggressive as to be easily attacked as out of the mainstream. No, it is not socialism by any stretch.
As a matter of fact, Evers’ budget is a whole lot closer to the mainstream than former Gov. Scott Walker’s budgets were or where the legislative Republicans are right now. Majorities of Wisconsinites support things like a higher minimum wage, reproductive rights, nonpartisan redistricting, more money for education, and marijuana decriminalization, all things that are in Evers’ budget. The real out-of-touch radicals are Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald.
Republicans were so intent on trashing Democrat Evers’ budget that they even rejected things they had proposed themselves just last session, like an increase in the gas tax offset by repeal of the state’s Progressive Era minimum markup law. I guess a good idea becomes a bad idea when embraced by a Democrat.
But here’s the thing. It’s pretty much a given in any negotiation that the other side will not give you more than you ask for. So, you might as well start by asking for everything.
Given that rule, it’s not clear to me why the governor left three important initiatives out of his budget. The governor proposes nothing to fight chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Wisconsin’s deer herd, reduce the state prison population, or eliminate the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.
The Walker administration took a see-no-evil approach to CWD, a disease that eats away at the brains of deer and has been slowly spreading since it was discovered in Wisconsin in 2002. Evers’ vowed to return to a science-based approach to natural resource management and, in fact, his budget would restore scientists to the Department of Natural Resources. But why no aggressive initiative on CWD? It could be argued that right now there is no cure and no obvious answer to fighting the disease, but why not invest in research? Under the current voluntary testing program only about one in 30 harvested deer is tested for CWD. An aggressive program to encourage or even require testing would be a good first step. The more we test the more we know about the disease and the more we can protect hunters from eating diseased deer.
During the campaign Evers vowed to approximately halve the state’s prison population, which is about twice what it is in Minnesota. Reducing that population would also save money and, perhaps for that reason, this is one area where there has actually been bipartisan support nationally. About a fourth of the Wisconsin prison population is there on nonviolent drug charges. Evers could have started with an aggressive review of those cases with a goal of finding ways to speed up the release of nonviolent offenders. The interfaith group WISDOM was keenly disappointed in the lack of a budget initiative. They felt Evers had promised it and they were surprised, so it’s not clear to me why his office didn’t tell them in advance that nothing was coming.
Finally, there’s the WEDC, which under Walker came under intense criticism for mismanaging state grants and loans to businesses. During the campaign Evers promised to eliminate the WEDC altogether, but after the election he quickly backed off and he even included $31 million in his budget for Marinette Marine as part of a bid to get a Defense Department shipbuilding contract. Meanwhile, WEDC CEO Mark Hogan continues to defend the increasingly indefensible Foxconn deal.
Evers’ spokesperson Melissa Baldauff says that the governor remains committed to each of the initiatives I’ve mentioned, but that action was not necessary in this budget.
There’s no doubt that Evers represents a refreshing change from the past eight years and his policies are much closer to the center of Wisconsin politics than the radical conservative policies of his predecessor or the Republicans who control the Legislature.
I’m hoping his first budget is just the opening ante in a long game of poker.
Dave Cieslewicz is the former mayor of Madison. He blogs as Citizen Dave at isthmus.com.