MADISON, WI [ STORY : JSOnline ]  “If they don’t make enough money, we can’t TAKE it from them!” wailed Governor Doyle, speaking before Congress during his free time between job interviews for ’09 cabinet posts.

Yeah, I paraphrased.  But not much.

See my weekly WITI / FOX6 POLITICAL FEATURE
This week’s article is:
“Find That Filthy ‘D’ Word”

It’s true that Wisconsin might see as much as a three billion dollar reduction in the amount of money picked from our collective pocket next year if when the economy worsens.  In the real world, the prospect of a three billion dollar tax cut would be cause to rejoice.

But this is a blue state, not the real world, which means we’ll resort to wishful thinking and pixie dust before entertaining the notion of doing what MUST be done in a downturn:  cutting spending:

• Shutting down the 1/2 billion dollar per year DNR for a half a decade would make up for that shortfall, but somebody might build a gazebo too close to the swamp near their property and disturb a particular breed of delicate frog or rare bug, so we can’t stop spending THERE.
• Think Wisconsin’s environment is good enough?  We could dismantle the $55 million per year “Environmental Improvement Program” but then who would cut down trees to print signs reminding us to conserve our resources?
• Since the “workforce” declines whether the state “develops” it or not, one could argue that we don’t need to spend a third of a billion per year on the DWD either.

You and I could easily cut enough spending to make up for Wisconsin’s budgetary shortfall just by spending a half an hour perusing the state’s budget items.

Given YEARS to make those types of decisions, why can’t the Doyle administration and our state representatives make those same cuts?

Because their delicate frogs are more important to them than our hungry families, that’s why…

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