cur-mud-geon:
anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner
Todd Berry, President of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance published a very interesting and revealing Blog on the Milwaukee Biz Blog site yesterday.
His subject was the absence of any mention of our terrible bond rating, and the truth about our deficit. I have discussed this before, as well.
Our state budget people tell us that we finished the last fiscal year with a general fund balance of $49.6 million. Using generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) as established by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, the “black” $49.6 million turns into a big “red” deficit of $2.15 billion.
We were one of only three states in the whole country that had a GAAP deficit, and (ranked on population) Wisconsin had the largest per capita deficit in the country.
Want worse news yet? Our state’s debt load has grown from $4.13 billion in 2002 to a whopping $8.99 billion at the end of 2006. That is a 117% increase. We are borrowing and thus mortgaging our future like the proverbial “drunken sailor”. I have said before that we really demean drunken sailors when we compare them to our legislators and the governor.
If we put this into terms that you and I recognize from our personal finances, our unrestricted net assets are insufficient to pay off our debt unless the state sells off roads, buildings, parks and campuses.
One of the things this means is that as we borrow more and more money to finance our state appetite for spending, we pay much higher interest rates. Wisconsin ranks below 34 other states in terms of its bond rating; only three states had lower bond ratings than ours at the end of 2006.
We are not being told about this by our elected representatives. Why must we learn this from the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance? Is it because our elected representatives simply don’t have the courage to “fess up” to their poor management of our financial resources? Is it because spending is much more pleasant and continues to keep us under the collective legislative thumb? Is it because they want even more of our money as evidenced by the current budget debate?
You and I bear much of the responsibility for this because we have not demanded that our elected representatives run the state the way we must run our homes. The state budget is far from complete and that gives us citizens the time we need to get the message to our elected officials. We simply cannot permit the state to continue to borrow and spend beyond our capacity to pay. We must pay down our debt and run on a true balanced budget that lets us keep more of our money for ourselves.
We must take the tough position that our elected representatives either take care of this huge issue or face being replaced by people who will.
When this whole thing is viewed on top of the nearly $3 billion in added taxes and “fees” that we’re being squeezed for, it makes me sick to my stomach!
Call, write, e-mail or visit your representative today!
