Facts don't get in the way of Senator Kanavas' political attack
Yesterday Senator Kanavas issued a press release attacking Governor Doyle saying he is not cutting enough state employees. This can only be described as a political attack using state office letterhead since Senator Kanavas and many of his Republican colleagues didn't shown any interest in reducing the number of state employees as part of their state job until after Governor Doyle was elected. Oh they often talked about it on the campaign trail, but they never put it into action as part of the state budget.
And Doyle had to drag them kicking and screaming into actually making the cuts. In fact, Senator Kanavas and almost every other Republican in the legislature voted for a budget in 2003 that had 649 more state employees than Governor Doyle's budget. It also increased the state deficit by $282 million more than Governor Doyle's budget.
Seen unbelievable coming from me? How about an article from the June 16th edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel?
Democrats, senior aides to Doyle and even some Republicans said they learned that the GOP budget would:Republican fiscal conservatism at its very best.
-- Create a $1.1 billion deficit -- the imbalance between tax collections and spending -- in the two-year budget that ends June 30, 2007. The Republicans' long-term deficit is $282 million higher than the spending plan recommended by Doyle in February, according to the Fiscal Bureau. The size of the deficit will depend on growth in state tax collections.
-- Add 649 more full-time workers than Doyle recommended in his budget. Most of them would be prison guards to staff two new state prisons, reducing the state's reliance on out-of-state prisons.
-- Rely on $250 million more in one-time funds than the governor's proposal.
-- Increase general-fund spending by $1 billion in the second and final year of the next budget.
9 Comments:
The fact remains - Doyle promised to cut 10,000 jobs and he has not delivered.
Well, his time is not up on this one and he has to work against a Republican legislature that is trying to ADD jobs so I think he's making some pretty good progress on it.
Oh please - the legislature has very little to do with state agency staffing levels. The Executive branch has almost complete control to eliminate positions.
Nice try - but Doyle has simply failed to live up to a campaign promise. Not the first politician to come up short. Besides, pay-for-play is what will bring him down.
Riiiight, the legislature has nothing to do with writing the state budget. If that's the case, how did they manage to write a state budget with a higher staffing level than Doyle in 2003?
Now I see how Republicans can complain about the level of government spending even though they have a direct role in how much is spent. They follow the lead of folks like reader Shades and just pretend they have nothing to do with it.
Kanavas and the boys could have taken the lead on this issue by cutting the caucus employees before they were forced to. They also could cut their current staff by 50% and I don't think anyone would feel under served. The only place Kanavas and the boys vote to set a budget that reduces head count is at the K-12 education system. Almost every school district in Ted's Senate District is laying off teachers.
Again, nice try. If the legislature has such control over staffing - then why would Doyle go out on such a limb to claim that he could reduce levels by 10,000?
If he had cut 10,000 staff positions, you would be on here giving him 100% of the credit. Doyle made the claim - Kanavas is simply pointing out that he did not live up to his claim.
You can complain about the legislature all you want - Doyle is the one who has failed on this point because he set himself up - nobody else.
You can try to argue that the legislature doesn't have anything to do with staffing levels all you want, it's just not true.
And for the record, I would not be giving him credit on cutting 10,000 jobs. I didn't support that goal when he announced it and I still don't.
I just think Kanavas and his colleagues shouldn't be allowed to take a political swipe at Doyle when they are unwilling to make the cuts themselves.
This all points to the fact that it was a stupid political stunt by Doyle. Kanavas has every right to point out that Doyle is not living up to his promise.
Kanavas should be free to take a jab at Doyle on this issue. Kanavas did not challenge Doyle to make this statement - Doyle made it freely. Now, he did it to appear like was fiscally conservative - but that really has no bearing on the fact that he said it - unprovoked.
The fact that I don't support it hardly makes it a political stunt by Doyle.
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