Conservatively Speaking

Speaking of "making sure the state lives within its means"...What are your proposals? Where are your spending cuts? Ever complaining and propagandizing; never engaging in critical policy issues beyond BLUEBERRIES!!!!  

This particular Wisconsin State Journal article says the stimulus could make budget problems worse, if other dire conditions are met. It also cites ways the stimulus could help. The quote you use is speculation, followed in the article by Republican lawmakers also speculating on what could go wrong.

OK. Things could get worse. Smart policy would include contingency plans, if possible.

But your headline reads "would" hurt, not "could" hurt. Your proof? Not your speculation. Your proof. Right now, you are guessing just as much as all the lawmakers and economists who are lining up to say the stimulus will help. This article is being promoted right now as a talking point on the WISGOP blog and in other corners of the far right echo chamber, but you need to go beyond the talking points.

Let's take another quote from the same article:

"Don Johnson, superintendent of the Middleton-Cross Plains schools, worries that about 20 teachers in his district would be laid off next year if the school district took up to a 15 percent cut in state spending — something Gov. Jim Doyle has said is possible without federal help. That could lead to increased class sizes and fewer class offerings, he said."

What, specifically, are you proposing to prevent that sort of damage to public education in place of the stimulus?

Before you say tax cuts, one more from the same article:

"But finding a way out of this year's budget mess through cuts alone would require dramatic cuts in Medicaid and other health programs, where taxpayer costs are projected to rise $1 billion in the next two years, and public schools and education programs, which have asked for $861 million more in the next two years. At a total of $13.8 billion, education and Medicaid amount to nearly half of the $28.1 billion taxpayers are spending in the current two-year budget.

For a sense of the size of the cuts that would be required, consider that, when the GOP ran the Assembly, members proposed eliminating the UW-Madison Law School, making other cuts to the University System, and trimming payments to the city of Madison. Altogether, those moves would have saved just $110 million."

What are your specific plans?

The full article can be seen here: www.madison.com/.../435893

"Federal stimulus would hurt Wisconsin"

So do you support refusing any and all financial assistance from the stimulus package?  Is this your official position?  

I'd love to know.    

www.jsonline.com/.../39321547.html

What's your point?

"That means there would be $593.7 million less for those two programs for Wisconsin under the bill pending in the Senate than the package passed by the U.S. House, according to the Washington group Federal Funds Information for States.

Under both packages, however, the state would still get an estimated $2 billion more for transportation and other programs."

How's your math?  Mine seems to indicate that the state will be receiving over $2.5 billion in federal stimulus/spending whatever you want to call it.  

Again, do you support refusing any and all financial assistance from the stimulus package?  Is this your official position because the source you just posted is dodging the question as usual.  

Josh, you probably know that my position would be to refuse federal stimulus funds for Wisconsin, but, it's amusing to me that my state senator -- a "fiscally responsible Republican" state senator -- can't state her position; nor will her aide.

I wish I could share in your amusement Fred.