Wisconsin has become the focus of national attention because the Governor used the budget process to try to dismantle public employee unions. Had he not done so, and had only used the budget process to make spending cuts, Wisconsin would have remained unremarkable. Lots of states have budget deficits. Programs are being cut all over.
But I wanted to focus on the budget cuts themselves. And particularly how they affect Scott Walker’s core supporters. It’s easy to see that the cuts will be devastating for people who rely on state services. But those are mostly poor people, not people who were likely to have voted for Scott Walker last November.
Instead, we look at a Scott Walker family, two adults, two kids, nice house in a suburban community, family income of about $125,000. The main issue for them? Taxes. They pay too much. They won’t stand for paying any more. Scott Walker’s their man.
So, lately they have been hearing about the effect of the cuts in the state budget. At first, there is some unbelief. What, you mean government services will have to be cut? But I thought the budget deficit was because of those unions extorting money from the legislature. I thought we just fixed that problem.
The Wisconsin budget deficit has been estimated at $3.6 billion, over the next two years, which comes to about $300 per capita per annum. Since the per capita income of Wisconsin is over $30,000, this could be raised by an increase in state income tax rates of 1%. But, of course, that is unthinkable. Our suburban family of four couldn’t possibly absorb an additional tax bill of $1200.
But what, exactly, will be the impact of these cuts on these typical Walker voters. The cuts will be especially deep for the University of Wisconsin system. Now, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is among the better state universities around. That isn’t likely to be true much longer. Our family wants their kids to get a quality education, and because it will affect the entire future of their children, they will spend whatever it takes to give their children a quality education. If, when their kids are ready for college, UW-Madison turns out to no longer be the quality college it once was, that means sending the kids to out-of-state schools. About $25,000 extra per year, or $200,000 more than a UW-Madison would cost for both of their children to get an undergraduate degree. Ouch!
But that’s a bit in the future. Let’s say the daughter, Brianna, is a freshman in high school, and the son, Justin, is in middle school. The state budget will cut grants to local governments. There is a summer recreational program at the local high school that the children used to enjoy, but it looks like that’s being cut. Well, that’s a shame, but the children were getting too old for that anyway.
Oh, and it likes the local library is going to be closing. That’s too bad, but we can order books on-line if we need them.
Brianna has been in the school band, but that’s going to be cut as well. And, what’s this? The high school is cutting out foreign language instruction? That’s outrageous! Brianna was taking Spanish, and Justin seemed interested in his heritage language (which is German — this is Wisconsin, after all). The parents write a letter to their school board representative, complaining about the cuts to foreign language. In response, they learn that the school board is committed to providing quality education to all the students of the district, and that it was a painful decision to cut the foreign language programs, but they had to work within their budgetary constraints. The school board member went on to commend the children for their interest in learning another language, and suggested that the parents might purchase Rosetta Stone software packages for them.
Not having a better alternative, and wishing to encourage their children in their educational pursuits, the parents order the Spanish and German packages from Rosetta Stone, adding about $1200 to their credit card balance. But, wait. Wasn’t that the amount that they would have been taxed to balance the budget? And for that $1200, wouldn’t they have had an actual language teacher for their kids, and a high school band, and a local library, and a summer rec program?
Scott Walker won by promising to create jobs. The only jobs I see created in this story are perhaps at the Rosetta Stone headquarters, but that’s in Virginia. The funny thing about Wiscnson tax revenue is that for the most part, it gets spent in Wisconsin.