Pressure is building on GOP Governor Scott Walker to fix Wisconsin's rutted roads and solve the state's road-building budget crisis.
He's botched both by championing without the needed funding in hand a seven-county multi-billion dollar SE WI not-so-free freeway expansion and reconstruction plan while also starving local transit systems and pothole repair financing - - all the while refusing through an embrace of Tea Party orthodoxy to boost transportation budgets with either an increase in the gasoline tax or vehicle or driver license fees.
But his road-builder campaign donors want the big projects fully built as do Walker's GOP legislative cronies, so what's a politically-ambitions right wing Governor to do?
Well, look to his history as Walker gets ready to launch his 2017-'18 state budget, which will also be the state budget upon which he runs for re-election as Governor or the budget preceding another ineffectual run for President in 2020 -- or both:
* Walker will cobble together funding through cuts in non-transportation areas and transfer that money to big highway projects.
His initial cut to the UW system, in the last budget was $300 million, reduced $50 million by the legislature. Don't be surprised if he goes after the UW, again.
* In his first budget, Walker ended state-financed recycling. The Legislature restored part of it. In his last budget, Walker proposed freezing for thirteen years all state land conversation purchases through a DNR-managed borrowing program, ended all state spending for state parks, and axed a swath of DNR science staffers.
While the Legislature restored some of the land purchase borrowing, I'd expect more cuts to the DNR, and perhaps more movement towards selling park naming rights, or even park land itself.
* Walker has slashed K-12 education, declined federal funding to expand Medicaid, raised taxes on the poor, booted tens of thousands of Wisconsinites off food aid and cancelled Planned Parenthood contracts. So I would expect him to target social service programming and what is left of the safety net in the state as a piggy bank to raid for highway spending.
And just as he has transferred the responsibility for budgeting fairness and decision-making responsibilities to the Legislature, where some of his more Draconian proposals have been moderated - - the UW cut, the recycling and land acquisition abolitions - - Walker could make large trims to state shared revenue - - where funds are returned to municipalities and local governments in exchange for a prohibition on local income taxes - - and let mayors and city councils and county supervisors and school boards figure out how to provide the services Walker and his Legislature could punted their way.
You-know-what rolling downhill is an old state budgeting and political screw-em trick.
The bottom line is that Walker needs to serve his road-builder and business donors who are demanding bigger and better roads, while at the same time Walker needs to firm up his conservative credentials with one, possible two elections on his Ronald Reagan impersonation itinerary.
For Wisconsin residents, that means a budget balanced on the backs of low-income citizens who have the least clout to resist it.
And if some Democratic cities and Mayors and University towns also feel the heat, a Walker win-win.
He's botched both by championing without the needed funding in hand a seven-county multi-billion dollar SE WI not-so-free freeway expansion and reconstruction plan while also starving local transit systems and pothole repair financing - - all the while refusing through an embrace of Tea Party orthodoxy to boost transportation budgets with either an increase in the gasoline tax or vehicle or driver license fees.
But his road-builder campaign donors want the big projects fully built as do Walker's GOP legislative cronies, so what's a politically-ambitions right wing Governor to do?
Well, look to his history as Walker gets ready to launch his 2017-'18 state budget, which will also be the state budget upon which he runs for re-election as Governor or the budget preceding another ineffectual run for President in 2020 -- or both:
* Walker will cobble together funding through cuts in non-transportation areas and transfer that money to big highway projects.
His initial cut to the UW system, in the last budget was $300 million, reduced $50 million by the legislature. Don't be surprised if he goes after the UW, again.
* In his first budget, Walker ended state-financed recycling. The Legislature restored part of it. In his last budget, Walker proposed freezing for thirteen years all state land conversation purchases through a DNR-managed borrowing program, ended all state spending for state parks, and axed a swath of DNR science staffers.
While the Legislature restored some of the land purchase borrowing, I'd expect more cuts to the DNR, and perhaps more movement towards selling park naming rights, or even park land itself.
* Walker has slashed K-12 education, declined federal funding to expand Medicaid, raised taxes on the poor, booted tens of thousands of Wisconsinites off food aid and cancelled Planned Parenthood contracts. So I would expect him to target social service programming and what is left of the safety net in the state as a piggy bank to raid for highway spending.
And just as he has transferred the responsibility for budgeting fairness and decision-making responsibilities to the Legislature, where some of his more Draconian proposals have been moderated - - the UW cut, the recycling and land acquisition abolitions - - Walker could make large trims to state shared revenue - - where funds are returned to municipalities and local governments in exchange for a prohibition on local income taxes - - and let mayors and city councils and county supervisors and school boards figure out how to provide the services Walker and his Legislature could punted their way.
You-know-what rolling downhill is an old state budgeting and political screw-em trick.
The bottom line is that Walker needs to serve his road-builder and business donors who are demanding bigger and better roads, while at the same time Walker needs to firm up his conservative credentials with one, possible two elections on his Ronald Reagan impersonation itinerary.
For Wisconsin residents, that means a budget balanced on the backs of low-income citizens who have the least clout to resist it.
And if some Democratic cities and Mayors and University towns also feel the heat, a Walker win-win.