Notes from the West Wing
By
State Representative Garey Bies
Policy in the Budget
I
April is upon us and that means warmer weather will hopefully soon be with us as well. April also means the state budget process is about to kick into high gear. Within a couple of weeks, the Joint Committee on Finance will begin to vote on budget provisions. For today’s Notes from the West Wing I want to talk a bit about the role the state budget plays in establishing policy and what policy should and should not be included in the budget.
As the name implies, the state budget is the vehicle state government uses to plan for its finances, both how much revenue it anticipates to generate from taxes and fees and how much it plans on spending through government programs. At the same time, the state budget is not the proper vehicle for policy items that do not have an impact on the state’s fiscal bottom line. We call these items “non-fiscal policy” and in sessions past the legislature and the Joint Finance Committee, with the assistance of the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, have identified non-fiscal policy items in the budget and removed them.
I firmly believe that the state budget is not the place for non-fiscal policy. That is why last week I sent a letter to the Co-Chairs of the Finance Committee requesting they remove the non-fiscal policy from the budget. When Governor Doyle first ran for the governorship he had strong words regarding non-fiscal policy in the budget:
“I have said this before and I'll say it again, I believe that the state budget is a powerful and important financial document, but should not be a political vehicle to hide hundreds of policy items that deserve separate consideration and debate.”
Of course, things changed once he got into office and he began to try and slip policy items through the budget process. This session is no different and there are several policy items that deserve to be stand alone legislation so that they may receive their proper review by the public and debate and approval by the legislature.
In the past the Fiscal Bureau has used a standard approach in determining what items in the budget are non-fiscal policy and should therefore be removed. Unfortunately, this standard approach was not used this time. As a result, some non-fiscal policy items will not be removed that deserved to be removed and I would like to briefly talk about two of them.
First, the budget includes provisions to increase mandated auto-insurance coverage and undo related tort reforms. These provisions in no way affect the state’s finances or spending obligations but they will raise auto-insurance prices on the average Wisconsin consumer by as much as 33-43%. This represents a significant policy change and should be debated as stand alone legislation in the full light of day. While this provision is going to severely affect the wallets of citizens, it does not affect state finances and should have been removed.
The second item I want to mention is the smoking ban. The smoking ban in no way affects state finances and unlike the car insurance item above, does not even affect the pocketbooks of citizens. However, under the new criteria of identifying non-fiscal policy the smoking ban was somehow not identified as non-fiscal policy. This is incredibly unfortunate. With the smoking ban buried in the state budget it will not receive the attention it deserves. I was looking forward to voting on the smoking ban but with it buried in the state budget legislators will not be able to cast their votes to let their constituents know where they stand on the issue.
The budget we have been presented by the democrats will increase taxes by $3.18 billion including a $1.48 billion property tax increase (this on top of the $1.2 billion tax increase in the budget repair bill). Although there is never a good time to raise taxes, an economic recession is the worst possible time. I cannot and will not vote for a budget that raises taxes by billions of dollars. So if I vote “No” on the budget does that mean I vote “No” on the smoking ban? It does not and that is why non-fiscal policy should be removed from the state budget. The vote on the budget should be about state finances like the proposed tax increases. It is unfair to the people of Wisconsin that they will not be allowed to draw their conclusions as to where their elected representatives stand on important issues.
As always, I can be reached by e-mail at Rep.Bies@legis.wisconsin.gov or by telephone, toll-free at 1-888-482-0001. You can also visit my website at http://www.legis.state.wi.us/assembly/asm01/news/.