Now that Wisconsin has a budget for the next biennium, we can look forward to "more than $2 billion in tax and fee increases". Note to Republicans: nominate a socially libertarian candidate for the next governor's race who has as part of his/her platform to eliminate the Department of Administration and you've got a good chance of taking back the executive branch here.
After reading about the budget approval, I found out some disturbing information: Wisconsin has borrowed almost $290 million to cover our bankrupt unemployment insurance system. This info comes from ProPublica. According to another article there:
The federal government's stimulus package gave states extra time to pay off the loans. But by 2011, Washington will start charging states interest at a rate of about 5 percent, which must be repaid out of states' general budgets.
How does this budget address this? Does it? I can just see this state not paying any of it back and then getting an interest payment due of nearly $14 million. And how long will the roughly $29 million left in the fund last? Is more borrowing on the horizon for our unemployment system?
No comments:
Post a Comment