A Budget and a Ban

   It’s budget time in Madison — the time when our elected officials are looking at how to spend our money over the next two years. Governor Evers introduced his executive budget, his dreams and plans for spending your hard-earned tax dollars — and now the Republican-controlled state legislature is now determining what it wants to do with the governor’s ideas: scrap them entirely and start over or use his with major revisions.

   The powerful Joint Finance Committee is where the budget currently sits. This committee which has mostly Republicans and a few Democrats on it, reflecting the sizeable majority the GOP has in both the Assembly and Senate, recently announced four public hearings held around the state.

   After the public hearings wrap up late this month, the Committee will start hearing from all the various state departments who want their share of our finances.  Ultimately, the Committee will come up with its version of the budget and present it to both the Assembly and the Senate. Once both houses agree on exactly the same bill, it will be sent to the Governor who will use his very powerful line-item veto pen to make adjustments, I’m sure — and while the Republicans enjoy strong majorities in both houses, neither house has veto-proof numbers. When you’re dealing with spending over $83 billion dollars of taxpayer money, deliberation and caution should be the ord ...