The Milwaukee County BK Report

Looks like Walker was right: Milwaukee County is in deep doodoo.

Surprise!!

The local non-Gummint bigwigs (the Greater Milwaukee Committee) commissioned a report on 'What To Do With This Pig Called Milwaukee County' and lo! behold! it found:

"Milwaukee is facing unprecedented fiscal and structural challenges, including a growing cost of healthcare and pension benefits that is projected to take EVERY DOLLAR of the County's property tax levy by 2016," the draft report says.

Tom Ament and AFSCME leaders were not quoted in Bice's bombshell story.

Barrett wants to indict Walker with the report. (Barrett is backed by AFSCME in the election.)

Walker, for his part, says that he has managed to ameliorate the situation to some degree, but his recommendation?

"I've suggested for the last couple of years that when you have the only county in the state that is fully incorporated, a better long-term solution is to eliminate that extra layer and find a replacement for that."

Not a bad idea.

But even more significant to AFSCME and Ament is the talk of allowing Milwaukee County to go bankrupt.

...local governments need state authorization before they can file for federal bankruptcy, Nixon [a BK lawyer from Green Bay] said. Wisconsin does not permit its local governments to go bankrupt.

"Is this a shortcoming? It hasn't been historically," said Nixon... "Would it be prudent to fill that gap, given what we know about the underfunding of pension liabilities? Probably."

In other words, Milwaukee County's problems are directly tied to its pension/healthcare promises to the union.

And if the County goes BK, it's possible that it will shed its pension/healthcare agreements in the process.

Hoooboy.