Owen Runs the Numbers

He put his boots on this morning, and compared Doylie statements on hospital-tax revenue guesses from his original budget proposal with his brand-new, wowza, budget-repair statements.

There's a difference, folks.

In this repair bill, Doyle is proposing a 0.7% tax on hospitals (instead of the 1%). If a 1% tax would have raised $418 million, then a 0.7% tax should raise about $292.6 million. But Doyle is saying that the tax will now attract $700 million in additional federal revenue instead of the $568 million or $450 million he projected before. With the new proposal, he expects $125 million to be left over for the general fund, so he must be planning on spending $867.6 million more with the hospitals - up from the $700 million he proposed before. If compared to his previous hospital tax proposal, this one would generate less revenue, but attract more federal revenue, and would pay more to hospitals. That doesn’t make sense at all.

Is he just making up numbers?

The short answer: why not? He "made up numbers" for revenue projections for the original budget and the Leggies (wink-wink-wink) agreed with the fantasy, so why not make up a few more numbers?

Worse, DarthDoyle is simply hoping and praying that the Feds will actually come up with the aid-package he projects. Fed numbers change (ask the DA's.) This could change, too.

But there's something even the intrepid Owen missed. Look carefully at this language:

Department of Administration Secretary Michael Morgan will lead efforts to reduce funding from executive branch agency appropriations by $330.4 million over the biennium.

The $330 million has not yet been "reduced." In fact, we have no friggin' idea WHAT amount has been "reduced" so far, nor any language that says ANYTHING has been "reduced."

It's another (wink-wink-wink) so far.

By the way, it doesn't look better for the future:

The budget that runs through mid-2009 was headed for a $650 million shortfall, but Doyle already has whittled that down by delaying paying off some debt.

How much is irrelevant. The debt must be paid at some point in time--meaning in the next biennial budget, or thereafter. No wonder Miller Brewing and the Bowling Congress are getting the Hell out of Dodge.

That's hardly all. Here's another bright idea:

Fund libraries with $11 million in telephone fees instead of general taxes.

A "Fee" is not a tax, right? But the "fee" will be taken, just like taxes, at the point of a gun, right?

And, of course, the super-duper-evergreen-stealing:

Use $243 million in transportation money to pay for general expenses. Additional borrowing and new federal aid ["which we don't know for sure will be there, but what the Hell, let's tell the damnfools that it WILL"] would be used to cover those transportation expenses.

That makes a cool $1.1 BILLION Doyle has stolen from the highway trust funds since he's been in office.

Folks, Jim Doyle IS the pothole in the roads.

For the record, Kevin posts Doylie's statements on the deficit from earlier this year:

“Gov. Jim Doyle pledged Friday not to raise taxes to cover a threatened state budget shortfall, promising instead to manage the gap by cutting or delaying spending.

"We've got through $3.2 billion without raising taxes," Doyle said, referring to the budget shortfall when he took office in 2003. "So we can get through a tenth of that without doing it."

Just another lying sack of crap in the Governor's Mansion.