Outside the Wisconsin Capitol building, people see the state budget as an accounting summary, a financial plan, or perhaps a shopping list. Budgets set spending levels, identify priorities, and allocate available funds. But for those under and around the dome, biennial budgets are also political.
The trend toward budgets as partisan tools is at least 40 years old, accelerating as governors became more assertive, legislators more full-time and professional, and politics more polarized. Though they remain fiscal documents (as Focus #11 and #12 showed), Wisconsin budgets cannot be fully understood without considering their political dimensions. The past two budgets, and the new one for 2013- 15 (Act 20), illustrate the increasingly political nature of the state’s biennial tax-and-spending plans.
Maintaining power
A prime use of a state budget is to consolidate partisan advantage by rewarding friends and weakening foes. This is most evident when one party controls state government, as Democrats did in 2009 and Republicans have since 2011.
In both cases, the majority party dictated the budget process and outcome, allowing the minority party only a symbolic role. There was no need for compromise or middle ground. The majority party’s governor developed the budget, the legislature’s majority- dominated (12-4) Joint Committee on Finance fine tuned it. Serious amendments, if any, were considered only in majority party caucuses. Final floor action was a foregone conclusion.
Thus, in 2009, mindful of core constituencies, Democrats repealed the qualified economic offer, a law that limited increases in teacher compensation, and tackled a budget deficit in part by increasing taxes on businesses and high-income earners.
In 2011 and 2013, majority Republicans behaved similarly but moved in a different direction. In their first budget and sister legislation, they restricted collective bargaining for public employees while requiring them to contribute to their retirement and, in some cases, health insurance plans. They also began an industry-specific business tax cut. When a surplus emerged in 2013, they went further and enacted the first across-the-board cut in income tax rates in over a decade.
Minimizing vulnerability
Beyond consolidating power, bud- gets are also used to boost reelection prospects of vulnerable incumbents and to build goodwill with major campaign supporters. Location-specific earmarks and narrowly crafted statutory amendments are examples of small items that can easily be folded into a budget.
For example, the Democrats’ 2009 budget authorized state borrowing for Beloit and La Crosse parks, extra school aid for three western Wisconsin school districts, funding for far-north bike paths, and Madison-area liquor-law exemptions.
The new 2013 GOP budget includes bonding for harbor projects in Door and Racine counties, money for veterans organizations, special school aid to benefit a few high transportation-cost districts, and a property tax exemption for a Milwaukee-area religious center.
Sending mixed messages
Even without one-party control, one house or branch can use another as a political foil, allowing politicians to send different messages to different constituencies as a governor’s proposed budget moves from his office through the legislature and back for final action. The 2013 budget enacted earlier this summer offers several examples.
Gov. Scott Walker (R) initially requested a number of education changes, including a continued freeze on school revenue limits, increased state aid conditioned on school “report cards,” liberalized use of charter schools, and expanded school choice for special-needs children and students in low-performing schools.
The legislature set aside the report card, charter school, and special-needs proposals, and modestly raised both public school aid and the revenue “caps.” Whether the governor offered his ideas expecting legislative support or opposition doesn’t matter. Regardless, the governor’s proposals allowed him to keep past promises, while continuing to build a distinctive record that would appeal both to base supporters in the state and to party activists elsewhere.
At the same time, legislative modification or rejection of some gubernatorial ideas removed them from public discussion, reducing potential risk with the media and independent voters. And, the alternatives offered by GOP lawmakers allowed them to stake out ground separate from the governor and demonstrate political independence.
This political “ping-pong” also works in reverse. In the 2013 budget, majority lawmakers sought to create a “bail bond” system and to end UW-Madison hosting of an investigative journalism center. Many judges and law enforcement personnel opposed the former; opinion editors, journalists, and university friends objected to the latter.
By vetoing both, the governor focused public attention on to these small items and away from more controversial issues. Each of these cases enabled executive and legislative branches to appeal to contrasting constituencies at different points in the budget process.
This discussion has centered on how a majority party can use the state budget for political gain; however, minority members can also exploit it.
They can argue that majority control of the process and proposals is secretive and undemocratic. They can also single out specific policy changes that weave a narrative useful in future campaigns.
For example, in recent weeks, opposition lawmakers argued that the governor and his legislative allies were insensitive to what they saw as public demand both for more widespread tax relief, added funding for public schools, and greater access to health care on the one hand, and responsible budget and borrowing policies on the other.
Clearly, for politicians of both parties, budgets are a gift that keeps on giving.
