In Wisconsin, a special study by the “Legislative Fiscal Group” has determined that cutting a program, that is, not spending state tax money on it, would really cost the state money! Shocker! The “Legislative Fiscal Group” urges the state to spendspendspend its way into savings. The story appears in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. By the way, do many journals really need guardians? What sort of dumb combined name is that?
The program costs $72 million dollars. By cutting this $72 million dollar program, the state will lose $8.4 million dollars in federal money that it receives to fund the operation. That’s the “cost” described in the hyperlink on the main JSOnline site and in the “Eliminating 4-year-old kindergarten will cost state, study says” subhead. That’s legislative math.
Legislative math uses proven Deadbeat Cousin Accounting. You know the accounting I am talking about. Cousin Ned, who has his get-rich-quick schemes and buys pseudo-muscle cars past the point of cost effective maintenance, who works a part-time job around his fiscally imprudent efforts, and who occasionally pops up to “borrow” money (the occasion he needs it). He could get a real job and start behaving like a grown up, but if he did, it would cost him that free money.
Our state and municipal governments might as well call themselves Cousin Ned. They buy a round of drinks and take people out to dinner when the economy’s going well or they win $80 on lottery scratch-off tickets, but when that $80 is gone, they still want to spend it, and that’s where you come in, dear cousin taxpayer.
