{"id":6821,"date":"2003-05-17T08:46:00","date_gmt":"2003-05-17T13:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2003\/05\/17\/6821\/"},"modified":"2018-08-01T16:22:01","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T21:22:01","slug":"6821","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2003\/05\/17\/6821\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Year Old Kindergartens Teach Legislative Math"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Wisconsin, a special study by the &#8220;Legislative Fiscal Group&#8221; has determined that cutting a program, that is, not spending state tax money on it, would really <b><i>cost the state money<\/i><\/b>!  Shocker!  The &#8220;Legislative Fiscal Group&#8221; urges the state to spendspendspend its way into savings.  The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jsonline.com\/news\/state\/may03\/141317.asp\" target=\"new\">story<\/a> appears in the <i>Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel<\/i>.  By the way, do many journals really need guardians?  What sort of dumb combined name is that?<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;s the &#8220;cost&#8221; described in the hyperlink on the main JSOnline site and in the &#8220;Eliminating 4-year-old kindergarten will cost state, study says&#8221; subhead.  That&#8217;s legislative math.<\/p>\n<p>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 &#8220;borrow&#8221; 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.<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;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&#8217;s where you come in, dear cousin taxpayer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Wisconsin, a special study by the &#8220;Legislative Fiscal Group&#8221; has determined that cutting a program, that is, not spending state tax money on it, would really cost the state money! Shocker! The &#8220;Legislative Fiscal Group&#8221; urges the state to spendspendspend its way into savings. The story appears in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. By the way, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-on-wisconsin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21189,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6821\/revisions\/21189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}