Wow, Postive Op Ed in the Madison paper!

Leftists heads must have exploded all over Dane County as they sipped their lattes this morning after they read this one...


The sorry state of our neighbors to the south
Wisconsin State Journal editorial madison.com Posted: Sunday, February 5, 2012

Say what you will about Gov. Scott Walker's first year in office, but Wisconsin isn't facing "financial disaster."

Wisconsin hasn't had its credit rating downgraded to lowest in the nation — even worse than California's.

Wisconsin isn't sitting on a pile of unpaid bills totaling $9.2 billion that's projected to quadruple in five years.

No, that sad narrative belongs to our neighbors in Illinois. And it's a testament to the need for fiscal discipline across all levels of government, regardless of which political party is in power.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's solution to a massive state budget deficit last year was largely to raise personal and corporate income taxes.

It didn't work.

The Civic Federation, a financial government watchdog group in Chicago, released a report last week warning that "failure to address unsustainable trends in the state's pension and Medicaid systems will only result in financial disaster for the state of Illinois," according to the group's president, Laurence Msall.

Moody's Investors Service last month downgraded Illinois' bond rating to lowest in the nation, citing excessive borrowing and "no steps to implement lasting solutions." A lower bond rating will increase the interest rate Illinois pays when borrowing money.

The Pew Center on the States last year cited Illinois for having the worst-funded pension system in the nation.

Even many of Illinois Gov. Quinn's fellow Democrats were questioning his call for new spending in his State of the State speech last week.

"Show me the money," responded Democratic Rep. Joe Lyons of Chicago, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Wisconsin's fiscal condition is far from perfect, of course. When strict accounting principles are applied to Wisconsin's finances, a deficit of about $3 billion persists. Wisconsin, like most states, uses cash-based accounting instead of generally accepted accounting principles. Cash accounting is popular among the states because it makes it easier to show a positive balance.

Even so, there's no denying Wisconsin's financial picture has improved during the last year. Walker and the Republicans who run the state Capitol in Madison made a lot of difficult decisions — including their highly controversial move to strictly limit collective bargaining for most public employees. That helped save on labor costs while prompting massive protests at the Capitol in Madison.

Did Walker have to do that to fix the state's chronic budget mess? Maybe not. Yet it certainly made it easier for him to improve the state's bottom line. It also helped local public schools absorb a huge cut in state aid while minimizing teacher layoffs and harm to student instruction.

Walker and Co. continue to face some of the same financial challenges as Illinois, including a rapid increase in Medicaid costs. Walker's budget increased spending on this health care program for the poor and disabled by more than $1 billion. By comparison, the budget's tax breaks and fee cuts were small.

Walker has made his share of mistakes. Yet even Walker's Democratic opponent for governor in 2010 — Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett — promised not to raise taxes to fix last year's deficit.

Illinois went one direction last year in search of a budget solution. Wisconsin took a different path — with better financial results.

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