Week Ahead For Budget Committee Features Votes On Hot-Button Issues

The legislature’s budget committee is scheduled to vote on some hot-button issues this week.

The list includes a job training requirement for food stamp recipients, a deregulation of the rent-to-own industry and a potential sell-off of state property.

Governor Scott Walker put all three provisions in his budget, but it’s the item on job training for food stamps that he loves to talk about in stump speeches. It got him a big round of applause at the state GOP convention this year: “I love the people of Wisconsin so much. I don’t want them to become permanently dependent on the government. I’m not making it harder to get government assistance; I’m making it easier to get a job.”

The plan would basically mirror federal law and limit food stamps to three months every three years for “able bodied adults” without kids who are not working or in a work training program for at least 20 hours a week.

Governor Walker has not talked much about the provision in his budget that would exempt the rent-to-own industry from Wisconsin’s Consumer Act, but it’s received a lot of attention from a member of the legislature’s budget committee: Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend): “I assume Governor Walker does not know how predatory and just plain evil this chain is.”

Grothman has successfully fought back previous attempts to deregulate the rent-to-own industry, though it’s unclear whether he has the votes this year.

The budget panel could also decide whether to limit part of Walker’s budget that would allow for the sale of state-owned property. Right now the list of what could be sold includes power plants, college dormitories, state highways and prisons.