Burke Rebukes Walker For His Handling Of State Budget

Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Says Were He A CEO, 'He'd Be Fired'

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Mary Burke with members of an electrical workers union in Milwaukee during an August campaign stop. Photo: Wis. AFLCIO (CC-BY-NC-SA).

Democrat Mary Burke is has leapt upon news of a projected budget shortfall in her campaign for governor, saying that shortsighted election-year decisions by Gov. Scott Walker are to blame.

When revenue estimates came out in January of this year predicting a $1 billion budget surplus, Gov. Scott Walker immediately called on the Legislature to pass a new round of tax cuts. At the time, Burke called the move irresponsible, saying it was based on a rosy projection of revenue growth.

With actual revenue numbers now coming in slower than projected, the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau has estimated that the state’s structural deficit has grown to nearly $1.8 billion.

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On a conference call with reporters, Burke said the blame falls on Walker for spending money Wisconsin didn’t have.

“In the business world, if a CEO had created this big of a financial mess, frankly, he’d be fired,” said Burke.

Burke, who’s touting her business experience at Trek Bicycle in her run for governor, also served three years as commerce secretary under Gov. Jim Doyle, when structural deficits were the status quo. Burke said, however, that Walker’s deficit is different.

“Governor Walker took a surplus and turned it into the third-largest deficit in the last 20 years. At the same time, we have a growing national economy and other states’ governors have used this opportunity to improve their fiscal health,” said Burke.

Burke said that as governor, she’d accept federal money to expand Medicaid as a first step toward addressing the deficit, and then look for possible savings within different state agencies.

Walker said this week that revenue growth would eliminate Wisconsin’s deficit, telling reporters that Democrats were suffering from selective amnesia when it came to budget shortfalls.

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