Some GOP Senators Might Be ‘Uncomfortable’ With Proposed Tax Cut

State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said some of his members will have concerns with the way Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed tax cut drives up the state’s structural deficit.

The proposal Walker will talk about at length on Wednesday night during his State of the State address would cut property taxes by about $400 million and cut income taxes by about $100 million. The money would come from a budget surplus forecasted to be close to a billion dollars.

Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said Republican senators are definitely willing to support returning some of that surplus to taxpayers, but he said some of his members will be concerned with the way Walker’s proposal increases the state’s structural deficit by about $100 million.

“You know, there’s definitely a discussion about, what do you need in the opening balance going into the next budget to be in good shape. I think they consider that to be fiscally responsible. They want to make sure that it’s at a manageable level. And to take it higher than what it is right now, I think, is one of the things that we discussed extensively and some of the members were like ‘We don’t feel comfortable with that,’” he said.

The structural deficit is a measure of how much cash the state has at the beginning of a budget cycle compared to how much money it’s already committed to spending. Going into the next two-year budget, that deficit already stood at $725 million.

Assembly Republican leaders haven’t expressed the same caution when it comes to the structural deficit. They say they’re confident any deficit will be erased through economic growth.