Koch brothers’ hype man Scott Walker laid bare the full of his budget proposal yesterday. In it, he called for nearly $1B in cuts to public school funding, while ensuring that local districts wouldn’t be able to spuriously find a way to close the gap he’s creating. How? By inserting a provision requiring districts to reduce their property tax authority. It’s assumed that Walker will soon legislate a bully and a pickpocket into each municipal school, in order to extract additional funds directly out of kids’ pockets.
Fear not, though, fair Wisconsin residents! Walker didn’t just take his chain saw to the expense side of the ledger. No, no, not at all. He also looked for ways to trim up the budget from the revenue side, asking for an estimated $82M in tax cuts, much of that coming from capital gains realized on investments in ‘Wisconsin based businesses’. Wait, you mean cutting more revenue will only further impact the ability of the state to shore up it’s budget issues by forcing even more spending cuts? Well done, high school accounting students! Your classes just landed on Scott Walker’s chopping block!
Further, let’s assume that power plants, the kind that Walker wants to privatize and sell off (without bids!) as part of his larger plan, would qualify as ‘Wisconsin based businesses.’ But remember, the Koch’s aren’t interested in those power plants. Nope, never. Ignore the fact that their own website, under ‘Industry Areas’ lists ‘supply energy to communities to heat and cool buildings’ in the first sentence highlighting their offerings.
Walker is also touting cuts to cities and counties in his budget, just so they don”t feel left out as Walker machetes his way through what’s left of the middle class.
In case you happened to catch yourself feeling bad for Walker, don’t worry, he’s still got folks on his side. In spite of the poll numbers indicating that support for him is waning, Americans for Prosperity is putting together a ‘Stand Against Spending. Stand With Walker’ bus tour this very weekend!.
I don’t need to tell you who the primary backers of AFP are.
In short, Scott Walker is Flava Flav, if Flava Flav ever worked for Don King.
