CapTimes: Budget Cuts come to forefront

Click on the post for the story today in the Wisconsin State Journal.

One of the "cuts" proposed by Gov. Doyle is to "refinance" some governement debt and achieve a "cost saving". Seems like many homeowners have done that in the past few years and now have been painfully forced to see that that is an illusory cost saving indeed. Real cutting seems to be not on the table since the mantra of no taxes must be believed.

The other item, hospital taxes is interesting. The state would tax hospitals, so they could pass on this cost in their Medicaid formula and then get reimbursed by the Feds for 3/4th of the cost. State tax payers would save because Federal taxpayers would be paying instead.....oh, I forgot they may be the same person if one is in a tax paying category.

So---in summary---two bold cutting proposals on the table at the onset of the discussion.

Stay tuned. The Minnesota "gap" is a lot bigger, like a billion dollars. They also are having a difficulty facing it.