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JFC to Kill Evers’ Medicaid Expansion Plan; LFB Non-Fiscal Policy Memo
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | May 2, 2019
From WisPolitics.com …
The Joint Finance Committee’s first actions on Gov. Tony Evers’ budget May 9 will be to pull out a host of his priorities, from expanding Medicaid to allowing illegal immigrants to get driver licenses.
Typically, the JFC co-chairs have the Legislative Fiscal Bureau identify policy items that can be pulled from a guv’s budget.
But in yesterday’s memo, Co-chairs Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, and John Nygren, R-Marinette, identified 131 fiscal as well as policy provisions they plan to include in a motion to remove from the document.
Along with the Medicaid expansion — which would save an estimated $324.5 million in general purpose revenue over the biennium — the committee’s first motion will seek to remove the cap the guv proposed on the manufacturing and ag credit. That proposal, which would limit the credit to the first $300,000 of income for manufacturers, would increase tax revenue by $516.6 million, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
The other proposals JFC plans to remove from the budget include:
- Repealing the minimum markup on gasoline;
- Allowing undocumented immigrants to be eligible for driver’s licenses;
- Allowing immigrants living in the U.S. illegally to pay in-state tuition;
- Legalizing medical marijuana and decriminalizing the possession, manufacturing or distribution of 25 grams or less of marijuana;
- Ending the transferring of 0.25 percent of general fund tax revenue to the state’s transportation fund;
- And nixing a series of provisions related to the state’s private voucher school and independent charter school programs, including the guv’s plan to freeze the number of slots available in the state’s voucher program and implement new requirements for licensing teachers working in the schools.
Nygren and Darling pledged GOP lawmakers “will live within our means” while making “major investments in the people’s priorities” going forward.
“We believe the proposed budget by Governor Evers’ digs a Doyle-sized deficit,” the pair said in a release. “The governor spends so much, the next budget would start with a $2 billion structural deficit. The bottom line is his budget is unsustainable, irresponsible and jeopardizes the progress we’ve made in the last eight years.”
In all, the LFB identified more than 70 items as non-fiscal policy, according to Darling and Nygren, which they said is the second-highest number of those items in a guv’s budget plan since 2001.
An Evers spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment.
The panel is also planning to work off of current law rather than using Evers’ budget as the starting point for its deliberations.
The decision comes after months of speculation over how much or how little members of the Legislature’s powerful budget-writing committee would defer to the guv’s recommendations.
Today’s memo notes that while Evers’ plan will be before committee members, it would take a majority vote to include the guv’s provisions into JFC’s version of the budget — just like it would take a majority vote to adopt a motion from a committee member.
Republicans control the committee 12-4.
JFC members are planning to first take up the Ethics Commission, Historical Society, guv and lt. guv budget sections during their first meeting next week.
They’ll also consider the Department of Administration’s Division of Gambling, the Investment Board, the Employment Relations Commission and the Department of Health Services’ Care and Treatment Services, among several areas.
Members will convene at 11 a.m. May 9 in the Capitol.
See the memo here.
See Nygren’s and Darling’s statement here.
See Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article here.
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