Walker has, for the second straight time, deferred on making the full debt payment that he had budgeted for. As an added bonus, he is compiling the interest owed on it:
Gov. Scott Walker’s administration has put off a debt payment for the second year in a row — this one totaling $101 million — which will cost taxpayers about $2.3 million in additional interest.Of course, kicking the can down the road is nothing new for Walker. He's done that in every single budget as governor and when he was Milwaukee County executive.
The state was supposed to retire about $132 million in debt on May 1, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau. Instead it reduced that amount by $101 million, which will help the state end the current biennium on June 30, 2017, in the black.
However, it will also increase interest on the debt payments by $2.27 million over the next eight years, in addition to pushing principal payments into future budget cycles. The fiscal bureau put out a memo Tuesday based on an earlier estimate that the deferral would total $50 million, but the Walker administration confirmed later in the day that the total was actually $101 million.
Walker administration spokeswoman Laurel Patrick said the restructuring reflects “prudent fiscal management” that was done to take advantage of historically low interest rates in a process used under previous administrations.
She didn’t respond to a request for an explanation about why the state would rather pay more money in interest in the future rather than pay a lower amount now.
“We have a proven track record of keeping the state’s fiscal house in order,” Patrick said. “We continue to efficiently manage state resources and will end this biennium with a surplus.”
It's also an economic strategy he uses in his own personal life. By not paying his bills, Walker has managed to rack up over a hundred thousand dollars in personal debt, forcing him to sell his house.
And who can forget how Walker comes up with new and increasingly bizarre fundraising emails while he pretends to want to pay off his campaign debt of over a million dollars?
The funny thing is that Walker used to campaign with the line that he would treat taxpayer money like it was his own. It figures that is one of the few times - if not the only time - Walker has ever told the truth and kept a campaign promise.
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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, being Scott Walker's BFF propaganda tool, is complicit with this scam. And remember, they lead the mighty wurlitzer. First, the lies appear in MJS as nooooze and then the rest of the state's pro-Walker disinformation machine casts the lies across Badger Land, whitewashing them as being from MJS and newsworthy when, in fact, they came directly from Scott Walker's team of disinformation shills.
ReplyDeleteSo Walker writes a false op-ed for MJS this week that Wisconsin's economy is goin' gangbuster.
Then MJS breaks this story, grossly underestimating the financial shell game and the true interest costs -- understanting them by more than half!
Later, this is corrected, but it doesn't matter -- most of their sheeeple saw the lies in Walker's op-ed and the lies that minimized his financial shenanigans and will not see the corrections/updates.
Walker is Governor of Wisconsin for as long as he likes because he is a media creation and we have a dysfunctional election system that does now allow the election numbers reported by the pro-Walker media to be verified.
This is as corrupt and criminal as it gets, folks.
If my math is correct Walker has pushed $874 million in debt payments on to future generations. I'm sure it is just coincidence that by mid 2017 the revenue lost because of the Manufacturers and Ag Tax Credit slipped into the state budget at the last minute will total nearly $800 million. If it is not coincidence then it appears Walker has been handing out tax cuts to corporate and special interest donors with money he doesn't have. His solution is simple but ethically questioned. At the end of each fiscal year to make sure he has enough money for the tax cuts and the budget to be in the black he skips the debt payment that is due; accepts the penalty and added interest cost and passes it on to future taxpayers. This has to be the slickest "smoke and mirrors" budget maneuver in Wisconsin government history. Walker uses taxpayer dollars to fund tax breaks for corporate and special interest donors who in turn send this taxpayer money to Walker and Republican campaign accounts. The cost of all of this is forwarded to future taxpayers in the form of increased debt to be dealt with long after Walker has left office. Walker may not be a wizard when it comes to his personal finances but he knows how to manipulate taxpayer dollars for political purposes.
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