(Beaver Dam) State Representative Mark Born says the recently unveiled governor’s budget will be completely reworked. The Beaver Dam Republican says GOP leaders were not left with much of a choice.
“The governor has crafted this budget again in such a way that it’s built on sand,” says Born. “A lot of the budget is built on welfare expansion and legalizing of drugs and massive tax increases on manufacturers and businesses…and really individuals that have sales tax increases in certain parts of the state.”
Born called every one of those items a “non-starter,” adding that it makes it difficult to work on the document and piece it together when those proposals are removed. As co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, Born says his colleagues will work from base.
“What that means is…we’re working from current law, the current budget…which was a bipartisan budget…a year-and-a-half ago we passed this legislative budget and the governor signed it,” says Born. “It is very much a bipartisan budget that we’re living under right now here in Wisconsin and that’s where we’re going to start from. And then we’ll take the opportunity from there to build a budget that reflects all of Wisconsin, that lower’s taxes to return some money during these inflationary times. But also invest in a whole variety of priorities.”
Born says the goal is to have the budget ready by July 1st, which is when the new fiscal year starts. He says – right now – they are on schedule to do so.
