Report: Wisconsin finances $1.7 billion in the black
(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s finances are doing just fine.
The MacIver Institute crunched some numbers last week, and shared the reminder that Wisconsin has a budget surplus and is doing far better than some of its neighbors.
“We start this budget discussion with $1.76 billion in the black, with a $685 million surplus in the Medicaid account, and $14.9 billion of federal COVID aid sent to [to the state],” MacIver President Brett Healy told The Center Square.
He’s not wrong about Wisconsin’s fiscal strength.
Wisconsin’s rainy day fund is better than it’s been in years. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau released estimates back in January that said the state’s rainy day fund will grow by $232 million by the end of the next state budget in 2023.
Those same estimates predict Wisconsin will see an extra $1 billion in tax revenue over the next three years.
Healy said those increases are on top of the current state budget that spends $8 billion more than the previous two-year spending plan.
“The narrative, that state government has been starved over the last decade and we have no resources available, is just false,” Healy said.
Gov. Evers’ budget proposal is built on $1.6 billion in new state taxes, plus a local sales tax option that could raise tens of millions more. The governor is also proposing to spend $8 billion more on state government over the next two years.
Republican lawmakers in Madison say it has been their fiscal management that has put Wisconsin on such good footing, and they don’t intend to make any of the governor’s suggestions part of the budget they write.
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