9-10-14 structural deficit

The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance researcher says a new Legislative Fiscal bureau report behooves that lawmakers be more cautious when it comes to spending projected revenues.   The fiscal bureau says the projected shortfall for the next two year state budget stands at nearly $1.8 million.  Dale Knapp says that’s after tax cuts were enacted based on projected revenue that is not coming in as expected.  “We had new projected revenues, essentially we spent them all via tax cuts and now revenues aren’t coming in at the rate we expected,”  Knapp told AM 1170 WFDL’s Between the Lines program.  “We’ve got this bigger hole than I think was unexpected in Madison.  It was not unexpected in other circles, we could see this coming.” Knapp says lawmakers should have known the revenue projections may not be realized.  Republican state representative Jeremy Thiesfeldt of Fond du Lac  says Democrats and some in the media are blowing it out of proportion.  “I knew right away that when you get news often times the headlines are not going to portray what is in the article,”  Thiesfeldt said.  “This is exactly what happened here.  I think this was an example of a negative media portrayal in I believe it was directly aimed at hurting Scott Walker’s re-election chances.”    But Knapp says the projected deficit is something to be concerned about.   “We need to be much more cautious in terms of projections and in terms of what we do with those expected revenues.”