Budgeting on 40 words or less

This is a plan? This is what the Green Team came up with for the state budget after months of debate amongst themselves? Just how low is the bar these days on policy in Washington, D.C. since President Bush took over?

Rep. Mark Green released his so-called plan for how he would budget if he was elected governor of this state. Never mind that as a U.S. Congressman voting on the federal budget he hasn't lived by even the ridiculously vague set of words he put out there for the state budget. The real problem is that this isn't a plan.

How do you have a plan for the state budget that doesn't even mention, much less deal with, one of the largest components of the state budget - state funding of local schools. Will he support the current two-thirds funding level? Will he reduce it and force local property taxes to make up the difference? Will he reduce it and forbid local governments from making up the difference with his support of a TABOR-like freeze on local governments which will force more cuts to schools?

Who knows? Rep. Green either doesn't know himself or he thinks voters are so clueless that they won't care enough to want to know the answer to that question. Either scenario is bad for Wisconsin voters.

In his release on his budget "plan" Rep. Green says this:

"Every month, families across Wisconsin sit down at their kitchen tables to figure out how to make ends meet. They know that it is wrong to take out a second mortgage on their home or spend the kid's college money to go on a lavish vacation,"said Green.

If this 40-word statement on how he would spend billions of dollars every year is how he thinks Wisconsin families do the budgeting, Green really has spent too much time in Washington, D.C. and not enough in Wisconsin.

His bumper sticker solution for what should be serious policy would be like a family sitting down to write out a budget that doesn't even consider how to pay for the mortgage as part of the plan and the rest looking like this:

-I want to have less bills
-I really shouldn't use the money for the electric bill on new shoes this month
-I will try to stop the kids from spending more money today even if it means spending less in the future
-I'm really hoping I don't have to borrow more money this year
-I'm going to tell the kids to stop spending so much money

These are all worthy goals but they are not even close to being a plan on how to pay the bills every month. And yes the legislature would be the children in this scenario.

If this is all Green is going to give voters on how he would spend billions of dollars of their tax money, voters should respond with even fewer words. They should simply use a check-mark in a box next to Governor Doyle's name in November.