Walker Claims Next Budget Will Start With Surplus, Though Evidence Indicates Otherwise

Gov. Scott Walker is doubling down on a claim that the next state budget will start out with a surplus, even though the evidence Walker points to does not back him up.

Walker first made the claim during last Friday’s gubernatorial debate, saying that “the next state budget will begin with a surplus of $535 million.”

He’s now making a similar statement in a new campaign ad.

To back up the claim, Walker points to a memo by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau that was drafted at the request of Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, who chairs the state’s budget committee. In that memo, Nygren asked the bureau to assume tax revenues would grow at a rate of 5.6 percent this fiscal year, even though the bureau only predicted revenue growth of 3.5 percent. Nygren also asked the bureau to assume the state made some $116 million in one-time budget cuts.

Even with those assumptions, the bureau found that the state would begin the next budget with a gross balance of zero dollars — a far cry from the half-billion the governor is claiming.

Nygren also asked the bureau to presume that over the next two years, revenues will grow at a 2.9 percent clip while state spending remains nearly flat. If all of those assumptions turn out true, then the next budget would finish with $535 million in the bank — not begin with that amount.