Wisconsin has now entered its fourth month without a budget for 2008, leaving the state with last year's provisions and a guarantee for fiscal failure before next summer. Students can be forgiven for largely ignoring the political spitting match unfolding between Democrats and Republicans at the Capitol since July, but now the budget impasse"" threatens to directly affect UW-Madison, and it is time to take note.
Most pressingly, Gov. Jim Doyle announced Monday that UW-Madison tuition will increase by $800 via a surcharge if there is not a new two-year budget in place by the end of the year. A number of Republicans, who have maintained an antagonistic relationship with the university for decades, have already pledged to hold the line. Taxes must not increase, they insist, through the price of everything those taxes support increases.
The state budget debacle has also cast a shadow over Madison's municipal bookkeeping. Mayor Dave Cieslewicz has hinted that funding for additional police and maintaining the city's public transportation could vanish if the bipartisan stalemate continues. In the intricate realm of Madison government, over $15 million is expected annually from the state. Republican tax cuts in Washington have already gutted a number of local programs in recent years, and now similar stances at home may do the same.
The GOP leadership has accused Doyle of employing scare tactics and resorting to uncivilized political intimidation. Perhaps that is the case, but for their part, Republicans have engineered an old-fashioned campaign of name-calling and talking points. They decry the tax and liberalism of big city democrats and allege wastefulness. The Democrats, in turn, point the finger at Republicans as heartless penny pinchers unwilling to foster civic unity. Throughout, the assorted politicians continue to stonewall, impervious to the very real dilemmas that could arise from their failure to agree.
We should expect nothing less, however, in a system that breeds career politicians and a gulf between them and their constituencies. While those on the margins of society anxiously await a definitive outcome, their representatives have lost sight of compromise and are now engaged in a game of full-fledged political hardball. Unless voters remove those who have created the current situation, it is almost certain to repeat in the near future.
