As government agencies across Wisconsin anticipate budget cuts in response to a shortfall projected at over $652 million, Gov. Jim Doyle has requested legislative approval for an extra decimal point to help reduce the size of the projected budget deficit.
The governor's request follows the release of an independent budgetary analysis that investigated the effectiveness of different mathematical operations in reducing estimations of the budget shortfall.
We're exploring all our options,"" Doyle told reporters at a press conference on Monday. ""Finding the square root of the transportation budget, deriving the change of our projected tax revenues over time, imaginary numbers. With state resources as tight as they are, this extra decimal place is the most efficient solution.""
Leaders in the GOP-controlled state Assembly expressed skepticism about Doyle's request. ""Wisconsin's taxpayers cannot afford to pay for another decimal point whenever Democrats decide they want one,"" said Mark Gundrum, R-New Berlin.
State Republicans are expected to introduce their own proposal to reduce the size of the projected deficit by removing several of the number's extra zeroes, which Gundrum deemed ""extraneous placeholders.""
Even if state lawmakers do decide to grant Doyle's request, government accountants and budget analysts will still need to determine where to place the extra decimal point to have the greatest effect.
""Sticking the decimal point just before the final zero effectively shrinks the projected deficit to one-tenth of its original size, which is remarkable progress,"" said Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, while using a series of computer overlays to demonstrate the place of the decimal point in the reduced total. ""But we then discovered that by simply moving it one more place to the left we could shrink our projection of the budget deficit to one tenth of the new total. Analysts are hard at work right now, trying to determine if this trend will continue.""
As of press time, Doyle's aides would neither confirm nor deny rumors of a so-called ""double-negative"" plan, which would call for an extra minus sign to turn the projected deficit into a projected budget surplus of $652 million.
