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GREEN BAY — Working on a budget that cuts state school spending, promises furloughs and layoffs of state workers and raises $2.1 billion in taxes and fees, state Democrats this weekend began laying out how they’ll defend it during the 2010 election campaign.
Party activists and elected officials attending the state Democratic convention here Friday and Saturday acknowledged they’ll face a challenge countering Republican attacks over the $62.2 billion spending plan for 2009-11 that seeks to close a projected $6.6 billion budget shortfall.
But Democrats said voters will reward Gov. Jim Doyle and the Democratically controlled Legislature for crafting a budget that includes no general sales or income tax increases.
The budget passed the Assembly on a tight vote early Saturday and still must be approved by the Senate, which could take up the bill as early as this week, and signed by Doyle.
“If you go back to January, Republicans were counting on massive tax increases, but the Assembly just passed a budget with no general sales tax hike, no corporate income tax hike and 99 percent of Wisconsinites will not see an income tax increase,” Assembly Majority Leader Thomas Nelson, D-Kaukauna, said in an interview Saturday.
Republicans said the budget includes too many pet projects. It also will lead to higher property taxes and car insurance rates that will hurt middle-class voters — decisions that will help the GOP in the 2010 elections, they said.
“The budget is going to be front and center in the 2010 elections,” said Mark Jefferson, executive director of the state Republican Party. “They’re driving taxpayers off a cliff here and that can’t help but be an election issue. They’re also rewarding their friends and punishing their enemies.”
Assembly vote: 50-48
The Assembly passed its version of the budget early Saturday morning by a vote of 50-48. Two Democrats joined all 46 Republicans in voting against the bill.
The chamber’s lone independent and 49 Democrats voted for the budget. One Democrat was absent to attend to a family emergency.
In a speech Friday to about 600 convention attendees, Doyle said voters recognize that despite the challenging budget climate, “the party that controls the Legislature and the governor’s office is a party that solves problems.”
Doyle said the budget helps middle-class families by avoiding general tax increases and requiring insurers to cover health care for autism.
It allows the domestic partners of state workers to qualify for health insurance and creates a statewide domestic partner registry for homosexual couples, he said.
“We’re going to be able to run on our record, and the Republicans are only going to have their rhetoric to run on,” Mike Tate, elected Democratic Party chairman Saturday, said in an interview. “We stepped up and put together a budget in the face of a $6.6 billion deficit and it doesn’t hurt the working families of Wisconsin. That’s something we can run on.”
Tate told delegates Saturday that in 2010 Democrats will “be on offense from day one” and deliver larger majorities to the Assembly and Senate than the two chambers now have.
Democrats will also beat back attempts to defeat Doyle and block the re-election of GOP Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, he said.
Doyle has not officially announced that he will seek a third term in 2010, but he is expected to do so.
No Democrat has launched a bid in the attorney general race, but former Department of Natural Resources Secretary Scott Hassett has said he is close to announcing one.
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