State Republicans Demand Higher Unemployment Numbers.

Thanks to rocknetroots.blogspot.com for this seemly insignificant budgetary story. Looking at it a little closer, we can get a clearer picture of the scorched earth policies of our state Republican lawmakers. These conservative carnival barkers never met a family they didn’t think could handle a total loss of life sustaining income, especially during a recession they created.

AP-Up to 1,400 state employees could be laid off under a new budget-balancing plan announced Thursday that cuts funding for state agencies, schools and local governments.

With record high unemployment already, shrinking family budgets and non-existent consumer spending, adding huge numbers of public employees to the rolls would seem to make matters worse. But state Republicans are claiming they would have gotten rid of even more state employees during the last budget negotiation stalemate. They wanted to slash $3 billion and cut thousands of public jobs. Of course, that crazy scheme would have been completely unnecessary had they not blocked over $3 billion dollars worth of increased revenue streams from those not paying their fair share of taxes. Cutting jobs in a recession would seem counter productive, but not to Republicans.

The cuts to government spending are commendable, but Doyle's plan will raise taxes, said Rep. Robin Vos, R-Racine, a member of the budget committee. He noted Doyle's endorsement of a 75-cent fee to be paid by cell phone users that will offset cuts in aid to local governments.

"He took the easy route out," Vos said, saying government should be cut more.

Conveniently, Vos like every other Republican, has never had the courage to show the public where they would cut government. But you might recall, even when the local postal officials centralized their distribution centers to rein in a $2 billion federal shortfall, the states Congressional Republicans Ryan and Sensenbrenner were successful getting the spending cuts repealed because of... are you ready...later delivery times.