Let's finally open our eyes and wakeup to what Wisconsin Republicans have been doing for years at an insane rate, reducing revenue sharing to major cities because they're Democratic strongholds.
Republican tried but failed to pass a bill that reduced state funding to cities that "defunded the police" (actually just reformed them), an untrue but viral QAnon talking point. That would have devastated city budgets and public services just to maintain local law enforcement.
This is a problem created by Republicans, who have been indirectly defunding the police through reduced shared revenue, and it's no accident. Marketwatch:
The state’s revenue had increased 61% over the past two decades, yet Milwaukee would receive $272 million in 2021, less than the $284 million the state shared in 2003, when the city’s general fund was 25% smaller.
As its income dwindles, Milwaukee has lost 160 sworn police officers, or nearly 10% of its force, over the past few years.
That "Defund the Police" outrage just Projection:
“Without a doubt, the most effective defunder of the police in Wisconsin is the Republican-led legislature,” Mayor Tom Barrett, a Democrat in office since 2004, told MarketWatch. “I’ve been arguing for years to give me more resources. They’re essentially trying to strangle local governments.”
But to Barrett it’s ironic that Wisconsin finished fiscal 2021 with a $2.6 billion surplus, and expects an even larger surplus in 2022, yet legislators can’t find a way to share any of that with locals. And lawmakers don’t seem any more inclined to “review” their restrictive policies than they were before the pandemic. “They have a surplus, and they won’t throw us a bone,” Barrett told MarketWatch. “They’ve won. They strangled us. We don’t have much left.”
Here's more from Marketwatch, exposing how Republicans are purposely making the problem worst:
A 2018 National League of Cities report noted that state legislatures had used pre-emption: “Recent pre-emption has pitted rural- and suburban-dominated state legislatures against cities with large populations of low wage earners and ethnic minorities.”Barrett said, “I think it’s a winning (Republican) political philosophy for the rest of the state to be pitted against Milwaukee and Madison.”
Matt Fabian, a partner with Municipal Market Analytics said, "In general when cities default it’s less about finances and more about what the state does to not help the city navigate a situation.
Napoleon Wallace and Activest, a research firm he co-founded, said “When state legislatures limit the agency and capacity of local government to meet the demands of their residents, the result is generally a broken fiscal environment that harms communities of color and restricts [cities’] ability to operate in the best interest of their residents.”
“In a lot of areas, the role of state pre-emption and the ability to limit taxing at the local level is a very well-constructed apparatus that allows for gerrymandered state legislatures to impose their will on diverse cities,” he said. When states limit cities’ policy-making abilities, “you make it hard for progressive interests even when they have support among residents. You hamper their ability to finance progress.”
The recently passed Vos-Republican budget tantrum focused solidly on blackmailing the governor to spend the COVID relief funding the way they wanted it to be spend, in retaliation for Gov. Evers refusal to give them that power. And it worked.
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