Gov. Tony Evers is pouring over the $99 billion budget sent to him by Speaker Robin Vos. My guess is that he’ll sign it, maybe this week, with some clever line item vetos to nudge the document closer to what he wants, but he won’t veto it altogether.
What isn’t in all that paper is the $290 million Evers wanted for the Milwaukee Brewers’ renovations at American Family Field. Vos rejected that proposal right out of the gate and then formed his own task force to come up with another plan. I expected that plan would include some state money, but less than what the Governor proposed, and a whole lot of local money from Milwaukee and Milwaukee County. I figured that was part of the deal when Vos gave the city and county authority to establish (in the case of the city) and increase (in the case of the county) the local sales tax there.
But… nothing.
I’m not sure what to make of this, but what I don’t make of it is that the issue is dead. The Brewers are just too important to the Milwaukee business community and the Milwaukee business community is too important to the Republican Party and to Vos, who is from southeast Wisconsin, for him to let this drop. But, on the other hand, if all of the $7 billion state surplus gets tied up in the signed, sealed and delivered two-year budget, where does he go for the bucks?
He’ll find a way. I would expect some kind of separate bill to emerge in the Legislature this fall. In fact, maybe Vos needs this to happen in stand alone legislation because he needs to demand Democratic votes in order to give enough of his own members permission to vote against it. Anything that helps Milwaukee is toxic to a lot of rural Republicans.
Unlike those folks, I’m not against this because I’m against Milwaukee. Quite the opposite. I like Milwaukee and I want it to succeed. I just wish state and local governments would start telling the billionaires who make more billions by owning professional sports teams to pay for their own physical plants or take a hike. And, by the way, there’s no correlation between having Major League Baseball and being successful as a city. Just ask Indianapolis, New Orleans, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Nashville, Memphis, Oakland, Kansas City, etc., etc. Well, okay so technically Oakland and KC do have major league teams, but really they’re not. Vegas is trying to steal Oakland’s team, but have they looked at the A’s record?
And, as long as we’re on the subject of what’s good for Milwaukee, you know how much public school renovation could happen there for almost $300 million? And which investment would be better for Milwaukee — and ultimately the state — in the long run?
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t read this lack of action in the budget as a sudden burst of sanity. My guess is, one way or another, the billionaire Brewers owners will get their pound of flesh from the taxpayers.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 