Jim Doyle made a major mistake with a line in his new TV ad.
At the beginning of the ad, Doyle says, “When I was swore into office, I found a couple of surprises, like a 3.2 billion dollar deficit.” On the screen you see “$3.2 Billion Deficit” in white letters, and in small type you see “Executive Budget Summary, 2003.” – First off, it wasn’t a surprise – everyone had known about the structural deficit since the budget had been passed two years earlier.
More importantly, the major strategic blunder is Doyle admitting that the “structural deficit” is a reality that should be recognized. You see, Doyle has always claimed, and claims at the end of the very same TV ad, that he “balanced the budget.” And technically that’s true – each biennial budget has to be balanced according to the State Constitution.
What Doyle refers to as the “$3.2 billion deficit” is in fact the “structural deficit.” That’s when you use one-time funds, like selling the tobacco settlement as McCallum did, or raiding the Transportation and other segregated funds as Doyle did, to balance a biennial budget. When the next budget comes around, that one-time money isn’t there, and the next Governor starts behind by a huge amount.
Doyle’s most recent state budget has a $700 million structural deficit, according to one estimate. Another estimate puts it at $1.6 billion, another at $2.6 billion. However you slice it, Doyle left a significant structural deficit.
As the Janesville Gazette editorialized last time a Doyle TV ad claimed to have balanced the budget, “When he released his budget more than a year ago, Doyle masked spending by using shell games that have gone on too long in Wisconsin. He siphoned money from segregated accounts and used accounting tricks to make his budget look balanced. If his plan had been prepared using the private sector’s generally accepted accounting practices, Doyle’s administration would have been accused of fraud.”
Now, last time, Doyle’s campaign defended their first ad by pointing out that they HAD actually balanced the budget, in the technical one biennium sense. But now in this ad they acknowledge the structural deficit, then at the end claim to have balanced the budget. YOU CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS, GOVERNOR -
If Doyle wants to claim he “fixed” the structural deficit left him by McCallum and Thompson, he must STOP saying he balanced the budget. TO DO OTHERWISE, as he does in this very ad, IS INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY OF THE HIGHEST ORDER.
P.S. Mark Green plays the immunization card with his first TV ad, and does a great job of it. Often an incumbent with lots more money tries to define his or her opponent before that opponent can even get up on air to define himself. The attacked candidate responds with an ad showing he is a nice, normal guy who could never be as mean and evil as his opponent paints him out to be. For the standard issue immunization ad, see this example from Dem Chris Murphy in CT-5.
Green’s first ad is also an attempt to immunize himself from all the negative ads being run against him by Jim Doyle and the Greater Wisconsin Committee. The hope is that one immunization ad like this can cancel the bad effects of four or five spots attacking him (oil, pharma, Bush, etc). He accomplishes the goal with flying colors – and is really entertaining too boot!
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Very good first ad from the Green campaign, can’t wait to see more!
No one knew the deficit at the start of Doyle’s term was as large as it was. That was the surprise — it was at least a billion dollars bigger than anyone knew.
Why don’t you talk about the Budget which the Republican legislature threw at Doyle? Tell us what he should have done about this specific problem:
Governor Thompson created cost controls for school districts, and they have been in effect for more than a decade. Under the Thompson cost controls, school districts could increase per pupil spending by roughly $240 per student in 2005-2006 over the 2004-2005 school year. But in the 2005 Budget, Republican legislators slashed the permitted per pupil increase to about $110 per student. That’s in the Budget that passed in June, 2005
State law and contracts with represented employees compel school districts to give layoff notices in the early spring each year, long before the Budget is passed much less signed into law. Since payroll costs equal more than 80% of each school district’s Budget, the only way to slash costs is to slash payroll, but by the time the Republican cut was even to the Governor, the deadline for making payroll reductions was long gone.
That’s the box the Republican legislator put the Governor in. It was done intentionally — they all knew what they were doing.
What choice did the Governor have? You tell me — you’re the brain!
I like the ad from Green… its kinda corny tho.
He needs to explain some of those issues, especially counter that stupid stem cell ad.
If I were Green’s Boyzzz, I’d be creating an ad using a 3-card Monte scam to describe the activity of our Governor.
And I’d put the action inside a Shiny New Casino.
In case anyone was wondering I have patented the phrase “Double-Down Doyle”. You have to ask my permission to use it.
[...] As you may recall, the Governor’s reelection campaign released a TV ad on Tuesday saying that Doyle had fixed the $3.2 billion deficit and balanced the budget. Myself and others cried foul, saying that Doyle had his own deficit, which was estimated at anywhere from $700 million to $2.6 billion. [...]
If you carry over the deficits as you imply, a $700 million deficit is still a hell of a lot better than the supposed $3.2 billion deficit he inherited, whether they are stuctural or not. Green has rubberstamped the worst Federal deficit on record in Congress, his record is far worse than Doyle’s on fiscal responsibility. God help us if Green becomes governor, it would be like having Bush.