New Revenue or Spending Cuts: What Do You Think the Choice Will Be Next Year If Nothing Changes?

Fiscal Bureau director: Wisconsin facing $717 million shortfall next budget. (Oshkosh Northwestern, 5/5/2014)

Strictly speaking, I suppose, Burke should have used the word "shortfall" in place of "deficit".  The "d" word is not used in the report about Bob Lang's Oshkosh talk.

A shortfall?  How can this be?!  “The budget is being balanced not because revenues and expenditures are equal, but because we carried over a balance (from the last budget),” Lang said. “Much of the $759 million has been used–about $594 million–to balance the budget.”

Lang's estimate does not include

• revenue growth projections
• increased program expenditures

In its typically convoluted way, PolitiFact Wisconsin rates Mary Burke's observation as "half true".

Related reading:
No accounting skills, no moral reckoning.  (The New York Times, 4/27/2014)