Know The Facts
Recent attack ads funded by Darling’s special interest friends have achieved the height of hypocrisy and could not further distort the reality of Sandy’s priorities and voting record. These ads fail to mention that Sandy voted against the Walker/Darling budget that slashes funding for public schools by $1.8 billion and cuts our state’s vital medical assistance programs by almost a half billion dollars.
FACT ‐‐ Unlike the recently enacted Walker/Darling 2011-‐2013 state budget, the 2009-‐2011 budget that Sandy voted for made education and healthcare a priority. The fact is that Sandy had to make some of the toughest decisions ever facing our state to pass a budget with a record $3.2 billion cut in state spending.5 She took a measured approach to minimizing the impact on key investments and managed to limit cuts to public education by roughly 3 percent6. This choice, while a tough one to make, is a drop in the ocean compared to the devastating impact Darling’s choices will have on our schools and children.
FACT ‐‐ The claim that Sandy pushed to fund the Bradley Center Scoreboard is a gross distortion. In the previous biennium, the Bradley Center received $5 million within a $1.4 billion Building Commission capital budget to preserve and maintain the facility. The center then decided to use part of this funding to replace a scoreboard that was installed almost two decades ago. The commission -‐ which is chaired by the governor and composed of lawmakers from both parties, as well as a member of the public -‐ is statutorily required to submit building program recommendations. These recommendations then become part of the general budget process.
FACT ‐‐ Unlike Senator Darling’s display of inserting policy pork into the budget for her special interest friends, Sandy had absolutely nothing to do with funding for the Bradley Center being inserted into the budget.Regardless, these claims on behalf of Sen. Darling are extremely hypocritical, given her allies in former Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker7 and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Association of Commerce8 have voiced their strong support for upgrading the Bradley Center. A Republican colleague of hers even supported the measure when it came before the state Building Commission9.
1 La Crosse Tribune, “Dems slam ad that paints Shilling as budget slasher”, June 24, 2011
2 WisPolitics BudgetBlog, “Senate Tables Dem amendment three”, June 16, 2011.
3 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel PolitiFact, “State Sen. Alberta Darling ‘voted to add more than $1 billion in additional spending’ while cutting programs such as education and health care”, June 14, 2011.
4 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Low-‐income elderly could lose drug plan”, March 13, 2011
5 Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, “Comparative Analysis of Act 28: the 2009-‐11 Biennial Budget Bill”, June 29, 2009
Note: For the $3.2 billion figure, we start with the governor’s budget as presented, which contained $2.247 billion in spending cuts including $597 million from GPR. From there, we cut $1 billion in targeted 5.135% agency cuts (largely across the board), furloughs and pay rollbacks for state employees, and debt refinancing. These cuts are detailed in a May 29, 2009 memo from DOA Secretary Michael Morgan.
6 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “State budget would cut school aid 2.5%, lay off state workers”, May 21, 2009.
7 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Scott Walker and the Bradley Center: Then and Now”, March 28, 2011
8 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Sheehy floats using Miller Park tax for new arena”, May 18, 2011
9 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “GOP rips scoreboard, but GOP legislator backed it”, October 1, 2010
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