Yesterday, Walker's campaign came out with a press release stating that he had given Milwaukee County a $7 million surplus in 2007. The usual suspects, both local and from far away lands, rejoiced and sang their accolades.
It struck me as wrong. I knew that the County still owed the pension fund tens of millions of dollars. I also knew that many budgets, like HOC and the mental health complex were way over their allotments. But something else was wrong.
JSOnline's Political blog pointed it out:
Darn right, said three county supervisors, Richard Nyklewicz Jr., Roger Quindel and John Weishan Jr. All pointed out that Walker vetoed the entire 2007 county budget, which was overridden by the County Board. That should deny him any bragging rights for the surplus, the supervisors said separately.
Furthermore, it was a board-led move to recraft the county's health insurance that provided such a windfall in savings that it offset other departmental deficits for '07, said Nyklewicz, the County Board's finance commitee[sic] chairman.
You can find the original story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel here.
We owe a big thank you to the county board for having the wisdom, the foresight and the courage to prevent one of Walker's disastrous budgets from wreaking full havoc, for at least that year.
Stay tuned for when Walker takes credit for winning World War II, being the first man on the moon, and for creating the iPhone.
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