http://factcheck.org/2011/03/wiscons...budget-battle/
Analysis
Newly elected Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, introduced a state budget repair bill on Feb. 11 that has attracted national attention because it seeks major changes to the state’s collective bargaining laws. The bill, which is needed to close a $137 million budget gap in the current fiscal year,
would allow most state workers to keep their bargaining rights on salaries — but end collective bargaining on all other issues, including health care costs, pensions and workplace conditions. The AFL-CIO and other unions see this as an attack on unions, while the governor sees it as a necessary way to control future labor costs and avoid another budget crisis.The budget repair bill has led to a showdown between the Republican governor and Democratic state lawmakers — some of whom fled the Capitol in an attempt to prevent a vote on the bill. It has also caused some confusion among people trying to follow the budget crisis.
Wisconsin is facing a potential $3.6 billion shortfall for its next biennium, or two-year budget cycle, according to figures released by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau in January. The budget period begins on July 1, 2011, and ends on June 30, 2013. That figure is more than $2 billion less than the $5.9 billion projected deficit that former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle had to tackle at the beginning of the 2009-2011 fiscal cycle. So, that was not quite "double" the deficit that Walker is potentially looking at, as our reader was told.
Doyle was able to erase a large portion of his projected gap through a series of spending cuts and tax increases. But funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — known as the stimulus act — also played a significant part in easing the state’s budget woes. More than $2 billion in stimulus funds were used to narrow the budget gap for the 2009-2011 cycle. That’s money the state will have to do without this time around, since those funds run out at the end of June, according to Robert Lang, the fiscal bureau director