The state Legislature this week will vote on the $87.5 billion GOP-authored biennial budget.
Republicans on the budget committee made use of an estimated $4.4 billion surplus to work more than $3 billion in tax cuts into the proposed 2021-23 biennial budget, but also stripped away several of Evers’ high-profile measures like Medicaid expansion and drastically reduced other proposals like the governor’s call for $1.6 billion in K-12 spending.
All told, the Republican biennial budget spends $87.5 billion in total, $37.3 billion of that in taxpayer money. Evers’ plan would spend $91.2 billion, with $38.6 billion of that from state taxpayers, according to a Thursday report from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said last week the GOP-authored budget makes the most of the state’s unprecedented surplus, while also taking into account billions in federal stimulus funds, to provide more than $3 billion in tax cuts, including plans to eliminate the state’s more than 170-year-old personal property tax, which businesses pay on furnishings and equipment.