(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s two-year budget has more than doubled from $54.3 billion in 2005-06 to $114.08 billion in 2025-26.
Spending has gone up more than 10% each of the past two budgets.
That spending increase, fueled by increased tax collections, were highlighted as well as warning signs that it could continue in a new legislative session report from the Institute for Reforming Government.
IRG Deputy Director Maryjane Behm saw a late-session estate tax proposal as a warning sign that the spending and taxing increases would continue if Democrats hold the Legislature and governorship after this fall’s elections.
“You look at the last two budgets and we’re at a 26% increase,” Behm told The Center Square. “Did your income increase 24% in the last four years? I don’t think anyone’s did. But government did.”
She said that “regular people” are failing to see the value in their increased tax obligations that went along with the spending increase.
The estate tax proposal, Assembly Bill 1029, could have led to nearly $170 million more in taxes collected each year from Wisconsinites. The bill had an exception for up to $15 million worth of farmland held continuously by qualified family members before death.
“Those bills that were introduced at the end of March were not going to move anywhere but it was kind of the Democrats showing their hand on ‘this is the policies we want in Wisconsin if we have control,’” Behm said.
The report highlighted a group of grooming bills that were signed into law but also a failed $1.8 billion surplus package that included $300 or $600 income tax refund checks, $600 million for schools, and an end to taxes on tips and overtime.
Behm pointed out that in a divided government with a Democrat in the governor’s role and the Republicans in charge of the Legislature, overall spending increased significantly and there were not a ton of bills that made large long-term changes.
But, in the span from 2011 to 2018 with Republicans in charge with both, spending flattened in the first budget before seeing increases of 7%, 4% and 4% as opposed to the 10% that preceded that span and the 9% increase that followed.
“I do think that people are getting worried about the outrageous spending state government has, the federal government and local government,” Behm said.
