Scott Walker’s claims about Wisconsin budget deficit and tax cuts

Fixing the budget deficit while cutting taxes — what taxpayer doesn’t like to hear that? These are some of Scott Walker’s favorite lines that he has repeated over and over for years. And they have been fact-checked repeatedly for years. He repeated these numbers during the recent GOP debate, and continues to do so on the campaign trail. So it’s worth scrutinizing them again.

The Facts

Wisconsin, like most states, has a statutory requirement to balance its budgets. So when governors talk about a “budget deficit,” they often are referring to how much money the state would need in the upcoming budget year if the spending and revenue levels remain the same. This is also called a “structural deficit” in Wisconsin budget-speak. Wisconsin state officials also use the word “deficit” to describe the difference between the amount of money that agencies are asking to spend, and the amount of projected tax revenue.
Wisconsin’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the non-partisan fiscal research arm of the state Legislature, calculated the structural deficit for Walker’s first budget at $2.5 billion. This does not include agency budget requests.
When Walker talks about the $3.6 billion deficit he faced, he refers to the latter calculation, including agency requests.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/09/18/scott-walkers-claims-about-wisconsin-budget-deficit-and-tax-cuts-fact-checker-biography/