Wisconsin's Progress

The Washington Times carries a piece, "From Red to Black, Wisconsin Is Back", by Governor Scott Walker, in which he summarizes the greatly improved financial condition of his state's government.

During the past 18 months, we stopped the raid on the transportation and patient compensation funds and dramatically took on the deficit with long-term, structural reforms that allow both state and local governments to balance budgets for years to come. In fact, for the first time in Wisconsin's history, we've set aside money for the rainy day fund in back-to-back fiscal years. In other words, we thought more about the next generation than we did about the next election.

Read the whole thing.

It is instructive that, although Walker isn't remotely close to talking about the kinds of radical reforms that I advocate (like getting the government entirely out of the business of education), he has managed to pull his state back from a fiscal cliff and greatly improve its economic outlook. This story is a pleasant change from the overwhelmingly bad news about how our country is running itself and how other states, most notably California, conduct their affairs.

The Wisconsin story so far has shown that even modest reforms such as Walker's can work wonders.

--CAV