Is a state budget compromise close?

Here are some of the issues:

"Proposals to fix it include delaying a $125 million payment of state aid to schools, refinancing bonds from tobacco settlement payments and taking money from the state's transportation fund to be replaced with increased borrowing."

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Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker, D-Weston, will address Assembly Democrats next Tues., May 6, signaling a compromise may be close.

The options for closing the $525 million deficit are mostly cobbled-together short-term fixes, and if nothing is decided, Governor Doyle said yesterday we can all expect roadwork delays. If you've driven the I-94 corridor between Madison and Milwaukee recently, you're familiar with the black holes that lead to alternate universes of expensive car repair. Be scared commuters.

Thing is, the republicans need democrats on their side to wrap this up. Who's going to bend and on what?

Mike Huebsch apparently has a list. It's a list of things the assembly isn't going to get around to this year. Including:

• Health Care
• Smoking Bans
• Campaign Finance Reform

They're really too darn busy passing bills that will please Wisconsin business to be bothered with anything that might actually - um - be helpful to the rest of the state. 

Of course, the assembly actually only met 20 days in 2007, so why should we expect anything more to get done this year than last? I'd like to be able to just say that it's those damn Republicans again, but frankly I think its just what Wisconsin's political system is coming down to.  We used to be able to think of ourselves as somehow "different" than all those corrupt states in the Midwest, like Illinois.  But at the moment it just looks more and more like money is talking, and anyone who doesn't have a big pot of cash is frankly out of luck.