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Conference Report
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200 gather to consider methods for controlling government spending and taxing
In one of the largest conferences the La Follette School has ever organized, more than 200 people, including legislators, local officials, state agency representatives, private residents, school board members, county board members and others, spent a day exploring tax policy, government revenue and spending, suggestions for reform, and implications of proposed policy changes.
The Jan. 19, 2005, conference, "Taxing and Spending Limits in Wisconsin," considered alternative ways to limit public spending in Wisconsin and the consequences of doing so. The daylong event was sponsored by the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The conference opened with a session that put Wisconsin taxing and spending in perspective. Speakers included Nichols, who compared Wisconsin spending and taxes to other states, and Audra Brennan, administrator of the Wisconsin Department of Revenue's Research and Policy Division, talked about the value to Wisconsin of the deductibility of state income and property taxes when computing federal taxes. Todd Berry, executive director of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, was the discussant. The La Follette School's outreach director, Terry Shelton, moderated the discussion.
The second session examined the consequences of spending limits for public services in Wisconsin. Speakers were James Knickman, vice president of research and evaluation for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; William Testa, vice president and director of regional programs in the research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; and Andrew Reschovsky, La Follette School professor of public affairs and applied economics. Knickman discussed the growth in health-care costs. Testa addressed taxes and economic development. Reschovsky talked about constitutional limits on government revenue and spending. Maria Cancian, a professor with the La Follette School, moderated.
Constitutional approaches to spending limits were addressed in a luncheon speech by William Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute, a libertarian research center in Washington, D.C. David Weimer, a La Follette School professor, moderated the question-and-answer session that followed.
Three speakers explored ways to confront Wisconsin's budget problem in the afternoon session. Nichols discussed a property tax deferral program. Thomas Hefty, an attorney with Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren SC, and former chair and chief executive officer of Cobalt Corp., and its subsidiary, Blue Cross and Blue Shield United of Wisconsin, looked at Medicaid in Wisconsin. Iris Lav, deputy director for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C., discussed rainy day funds. Karl Scholz, a professor in the UW-Madison Department of Economics moderated the discussion. Rick Chandler, president of Chandler Consulting and former Wisconsin secretary of revenue and state budget director, was discussant for the session.
Information: shelton@lafollette.wisc.edu