Walker gives to the rich, takes from the poor

Two troubling stories about Gov. Scott Walker’s disastrous budget came across the desk this morning.

The first, from the Capital Times:

Will Gov. Scott Walker’s budget make it harder for poor families in Wisconsin to get medical care and put food on the table?

Some people think so.

The governor is proposing to move the responsibility for determining eligibility for aid programs — including the heavily used food stamp and medical assistance programs – from the counties with their accessible satellite offices to the state.

Even more troubling to some, the governor’s budget also sets the stage to hand over basic administrative functions of the food stamp and medical assistance programs statewide to private vendors, a move the state has already tried on a small scale with troubling results.

And another from the Wisconsin State Journal:

Low-income taxpayers in Wisconsin would lose hundreds of dollars in tax credits a year under Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget — at the same time the governor wants tax cuts for businesses and investors to boost jobs.

Walker proposes cutting about $16 million a year from the program, which in 2009 paid 273,939 low-income Wisconsin residents a total of $133 million.

Under Walker’s proposed biennial budget, a single mother with two children earning about minimum wage — $15,000 a year — would lose $302 of her $704 Earned Income Tax Credit next year, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance. A two-parent household with two children earning $30,000 a year would see its tax credit cut by $194 to $258, the alliance said.

Eat your heart out George W. Bush.