Post-Crescent editorial board

The state’s structural deficit mattered in 2002, when Gov. Scott McCallum, a Republican, left the state with a $3 billion deficit after he used tobacco settlement money as a one-time fix.

The state’s structural deficit mattered in 2010, when Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, left the state with a $3 billion deficit after he used federal stimulus money during the recession as a one-time fix.

And the state’s structural deficit matters today, under Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, as the Legislative Fiscal Bureau projects it to be $1.8 billion in July 2015. That’s an increase from the bureau’s $642 million projection in May.

The people in charge will always underplay a structural deficit, unless it was left for them by a predecessor. The opponents to the people in charge will always overplay it.

For the rest of us, who have to live with the effects of whatever measures are taken to fix it?

It matters. It sure does matter. And $1.8 billion is a pretty big number.

It merits our concern, and it merits the concern of those in office and those running for office this fall.

But first, some background. The structural deficit is the amount of extra money the state needs in the next budget to continue the ongoing spending programs it has in this budget.

The figure — whether $3 billion or $1.8 billion — is misleading because it’s the total over the two years of the next budget. If you fix the deficit in the first year, that takes care of most of the deficit in the second year, too. The first-year deficit in the $1.8 billion projection is about $1.1 billion.

The structural deficit doesn’t account for expected revenue growth and it doesn’t account for changes in spending in the next budget.

Typically, budgets built in a modest increase in revenue growth — 3 or 4 percent — to help make up the gap. The budget for the 2013-14 fiscal year, which ended June 30, had a very modest 1 percent expected revenue growth. But revenue actually decreased 1 percent. That’s a major reason to be concerned about how the current problem will be fixed.

If spending will have to be cut, where is it going to come from? It’s a great question to ask our candidates.

In his first budget, Walker made up a lot of the deficit through Act 10. It cut money for schools and local governments, but required their employees to contribute to their pensions and contribute more to their health insurance premiums. And it solved the structural deficit, which Walker and fellow Republicans rightly have taken great credit for.

Now, there’s another problem, because of the lower revenue and a tax-cut package passed earlier this year. But it’s not, as Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, tried to paint it, “looking for dark clouds on a sunny day.”

A 1 percent decrease in revenue and a structural deficit that has increased more than $1 billion in four months, along with a record state long-term debt of more than $14 billion, is more like seeing darker clouds rolling in on a partly cloudy day.

If you have any doubt about the importance of the structural deficit, look to Walker himself.

In his first budget address, in 2011, he addressed it, saying, “Wisconsin faces a $3.6 billion deficit. Too many politicians have failed to tell the truth about our financial crisis. They left Wisconsinites in the dark about the extent of our fiscal problems. The facts are clear: Wisconsin is broke and it’s time to start paying our bills today — so our kids are not stuck with even bigger bills tomorrow.”

The number today is not as big — so maybe we’re “half-broke”? — but it’s still too big. It will certainly change between now and next spring, but in which direction?

It’s not good enough for any of our candidates to say this is not a problem.