The governor says that he is doing so because he thinks the trend lines point to more serious shortfalls in the future. We share his concerns about those trends, as do the state’s public employee unions, which have agreed to dramatic concessions in order to help avert fiscal problems.

What we cannot figure out, however, is why the governor engineered roughly $140 million in new tax breaks for multinational corporations, which the Legislature passed in January. Why has he rushed to reject federal transportation funds that other states have rushed to get? Why, in the very week that he was pushing his budget repair bill, did the governor reject federal broadband money, which rural counties have been seeking for years?

The answer is that Walker has made too many budget decisions not with an eye toward fiscal responsibility but with an eye toward rewarding his political benefactors. Out-of-state corporations, road-building interests that did not want competition from high-speed rail, and telecommunications corporations that want to cash in on the demand for broadband all benefit from decisions made by Walker in recent weeks. Now the governor says that Wisconsin needs to end collective bargaining for public employees and teachers and alter the way in which the state operates on multiple levels in order to address a fiscal crisis.

This is simply absurd.