Congressional Republicans’ newly passed reconciliation bill will undoubtedly have a huge effect on state budgets in the future, and in at least one instance, state lawmakers rushed to head off the impact of the legislation before it even passed.
Wisconsin state lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers raced against the clock to pass a new budget in an all-nighter that stretched into the wee morning hours of Thursday, in an attempt to beat the House passage of the bill. It was a dramatic speed-up of a usually drawn-out process and a rare bipartisan agreement between a Democratic governor and a Republican legislature.
“They had to do it fast. I mean, it would have been a billion dollars lost to the state. It just shows how awful this bill was,” Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan told NOTUS.