Facing a $5.7 billion budget shortfall, Gov. Jim Doyle offered his solutions to the fiscal crunch on Tuesday night by focusing on a mixture of tax increases, spending cuts and federal money.
The budget that Doyle presented proposes to make the state’s cigarette taxes rise to the third highest in the country, bans smoking from workplaces statewide and taxes big oil company profits. The budget presented will not lay off any state employees or force them to take unpaid furloughs. There also would be no general sales or income tax increases.