Budget First

Last week, Gov. Walker declined to answer Englishman’s question about whether he, Scott Waker, believed in evolution.

Today, in the Journal Sentinel, one learns that Assembly Speaker Robin Vos does believe in evolution. 

(I’ll bite: I was raised in a liturgical, high-church tradition that taught that the theory of evolution was consistent with faith.  I was well into my teens before I even met someone who contended otherwise.)  

Yet, let me ask this question, faith-and-evolution-reconciling man that I am: does it truly matter to the immediate politics of our state whether Walker or Vos believes similarly? 

If you’re a conservative, do you feel less inclined to either Walker’s or Vos’s policies knowing that Walker won’t answer affirmatively, but that Vos will, on a question about evolution?  

If you’re a liberal, do you feel more inclined to either Walker’s or Vos’s policies knowing that Walker won’t answer affirmatively, but Vos will, on a question about evolution?  

Let’s assume that Walker rejects evolution, and Vos accepts it.

What practical difference will an answer make – this year, in this budget, for the next biennium – to our state? 

The answer does have meaning; I see that. 

It’s simply that it doesn’t matter in a way that changes our politics (or should change our politics) between now and the next state fiscal year. 

There’s a budget proposal before us; it’s the allocation of those billions, for millions of Wisconsinites, that’s the key question in the months ahead.