Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker does not like wasteful spending. He made that much clear upon his election last fall by returningmore than $800 million in federal funding for a high-speed rail line through the state (some of which he later asked for back). In Marchhe reaffirmed this stance by proposing deep budget cuts to public schools and local government.

These moves and others were made in the service of balancing Wisconsin’s $3.6 billion deficit. So why is Gov. Walker now pushing four non-essential major highway construction projects that may cost the state up to $2 billion? That’s the question posed in a new report released yesterday (pdf) by the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).

PIRG charges that Walker’s new transportation spending plan irresponsibly favors highway construction at the expense of public transit and road maintenance. Walker is proposing to cut 10 percent of the transit budget, roughly $10 million, despite recent research suggesting that service reductions have made workplaces harder to access in metropolitan Milwaukee. He also plans to cut $48 million in local road maintenance funding, although 43 percent of the state’s roads received a “less than good” rating in a 2008 report. (Its bridges could use some work too, with over 8 percent deemed “structurally deficient.”) Meanwhile Walker intends to increase highway construction spending by 13 percent, which PIRG describes as an unfair trade to the people of Wisconsin ...