- A look ahead to Governor Walker's state budget is next,
but not before getting our political panelists' response
to President Trump's first couple of weeks on the job.
Welcome to One Wisconsin Now's Scot Ross
and managing partner of Capitol Consultants, Bill McCoshen.
Thanks for being here. - Thanks.
- So how about Donald Trump's first two weeks
of shock and awe?
What do you guys make of it?
- I think, first of all, the Muslim ban is exactly the way
the country didn't need to start with the Trump years.
It's something that's unconstitutional.
It turns out it wasn't even vetted by actual security,
National Security folks.
And there are people who are really suffering
because of what he's been doing.
And I think that that sort of typifies the way he's been
running things, which is reckless and without regard
to the implications of what he is doing.
- It's all about results.
It's exactly what voters wanted
when they voted for Donald Trump, including in
the state of Wisconsin first-- the first time since 1984.
He's off to an unbelievable pace in two weeks.
Look at the things he's been able to accomplish already.
The TPP, which voters wanted for the U.S. to get out of,
the acceleration of the Keystone pipeline
which the Obama administration had rejected,
the nomination of a conservative Supreme Court justice.
These are all things he promised on the campaign trail,
and he's actually delivering.
I think what's surprising to the other side is they're not used
to politicians who actually deliver on what they promised
and Donald Trump's doing that.
- You were citing some of those things and I had almost
forgotten them, they are coming at such a rapid pace.
Is that part of the idea here?
- It's the business model.
He's really the first true businessman
we've had in the White House in a very long time,
maybe at his level ever.
And he's used to working 20 hours a day
and seems like he goes to the private quarters and tweets
once he's done working in the office.
But he's getting stuff done.
For him, this is all about results.
He's tired of the status quo.
Voters were tired of the status quo.
They want action in Washington and Donald Trump's bringing it.
- I don't know.
I don't know that they wanted action like what he's doing.
For instance, like a four-year-old child in Iraq,
whose grandparents are citizens, being denied the ability to
come here for the heart surgery that's going to save her life.
I don't think that's what people were asking for.
And I think what we've seen more than anything else
is just how quickly Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell
are going to roll over and do whatever Donald Trump wants
and that is scary because they are supposed to be a check.
- Saving jobs at Carrier, saving jobs at Ford,
making the focus on American jobs,
that's what people wanted.
I think they're excited about it.
Rasmussen Polls show his job approval is at 53%.
Maybe not as high as other presidents
12 days into their presidency,
but I'll tell you what, results are going to take some time.
He's making bold actions early in the administration
and I think it's going to play out pretty well for him
politically and policy-wise.
- Let me ask you about Obamacare.
We had Tommy Thompson on,
who said that repealing Obamacare is "so last week."
So now they want to do surgery and repair it aparently.
What do you make of that?
- I think that Paul Ryan has had more than 2,500 days
since the ACA passed the House of Representatives
and he still doesn't have a plan.
He doesn't have a plan to prevent 30 million people
losing their health care.
He doesn't have a plan to ensure that preexisting conditions
are no longer denying people health care
or the fact that being a woman is a preexisting condition.
I mean they have had time to do this.
They have no answers.
I think they're delaying, delaying, delaying.
What's going to end up happening is they're going to put it off
so that the effects of the cuts don't come
until after the 2018 election, but the cuts are coming.
- Tommy Thompson's my mentor.
He's a surrogate father to me.
I wouldn't question him because
he's certainly involved both with Paul Ryan,
with the president himself and with Reince Priebus.
But I would say this.
ACA repeal was last week.
It's this week. It's next week.
It's going to happen.
The Republicans ran on this time and time again.
The House Republicans actually passed it 67 times,
the repeal of it, and the Senate rejected it.
They're going to do and they're going to do it in 2017.
- As your mentor says, "It's complicated."
Let me ask about Act 10 going national.
- Yeah.
- Well, what have been the results here?
We are near the bottom of job creation in the Midwest.
Just last year we lost 2,700 manufacturing jobs.
We are divided as never before.
Education has been able to be cut by nearly $2 billion
and student loan debt has gone up
so those are the results of Act 10.
- Act 10 has proven to be successful.
Wisconsin saved more than $5 billion since it's been enacted.
And I'll tell you what.
This is one where Donald Trump is probably
a little bit different than what we did here in Wisconsin.
You saw that he had union leaders in the White House,
literally in the Oval Office on day two or day three
of his administration.
They left there saying nicer things about him than
they said about the previous president, Barack Obama.
So there is a difference between public sector employees
and private sector union employees
and I think Donald Trump is going to try and walk that line.
- Looking ahead to Scott Walker's budget, it looks like
he's going to be talking about the Earned Income Tax Credit,
giving more money to rural schools and then a little bit
of Tommy Thompson's kind of welfare reform
with FoodShare beneficiaries.
So this seems like a budget
that's like something for everyone.
- Yeah, in the third year, you try and build a budget,
especially if you're going to run for reelection.
What we used to say in the Thompson administration
is you win reelection in the third year.
You lose it in the fourth year.
In other words, do the right things in the budget
and the politics should take care of itself
unless you make a big mistake in the fourth year.
I think Governor Walker calls it a reform dividend.
There is extra money this time around,
which is new to Wisconsin for the last three budget cycles.
So look for Governor Walker to spread that to K-12 schools,
to higher education and to take care of some of the needy
here in the state.
- Let's take the Earned Income Tax Credit.
We have raised taxes under Governor Walker $144 million
on the working poor as a result of what he did
with the Earned Income Tax Credit in his first budget.
Now he's going to give back $20 million.
That I think makes him $124 million short.
His rural schools initiative.
He literally had his three events at three schools
that have seen their aid drop by double digits
under Scott Walker.
So yes, he is trying to do his reelection budget
and he's very good at that because it is all he knows.
But the fact is our budget is in a mess.
We can't pay for education.
We can't pay for higher education,
and we certainly can't pay for our roads.
- We know that he inherited a mess
from the previous administration and he fixed it.
- Come on.
- Made some tough decisions.
Had to make very tough choices.
Now as he calls it, we have a reform dividend
and he's going to start to give that back.
- Jim Doyle was last on the ballot 11 years ago.
It's time to let go of that talking point.
- We need to leave it there. Thank you very much.