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the next election than
what's right for the people

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of our state. Of those who
voted no, many didn't care

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for the fact the package
was hatched by leaders not

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running for reelection and
a lame duck governor also

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not running. The bill saw
bipartisan passage in the

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state Assembly, with ten
Dems voting in favor, along

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with all Republicans, among
them Republican

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Representative Toni Kurz of
Wonewoc, vice chair of the

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Joint Finance Committee. He
joins us now. And thanks a

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lot for being here.
>> Oh my pleasure. Thank

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you for having me.
>> So how surprised were

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you that this blew up and
failed?

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>> I was incredibly shocked.
I'm actually you know,

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we're how many days after
the fact and I'm still I'm

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still a little shocked and
dismayed, to be very, very

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frank with you.
>> Why?

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>> I just think it's a good
package. Really? Since

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January, we've been working
with the governor in good

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faith on this. So for those
that say this was done out

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of the blue, that is not
true. This is something

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that we've been working on.
And anybody inside the

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Madison bubble know we've
been working on that.

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That's what kind of shocks
me the most that we

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couldn't get this across
the finish line, even

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though people knew we were
working on this personally.

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And I'm just speaking for
me. I hope the governor

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calls us back in for a
special session. I really

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do.
>> On this or other matters.

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>> On this particular
matter. I mean, what what

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bothers me the most about
this entire package is, you

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know, you have some of my
Republican colleagues that,

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you know, obviously, you
know, they want to save the

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money for a large tax cut
next year. Okay. That's

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fine. And then you have my
Democrat colleagues that

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obviously want to save all
this money for next session

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because, you know, they
they have their various

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programs that they want to
do. The problem is people

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are hurting right now. And
the further we keep pushing

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this down, the down the
road is we're another year

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behind.
pot sweeteners that were

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going back and forth?
>> The property tax

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exemption for disabled
veterans, that was part of

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a sweetener. That is
something incredibly

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important to those
organizations. We thought

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that was going to help
disaster relief. That is

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something that and that's
had broad bipartisan

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support as well. You know,
in my area, we had just had

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some tornadoes a couple of
weeks ago, you know, up in

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the Wausau area, in the
Milwaukee area, the

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flooding last year. So we
thought that was a way to,

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to sweeten the pot. But
once again, this is this is

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an opportunity for them to
come back to us and say,

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hey, we'd like to maybe see
this. Or I'd like to say

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that they wouldn't even
entertain that. That's

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what's kind of frustrating
about the whole thing. We

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got to the point where, you
know, they didn't even want

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to sit down and talk in a
reasonable way.

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>> Just coming back around
on this a bit. Tom Tiffany

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also called the measures in
this temporary gimmicks.

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What about that?
>> I don't know, tax on

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tips and no tax on overtime
as a gimmick. I, I, I

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respectfully disagree with
that. You know the the

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special education funding
once again that that is and

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if you want anybody to
blame in like the state

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legislature on who really
is a hawk on, on the

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special ed, it's me because
as you know from your

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experience, once we put
money into special

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education funding,
regardless of what the

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economy does, that is money
we as a state can never

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pull back because we have a
federal requirement. Once

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we put a dollar amount in
special education, it has

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to stay there. We can never
claw that back if we have

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another horrible economy.
So I am a little careful on

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what we do for special ed.
Do we need to do it?

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Absolutely. And so to say
that's a gimmick. Once

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again, I respectfully
disagree with that. That's

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permanent funding for our
schools. So I, I disagree

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on on the premise on both
of those.

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>> So as to the economy,
some people wanted to be

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prudent, hold on to any
projected surplus in case

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it sours, you know,
potentially more than it

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has. What about that
persuasion?

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>> You know, I, I've heard
that that's an argument

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some have tried to make.
The fact of the matter is,

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we had a really good state
budget coming out of the

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state budget late fall. We
saw our projection numbers

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higher than anticipated
just in January. You know,

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the numbers really like our
economy is doing better

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than we anticipated, even
on Monday. You know, Monday,

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the fiscal Bureau and
wonderful Bob Lang and his

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incredible team over there
came out with another. It's

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going to be another $300
million that we are above

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projections. So I would
never. And let me repeat

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this, I would never sign or
vote on a bill if I knew

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that was going to put us in
financial peril. That's not

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the way we've been doing
budgeting over the last 4

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or 5 budgets. We live
within our means, and this

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budget and the proposal
that unfortunately failed

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Wednesday night lives
within our means. Once

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again, people think about
if this was all said and

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done, we'd still probably
will well over have

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probably nine 800 to 900
million $1 million in our

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checking account. But then
a lot of people don't

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forget about the rainy day
fund. Rainy day fund is

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like our savings account,
and that's well over $2

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billion and that's earning
interest. It's almost $7.5

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million a month just in
interest. So financially,

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the state is doing very
well. And I would never

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once again, I never would
put any of that in jeopardy

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if there was a question
about if we could not

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afford this or not.
>> Representative Tony

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Kurtz, thank you very much
Kurtz, thank you very much