I am rolling whenever you're ready, all right, I'll start here as well.
And Mr. Speaker, thanks for your time.
Thanks, I appreciate having me on.
So it looks like the budget negotiations are very fluid.
Bring us up to data where we stand between the Senate, the Assembly and the Governor.
Yep, so weeks ago, we began talking with Governor Evers because our goal is to get a budget signed
into law that has guaranteed tax relief for Wisconsin citizens. We negotiated an earnest.
At some point, it felt like the Governor really wasn't being flexible enough for us.
So we said let's just start the finance process and see where it goes.
So we began to go through the process like we always do with a goal of being done by July 1st.
And then several weeks ago, we also decided, look, if there's a way we can stay engaged with
the Governor, I'm not opposed to negotiating. I'd like to get something we can all live with.
We began talking again with the Assembly and the Senate.
I feel like we have a very broad vague general framework of where we could get to.
So I'm optimistic that we could actually conclude by the end of July.
Now it's just up to all three parts to continue negotiating.
And it sounds like, as of today, my Senate colleagues don't want to do that,
which I think is a real shame because if Governor Evers betows the budget,
no property tax relief, no funding for schools, and no one wins.
So that is not our goal. It's to find something that we could all live with.
And I guess I'm still an optimist that we can do that, but only time will tell.
Obviously, the math in the Senate is they can only lose one vote as a Republican majority
before they need to rely on Democrats. Is there any point at which you would ask the Governor
to put pressure on the Democrats in the Senate or try and include some of those Democrats
to see if you can secure a vote that way? Well, one of the things I learned a long time ago is,
I love the Assembly, right? That is where I get to work. If I predicted what was going to happen
in the state Senate, I would have even less hair than I do right now, right? So I have no idea
what they're going to do over there. Here, I feel very confident that we have almost all,
if not all, Assembly Republicans in general agreement with our framework again.
The budget's got to work its way through. There are still details left to work out.
But the idea that we're going to make investments in special education,
that's something that we support. The idea that we're going to invest in child care,
we agree with that too, that we're going to have significant tax relief,
hopefully focusing on retirees in the middle class, that's a winner. So I think you check a lot of
boxes that get Republicans to want to be a yes. Now we just have to get a bill to the Governor
so we can actually be done with our part of the process.
When you've been negotiating, do you have to wait for the Senate majority leader to go back to his
members and involve his caucus? Are you going to your caucus or can you kind of speak for your
caucus? Yeah, I mean, I can only speak for us. I keep them updated on a very regular basis. We
talk about what's in there. I try to get a general parameter where people are comfortable with to
say, okay, can we live with that if we give this? It's actually been pretty productive. Our caucus
has really been engaged. They've done a great job. Every single member has things that they know
are important for their part of Wisconsin. And then we all think there are things that are
important for the whole state. So luckily we're in general agreement. We want to make sure we have
great roads. We want to make sure that we have that tax relief that will really flow to real
people who need it at a time when look prices are still high. So I think at the end of the day,
we have to focus on our goal, which is to get something done that's better than current law.
The thing that makes me most optimistic is look in the last budget. We had historic investments
in public schools and health care. We tried to do tax relief. That was vetoed by the Governor.
Almost all the tax cuts were vetoed. So that didn't work. But even this time around,
even with a historic tax cut that will be in our budget and some investments that are really
important, our spending level will still be lower than it was two years ago. So it's not like we're
on a spending binge. We're trying to be responsible, but at the same time, get something Governor
Evers can hopefully support. In December, you said that you would have liked to see the tax cuts
passed before the budget. You went into negotiations. Are what we seeing passed out of joint finance
similar to what the Governor's agreed to? Do you kind of get his answer on where he was willing to
go? And that's what's before. I mean, I don't want to speak for the Governor, but I do feel like
we're trying not to do things that would draw veto. That is not our goal. We want to do things
that I think he hopefully could sign. Look, there are things that in a compromise I'm going to not
love, but the whole is better than the parts that I dislike. And I'm sure he would probably say the
same thing. There are parts that he wished were different. But I hope in the end he'll be able
to look at it and say, in total, it's a better deal than doing nothing. When it comes to public
education, obviously the Governor's veto from the last budget created the parameters where school
districts have the ability to raise funds on a per pupil basis. That's not funded into the
Republican budget. Is this kind of a standoff of who will take the blame and the public size for
rising property taxes if the state doesn't fund it? Well, it's really there's no argument. Governor
Evers issued a veto for a 400 year property tax increase. He did it. He has to own it. I mean,
literally, it was his own decision. Of course, it was ratified by his liberal allies in the
state Supreme Court. Of course, they're going to rubber stamp whatever he does. So, I mean,
that's not a surprise when it actually occurred. But where we're focused is to say, okay, that's
decided. We're not going to change Governor Evers' mind. He's not going to all of a sudden say,
we shouldn't raise property taxes. He already accepted that we will forever. So we're focused
on where we can actually find that agreement. I don't want property taxes to go up. If it were
up to me, it would have been a different result. But I didn't vote for the liberal majority and I
didn't vote for Governor Evers. So I kind of have to accept the reality of where we are.
In negotiations, as Governor Evers asked you to fund that per people increase or as he rather
see some of the whatever money's available to go into other pots. Again, I don't want to speak
for Governor Evers, but our negotiations have been mostly focused around the cost of special
education. One of the things that Assembly Republicans brought to the table is a proposal,
which would say for kids who cost over $30,000 for high cost special ed kids,
state's going to pay 90% of that. That's what really is bankrupting or hurting an awful lot of school
districts. You get one or two kids in a small district that have intense special needs and they
don't have the ability to fund it. So they have to cut other programs to put a package together
that satisfy that child. So we want to we think that's a great way to do it. Governor Evers wanted
more money in special ed. We always agreed with that. It's just discussing how much we're able to
afford as a state. We need to have we have a lot of priorities. Schools are an important one.
But look, I care about how much we spend on health care. I care about how much we spend on raises
for public employees. I care about how much we're going to spend on childcare. There's a lot of
things that we have to balance out all while keeping in mind that we're overtaxing the citizens
of Wisconsin. We got to give some of that back. When it comes to childcare funding, there's a
is there an agreement between the Democrats and Republicans that there's something needs to be
done from the state's point of view? And it's just what is the best vehicle to get money into the
system? Perhaps. I mean, I guess my my thought is, look, we need more childcare providers. We need
more access for parents to be able to find someone to take care of their kids if they choose to work.
That's where our focus is. For the last couple years, Governor Evers has literally just sent
a check to every childcare provider in the state hoping that that would drop the prices for childcare.
It's like sending a check to the owner of the grocery store hoping he drops the prices of eggs.
That doesn't usually happen. So we didn't want to do it that way anymore. But we're open to other
ideas because certainly look, I want more childcare slots. We look at states around us. Minnesota
has a different ratio for how many kids can be watched by every single person who works in a
childcare center. I don't think Minnesota is some kind of a right-wing fashion. So we could copy
what they do and say that works. So we're trying to find some areas where we can find consensus.
Again, not just dumping more money in the system, but hopefully creating more slots,
making it more acceptable. And at the same time doing it within a method that we can afford long
term. The most recent news on the UW system funding is a $87 million cut potentially.
If that stands, would you expect to see tuition to increase? Would that lead to closures at
some of the two-year schools? Well, first of all, our goal is not just to slash the university,
just to slash the university. That does no one any good. We have tried to say for a long time
that there have to be reforms into how they operate. I mean, here's one statistic that I hope
everybody thinks about. That I just read a study this week that shows from the year 2025 today
through 2029, just four years from now. We're going to have 15% fewer Wisconsin graduates going
to college. Now, that's not because the university is not accessible. It's because people are having
fewer kids and there are lower numbers of high school graduates. So if you had one out of seven
fewer customers, the store couldn't operate the same way. It would go bankrupt. Well, it's the same
for the university system. If we don't figure a different way to operate, it's not just dumping
more money in there. It's saying, wow, we have a lot less kids going to college. How are we going
to make sure that the system is nimble, that we do it in a way that actually makes people want
to go there. And it's not this woke mumbo jumbo that people hate. So we've asked for some simple
reforms. We need faculty members to teach more. We need to make sure that if you take a class at
white water, it transfers to superior without a lot of bureaucracy in the middle. You know, we're not
we're not trying to do things that are radical, but we're trying to do things that will make it
easier for families to get out of school quicker and hopefully do it in a way that's more meaningful
to them and their family. Those sound like a lot of policy issues. Do those belong in the budget
or is that the only place you can actually negotiate this with the UW and Governor Evers?
Unfortunately, we've tried to work outside the budget. It's super hard. They are not real
responsive. They're not real nimble. So if we're going to not reduce funding for the university or
perhaps even give a small increase, they have to be willing to change. Doing everything like they
did 20 or 30 years ago as enrollment declines means they're going to have serious budgetary
problems going forward. And that's not because of the legislature. That's just the reality of
demographics. So they have to be ready for that. That might mean that some of the two-year campuses
have to close. It might mean they have to operate differently. It might mean that there isn't every
major at every campus anywhere in Wisconsin because we can't afford it. We are nowhere near
as nimble as people are in other states dealing with the same kind of demographic. So we have to
figure a way to do it better and hopefully this could be a step toward that. Another big ticket
item from the governor's budget that Republicans seem interested in its corrections. What needs
to happen and will that be the capital budget? Is there going to be policy in the regular budget?
We probably won't do a lot of corrections reform inside the budget. It's just a basic
philosophical difference. Look, if somebody commits a serious crime and they are scheduled to be
paroled, I want them to have some kind of worker training. I want them to have every opportunity
to never return back to prison and turn their life around. That should be bipartisan. But I feel
like under Governor Eager's plan, it's simply dumping a bunch of people outside the system and
closing prisons to say that we just have too many people who are behind bars. I don't believe that.
You go through a court process. You are heard by a jury. You're sentenced to 20 years in prison.
You serve 20 years. That's the way it should be. His plan just takes a bunch of people and pushes
them out of the system because we're overcrowded. Well, I don't want to just push them out because
we're overcrowded. We should build a new prison. We should find a way to reform what we do. That
might take longer than this budget process to find a consensus, but now we're not going to adapt
his policies. There's quite a few high profile issues we discussed. Give me one thing that Republicans
have put in the budget that's under the radar that you think deserves more attention.
Boy, I feel like we're focusing on so many areas that people care about. I mean, one thing that I
want to focus on is this retiree tax cut. Look, we all have moms and dads. We all have people who
we love that made a decision once they retire to go somewhere warmer. Right? I can't fault people
for the weather. I mean, even though I like the winter here, but a lot of people don't. But they
choose to live six months in a day somewhere else. So they pay their taxes there. One floor to Tennessee,
Texas. A lot of times you can live cheaper and have no taxes. So they choose to domicile somewhere
else. Well, that means they're charitable donations. They're volunteer hours. Seeing their grandkids
all goes away. So we have a proposal that would say that the first 35,000 dollars of retirement
income tax exempt, that means for the average couple, two teachers, two firefighters, a teacher
and a firefighter, they'd save about 1500 bucks a year. I think that's something that would seriously
make a dent in family budgets to be able to help them as opposed to, you know, doing something
that only saves them a couple bucks, which probably doesn't do very much. So I think that's not gotten
anywhere near as much coverage as I hope it would. And hopefully that'll be something that could
be signed into law. Do you think 1500 is enough to balance someone's decision on whether they go
south or move to Missouri or Arkansas? I mean, I guess for us, we're trying to do it. We we
prefer to make all retirement tax exempt. Our Senate colleagues wanted an income tax cut instead.
Not all tax cuts are good. So not bad. Governor Evers didn't really offer either one of those.
So yes, we'd prefer all retirement income, but in the spirit of compromise, we're getting as
much done as we can. All right. Speaker boss, thanks for your time.
Exact. Appreciate your time. All right. Thanks, sir.
To see you as always. Thank you tonight. Yeah. Thank you. Hopefully my will read my speech one
last time. Yeah. Are there any cameras there? No, I don't know. All right. Thank you. Appreciate
care. Thanks, sir. Thank you, sir.
Everything recorded. Sounds good.