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Of those who voted no, many didn't care for the fact.

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The bill saw bipartisan passage in the state assembly with ten dems voting in favor along

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with all Republicans, among them Republican Rep. Tony Kurtz of Wannewalk, Vice Chair

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of the Joint Finance Committee.

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I was surprised for you that this blew up and failed.

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I was incredibly shocked, or how many days after the fact, and I'm still a little shocked

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and dismayed to be very frank with you.

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I just think it's a good package, I understand there's people on those sides of the aisle

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that have their differences with it, and I know you just talked about a lame duck governor

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and a new speaker and a new majority leader, but really since January, we've been working

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with the governor in good faith on this, so for those that say this was done out of the

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blue, that is not true.

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This is something that we've been working on, and anybody inside the Madison bubble know

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we've been working on that, we've taken votes on no tax on tips and no tax on overtime.

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The special ed is something that we all know, our school districts know, that they need

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that, and so that's what kind of shocks me the most, that we couldn't get this across

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the finish line, even though people knew we were working on this.

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As to the day in question of the vote, the assembly sat on this for hours before it finally

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passed.

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Were you negotiating with Senate Republicans or Democrats during that time?

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To be very frank with you, folks, we were trying to get a deal, I mean, I'm in the

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estate assembly and I'm trying to whip votes over in the state senate, yeah, we were trying

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to get this done.

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This is something that we truly wanted to get done.

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I think personally, and I'm just speaking for me, I hope the governor calls this back

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in for a special session, I really do, because we have some unfinished business to do.

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On this or other matters?

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On this particular matter, I mean, what bothers me the most about this entire package is,

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you have some of my Republican colleagues that obviously, they want to save the money

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for a large tax cut next year, okay, that's fine.

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And then you have my Democrat colleagues that obviously want to save all this money for

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next session, because they have their various programs that they want to do.

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The problem is, people are hurting right now.

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The economy is suffering.

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Our school districts could use the money for special education.

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And the further we keep pushing this down the road is we're another year behind, because

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let's say, January, and you know this, you've been around this longer than I, with your

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experience.

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In January, everything's now focused on the state budget.

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And historically, the state budget gets signed into, you know, late, or, you know, July.

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And then once again, those programs have to get implemented.

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So we are, we are another 14 to 15 minutes, months further down the road to try to get

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tax relief for those folks that need it.

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And also the special education funding that our schools so desperately need.

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And so that's, if you want to know the truth, that's what frustrates me the most is we had

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a really good deal now.

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I mean, yeah, it had its issues, but now we're just kicking the can down the road, honestly,

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probably 15 to 16 months before we get something else that's going to help Wisconsinites.

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Why would coming back in be any different?

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Maybe it would give time for people to possibly reflect, see if there's something that we

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can tweak.

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It's just like, just like you even mentioned, you know, we were truly trying to find something

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that would get some of our Democrat colleagues or some of the Republican colleagues on board.

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Maybe it gives us more time to do that now.

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I thought we were doing a lot of that before, but that's, that's my hope.

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Because once again, the longer we wait, I don't see a, I don't see a point in waiting.

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You know, I'll put it that way.

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What were some of the pot sweeteners that were going back and forth?

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Obviously talking about the different things, you know, we saw that at the end, we did put

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the veterans tax credit.

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I'm a veteran.

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I know, you know, it's funny last week, the week before, excuse me, the VA secretary, Dave

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Collins, was actually in the state of Wisconsin.

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I got to talk to the VFW state commander there, the American Legion state commander

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and the property tax exemption for disabled veterans.

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That was part of a sweetener.

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That is something incredibly important to those in organizations.

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We thought that was going to help disaster relief.

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That is something, and that's had broad bipartisan support as well.

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You know, in my area, we had just had some tornadoes a couple of weeks ago, you know,

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up there, like the Walsaw area in the Milwaukee area, the flooding last year.

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So we thought that was a way to sweeten the pot.

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But once again, this is, this is an opportunity for them to come back to us and say, hey,

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we'd like to maybe see this or like to say that they wouldn't even entertain that.

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That's what's kind of frustrating about the whole thing you got to the point where, you

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know, they didn't even want to sit down and talk in a reasonable way.

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And Republican candidate for Governor Tom Tiffany blasted the measure.

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Did that give you any pause?

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No, because, and because what I just mentioned earlier, I mean, I understand and I respect

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Tom and I understand what he wants to do, but the fact of the matter is, it's today.

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I mean, we have the surplus.

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The state is very, we are in a great financial position to get some of this money back to

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taxpayers, but also help our schools with special education.

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And I'm sympathetic to that.

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I know that's an incredibly costly program.

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So no, that does not give me pause.

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I mean, I understand why he did what he did and I respect that.

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But you know, let's be honest, I mean, you know, the Democrats on the Senate side did

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the same thing.

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You know, they dug their hills into for various reasons and I respect that as well.

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It's just the time and places now, why do we want to wait?

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Because like I mentioned before, the timeline is not why do something that we all collectively

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know we should do.

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Why are we going to wait 15 to 16 months next year to do that?

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The rebate checks per the bill was supposed to go out no later than the 15th of September

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2026.

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Property tax relief, people would see that immediately on their taxes in December when

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they get their property tax bills.

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The interesting about the no tax on overtime, that would have took effect immediately with

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holding tables being affected.

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So people would have seen that relief immediately.

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And then once again, the schools, I talked to one of my superintendents yesterday.

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I'm not going to say names because he's a wonderful person and I don't want to, you

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know, put words in his mouth, but he was just in disbelief that this failed.

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And that would have been a million dollars for this one particular school district that

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would help them immediately to help that on the special ed.

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So the other money they could pull or they wouldn't have to spend on special ed.

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So there's a lot of frustration out there.

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I hope you hear it in my voice.

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It's just, I guess I go back to the thing, why wait?

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We know we have need to, people are hurting because of the economy and prices.

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So let's try to give some of that back.

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Just coming back around on this a bit, Tom Tiffany also called the measures in this temporary

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gimmicks.

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What about that?

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I don't know tax on tips and no tax on overtime as a gimmick.

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I respectfully disagree with that.

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You know, the special education funding, once again, that is, and if you want anybody

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to blame and like the state legislature on who really is a hawk on the special ed, it's

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me because, as you know, from your experience, once we put money into special education funding,

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regardless of what the economy does, that is money we as a state can never pull back

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because we have a federal requirement.

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Once we put a dollar amount in special education, it has to stay there.

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We can never call that back if we have another horrible economy.

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So I am a little careful on what we do for special ed.

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Do we need to do it?

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Absolutely.

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And so to say that's a gimmick, once again, I respectfully disagree with that.

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That's permanent funding for our schools, you know, like the Regents of the world, like

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the Westons of the world, like the, you know, Richland School Districts of the world can

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count on for months and years ahead.

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So I don't, I don't, I'm going to respectfully disagree.

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I don't think it's a gimmick at all.

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Now let's be fair, both sides have said that.

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You know, I know, I know someone, Republican colleagues, that you pointed out, but also

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some of my Democrat colleagues pointed that the same thing out.

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So I just agree on the premise on both of those.

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So as to the economy, some people wanted to be prudent, hold on to any projected surplus

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in case it sours, you know, potentially more than it has.

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What about that persuasion?

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You know, I've heard that that's an argument some have tried to make.

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The fact of the matter is we had a really good state budget coming out of the state

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budget late fall.

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We saw our projection numbers higher than anticipated.

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Just in January, you know, the numbers really like our economy is doing better than we anticipate.

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Even on Monday, you know, Monday, the fiscal Bureau and wonderful Bob Lang and his incredible

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team over there came out with another is going to be a hundred million dollars that we are

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above projections.

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So I would never, and let me repeat this, I would never sign or vote on a bill.

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If I knew that was going to put us in financial peril, that's not the way we've done doing

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budgeting over the last four or five budgets.

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We live within our means and this budget and the proposal that unfortunately failed Wednesday

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night lives within our means.

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Once again, people think about if this was all said and done, we'd still probably well

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well over have probably 900 to 900 million dollars in our checking account.

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But then a lot of people don't forget about the rainy day fund, the rainy day fund is

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like our savings account and that's well over two billion dollars and that's earning interest.

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It's almost seven and a half a million dollars a month, just an interest.

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So financially, the state is doing very well and I would never once again, I'd never would

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put any of that jeopardy if there is a question about if we could not afford this or not.

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So finally, in your mind, how tough might it be for people who voted no at the doors

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in their campaigns for their elections?

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I personally think it's going to be pretty tough.

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I cannot tell you, I honestly can make a phone calls.

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I have gotten over the last two days about like what in the world happened?

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How did this fall apart?

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I mean, being inside the bubble, I know it's failed and that's what frustrates me the most.

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So I couldn't imagine going into campaign season and walking to a door and talking to

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a wonderful young lady, well, a server just in my area, Allison and how to tell her, oh,

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by the way, you're not going to get the no tax on tips like we like we want it to or Brad,

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which is a good friend of mine who is a factory worker who was just ecstatic about the no tax

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on overtime.

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How do you tell him that, oh, by the way, I voted no against that or even more importantly,

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you know, how do you tell a superintendent or school board member, oh, by the way, you

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know, we had this other $300 million we were going to help with special education funding

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and I voted no on that.

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It's a hard sell in my very humble opinion.

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Representative Tony Kurt, thank you very much for joining us.

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Hey, thank you for your time.

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I hope you have a good, good weekend.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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That was so good.

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Thank you.

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I don't know about that.

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I'm probably going to get blasted by yourself.

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I don't know.

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But that's OK.

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Aren't we all all the time, you know, but you do the work.

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So we are.

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And it's, I'll tell you, it is.