Of those who voted no, many didn't care for the fact.
The bill saw bipartisan passage in the state assembly with ten dems voting in favor along
with all Republicans, among them Republican Rep. Tony Kurtz of Wannewalk, Vice Chair
of the Joint Finance Committee.
I was surprised for you that this blew up and failed.
I was incredibly shocked, or how many days after the fact, and I'm still a little shocked
and dismayed to be very frank with you.
I just think it's a good package, I understand there's people on those sides of the aisle
that have their differences with it, and I know you just talked about a lame duck governor
and a new speaker and a new majority leader, but really since January, we've been working
with the governor in good faith on this, so for those that say this was done out of the
blue, that is not true.
This is something that we've been working on, and anybody inside the Madison bubble know
we've been working on that, we've taken votes on no tax on tips and no tax on overtime.
The special ed is something that we all know, our school districts know, that they need
that, and so that's what kind of shocks me the most, that we couldn't get this across
the finish line, even though people knew we were working on this.
As to the day in question of the vote, the assembly sat on this for hours before it finally
passed.
Were you negotiating with Senate Republicans or Democrats during that time?
To be very frank with you, folks, we were trying to get a deal, I mean, I'm in the
estate assembly and I'm trying to whip votes over in the state senate, yeah, we were trying
to get this done.
This is something that we truly wanted to get done.
I think personally, and I'm just speaking for me, I hope the governor calls this back
in for a special session, I really do, because we have some unfinished business to do.
On this or other matters?
On this particular matter, I mean, what bothers me the most about this entire package is,
you have some of my Republican colleagues that obviously, they want to save the money
for a large tax cut next year, okay, that's fine.
And then you have my Democrat colleagues that obviously want to save all this money for
next session, because they have their various programs that they want to do.
The problem is, people are hurting right now.
The economy is suffering.
Our school districts could use the money for special education.
And the further we keep pushing this down the road is we're another year behind, because
let's say, January, and you know this, you've been around this longer than I, with your
experience.
In January, everything's now focused on the state budget.
And historically, the state budget gets signed into, you know, late, or, you know, July.
And then once again, those programs have to get implemented.
So we are, we are another 14 to 15 minutes, months further down the road to try to get
tax relief for those folks that need it.
And also the special education funding that our schools so desperately need.
And so that's, if you want to know the truth, that's what frustrates me the most is we had
a really good deal now.
I mean, yeah, it had its issues, but now we're just kicking the can down the road, honestly,
probably 15 to 16 months before we get something else that's going to help Wisconsinites.
Why would coming back in be any different?
Maybe it would give time for people to possibly reflect, see if there's something that we
can tweak.
It's just like, just like you even mentioned, you know, we were truly trying to find something
that would get some of our Democrat colleagues or some of the Republican colleagues on board.
Maybe it gives us more time to do that now.
I thought we were doing a lot of that before, but that's, that's my hope.
Because once again, the longer we wait, I don't see a, I don't see a point in waiting.
You know, I'll put it that way.
What were some of the pot sweeteners that were going back and forth?
Obviously talking about the different things, you know, we saw that at the end, we did put
the veterans tax credit.
I'm a veteran.
I know, you know, it's funny last week, the week before, excuse me, the VA secretary, Dave
Collins, was actually in the state of Wisconsin.
I got to talk to the VFW state commander there, the American Legion state commander
and the property tax exemption for disabled veterans.
That was part of a sweetener.
That is something incredibly important to those in organizations.
We thought that was going to help disaster relief.
That is something, and that's had broad bipartisan support as well.
You know, in my area, we had just had some tornadoes a couple of weeks ago, you know,
up there, like the Walsaw area in the Milwaukee area, the flooding last year.
So we thought that was a way to sweeten the pot.
But once again, this is, this is an opportunity for them to come back to us and say, hey,
we'd like to maybe see this or like to say that they wouldn't even entertain that.
That's what's kind of frustrating about the whole thing you got to the point where, you
know, they didn't even want to sit down and talk in a reasonable way.
And Republican candidate for Governor Tom Tiffany blasted the measure.
Did that give you any pause?
No, because, and because what I just mentioned earlier, I mean, I understand and I respect
Tom and I understand what he wants to do, but the fact of the matter is, it's today.
I mean, we have the surplus.
The state is very, we are in a great financial position to get some of this money back to
taxpayers, but also help our schools with special education.
And I'm sympathetic to that.
I know that's an incredibly costly program.
So no, that does not give me pause.
I mean, I understand why he did what he did and I respect that.
But you know, let's be honest, I mean, you know, the Democrats on the Senate side did
the same thing.
You know, they dug their hills into for various reasons and I respect that as well.
It's just the time and places now, why do we want to wait?
Because like I mentioned before, the timeline is not why do something that we all collectively
know we should do.
Why are we going to wait 15 to 16 months next year to do that?
The rebate checks per the bill was supposed to go out no later than the 15th of September
2026.
Property tax relief, people would see that immediately on their taxes in December when
they get their property tax bills.
The interesting about the no tax on overtime, that would have took effect immediately with
holding tables being affected.
So people would have seen that relief immediately.
And then once again, the schools, I talked to one of my superintendents yesterday.
I'm not going to say names because he's a wonderful person and I don't want to, you
know, put words in his mouth, but he was just in disbelief that this failed.
And that would have been a million dollars for this one particular school district that
would help them immediately to help that on the special ed.
So the other money they could pull or they wouldn't have to spend on special ed.
So there's a lot of frustration out there.
I hope you hear it in my voice.
It's just, I guess I go back to the thing, why wait?
We know we have need to, people are hurting because of the economy and prices.
So let's try to give some of that back.
Just coming back around on this a bit, Tom Tiffany also called the measures in this temporary
gimmicks.
What about that?
I don't know tax on tips and no tax on overtime as a gimmick.
I respectfully disagree with that.
You know, the special education funding, once again, that is, and if you want anybody
to blame and like the state legislature on who really is a hawk on the special ed, it's
me because, as you know, from your experience, once we put money into special education funding,
regardless of what the economy does, that is money we as a state can never pull back
because we have a federal requirement.
Once we put a dollar amount in special education, it has to stay there.
We can never call that back if we have another horrible economy.
So I am a little careful on what we do for special ed.
Do we need to do it?
Absolutely.
And so to say that's a gimmick, once again, I respectfully disagree with that.
That's permanent funding for our schools, you know, like the Regents of the world, like
the Westons of the world, like the, you know, Richland School Districts of the world can
count on for months and years ahead.
So I don't, I don't, I'm going to respectfully disagree.
I don't think it's a gimmick at all.
Now let's be fair, both sides have said that.
You know, I know, I know someone, Republican colleagues, that you pointed out, but also
some of my Democrat colleagues pointed that the same thing out.
So I just agree on the premise on both of those.
So as to the economy, some people wanted to be prudent, hold on to any projected surplus
in case it sours, you know, potentially more than it has.
What about that persuasion?
You know, I've heard that that's an argument some have tried to make.
The fact of the matter is we had a really good state budget coming out of the state
budget late fall.
We saw our projection numbers higher than anticipated.
Just in January, you know, the numbers really like our economy is doing better than we anticipate.
Even on Monday, you know, Monday, the fiscal Bureau and wonderful Bob Lang and his incredible
team over there came out with another is going to be a hundred million dollars that we are
above projections.
So I would never, and let me repeat this, I would never sign or vote on a bill.
If I knew that was going to put us in financial peril, that's not the way we've done doing
budgeting over the last four or five budgets.
We live within our means and this budget and the proposal that unfortunately failed Wednesday
night lives within our means.
Once again, people think about if this was all said and done, we'd still probably well
well over have probably 900 to 900 million dollars in our checking account.
But then a lot of people don't forget about the rainy day fund, the rainy day fund is
like our savings account and that's well over two billion dollars and that's earning interest.
It's almost seven and a half a million dollars a month, just an interest.
So financially, the state is doing very well and I would never once again, I'd never would
put any of that jeopardy if there is a question about if we could not afford this or not.
So finally, in your mind, how tough might it be for people who voted no at the doors
in their campaigns for their elections?
I personally think it's going to be pretty tough.
I cannot tell you, I honestly can make a phone calls.
I have gotten over the last two days about like what in the world happened?
How did this fall apart?
I mean, being inside the bubble, I know it's failed and that's what frustrates me the most.
So I couldn't imagine going into campaign season and walking to a door and talking to
a wonderful young lady, well, a server just in my area, Allison and how to tell her, oh,
by the way, you're not going to get the no tax on tips like we like we want it to or Brad,
which is a good friend of mine who is a factory worker who was just ecstatic about the no tax
on overtime.
How do you tell him that, oh, by the way, I voted no against that or even more importantly,
you know, how do you tell a superintendent or school board member, oh, by the way, you
know, we had this other $300 million we were going to help with special education funding
and I voted no on that.
It's a hard sell in my very humble opinion.
Representative Tony Kurt, thank you very much for joining us.
Hey, thank you for your time.
I hope you have a good, good weekend.
Thank you.
That was so good.
Thank you.
I don't know about that.
I'm probably going to get blasted by yourself.
I don't know.
But that's OK.
Aren't we all all the time, you know, but you do the work.
So we are.
And it's, I'll tell you, it is.