- I'm Frederica Freyberg.
Tonight on "Here and Now," a first look
at the 2017 congressional agenda.
I'll talk with both Wisconsin U.S. Senators
Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin.
After that, a closer look at the new legislative agenda
at the state capitol.
Zac Schultz has a report.
Then in our look ahead, we'll forecast the politics and policy
of the 2017 state legislature.
It's "Here and Now" for January 6.
- Funding for "Here and Now" is provided, in part,
by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
- A busy week in Washington tops our first look tonight as
the wheels of transition churned through intel on Russian hacking
and votes setting the stage to repeal Obamacare.
In a few minutes I will talk
with Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin.
Earlier today I interviewed
Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson.
Senator Johnson, thank you very much for joining us.
- Hello, Frederica, Happy New Year.
- First let me congratulate you on your re-election.
I don't think we've spoken since then.
- I appreciate that. Thanks.
- Donald Trump tweeted this morning that Mexico will
reimburse American taxpayers for a new border wall
and Congress will make that money available right away
for the sake of speed.
As Chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, what is your
reaction and response to that?
- Well, I'll have to see his details.
We've heard different proposals, potentially some import fees or
whatever, to pay for the wall.
I was just in Israel.
I went down and toured their fence with the Sinai
on their southern border.
They having a real problem.
They built that fence in about two years.
It's about 260 kilometers.
Cost them about $2.5 million per mile.
Far cheaper than anything we built.
I think a combination of taking a look at the right type of
fencing in the right areas.
The funding mechanism, we'll just take a look at how we're
going to actually pay for the fence but doesn't have to be all
that expensive.
- Also this week the work has already begun to undo the
Affordable Care Act with votes to take up a Senate budget
resolution this week that would clear the way to repeal major
prongs of it like subsidies and the taxes that supported them.
Why so fast off the blocks?
- Well, we certainly want to set a procedure using
reconciliation because it sounds like Minority Leader Schumer is
not going to cooperate at all.
So we're going to figure out a way to do this
with just 51 votes.
From my standpoint, I've been--
ever since Obamacare was finally implemented,
I've been using slightly different terminology.
Repairing the damage and transitioning to a system
that actually works.
That's really what the effort needs to be.
We have to recognize the fact that subsidies are flowing.
The tax has already been implemented.
People are receiving--have health insurance.
Doesn't necessarily mean they're accessing care because the
deductibles are so incredibly high.
There's been an awful lot of damage done by Obamacare.
It's a big mess.
It's our responsibility to clean up that mess.
It's going to take time. It's very complex.
- Notwithstanding the fact that you suggest that you'd like to
repair the damage, the repeal process is already in motion.
What do you say to the 20 million people insured through
Obamacare, some 230,000 of them in Wisconsin?
- First of all, from my standpoint I don't want to see
anybody lose health insurance they already have, but I
certainly want to see health insurance far more affordable
and the access to health care, quality health care, better.
And that was not achieved by Obamacare.
So again we have a really big mess on our hands.
Obamacare did not live up to its name.
The Affordable Care Act is not affordable.
The premiums on the individual market did double and triple.
Again, we have a big mess on our hands.
It's going to be very complex to unwind this
and really repair the damage.
- But if you partially repeal the law with no replacement, you
risk the collapse of the whole thing.
Why not wait in Washington to repeal until you can replace?
- Well, that's certainly my suggestion, is do them at
the same time in one fell swoop.
We're working our way through this.
The procedure right now is just setting up a very simple budget
reconciliation process that has to do with the dollars involved
with the repeal/replace effort.
It's just the first step in a very--it's probably going to
pretty long and complex process.
So first of all, I don't think anybody should worry about their
health insurance they currently have going away anytime soon.
We're fully aware of the fact that it's going to take a while
for the insurance markets to reset themselves, and so we're
going to do this thoughtfully, certainly from my standpoint.
That's the way I want to do it.
- What's your view on Speaker Ryan's call
to defund Planned Parenthood as part of this repeal?
- Nobody wants to defund women's health care that's the
number one issue but at the same time, I don't think any
Americans' tax dollars should go toward procedures like abortion
they find morally wrong.
So there's where the fault-line occurs.
So if Planned Parenthood wants funding, they should separate
their women's health care services from their abortion
services.
I know they say they've done that, but money's fungible so
it's still an issue.
- Related to the ACA Medicare, Speaker Ryan wants a premium
support voucher plan.
What's your position on that kind of change?
- I would like to shift as much as we possibly can of health
care decisions back to the states.
Quite honestly as much of governance back to the states,
where government is more effective, efficient and
accountable.
That's certainly be one of the areas I'd like to see over time
in an evolving type of fashion evolve or devolve those powers
and that type of governing back to the states.
I think it would be more effective.
- What about the premium support idea of it, kind of a voucher?
- Again, from my standpoint when you start block granting
dollars back to the states, states can determine how they
actually want to utilize those dollars.
Let's the states decide a lot of those issues.
- Now, moving to something different, as you know, both the
CIA and FBI say they have confirmed Russia was behind
hacking involving the U.S. election.
President-elect Trump does not take this seriously.
How seriously do you take it?
- I take it very seriously and
I've been ahead of the curve on this one.
As Chairman of the European Subcommittee of Foreign
Relations we've held a number of hearings on Russia's propaganda
campaigns, their disinformation campaigns, how they're trying to
destabilize certainly eastern European countries.
But just their involvement, destabilization efforts
around the world.
So this is a very serious issue.
I'm also very concerned about the leaking coming out of the
intelligence community.
I'm not happy with the fact that looks like there's going to be a
disconnect between the incoming administration and the
intelligence community.
That issue has to be repaired quickly because the next
administration has to have good intelligence to keep this nation
safe.
- Now, you've sponsored several resolutions relating to Russia
and its president, Vladimir Putin, including one calling for
a full investigation into the murder of a Russian opposition
leader and one concerning Russia's attacks in Ukraine.
Do you think the U.S.
should be complimenting Putin for his leadership and his
smarts?
- I'm very wary of Vladimir Putin.
There have been close to 30 suspicious political
assassinations since he's taken power.
Obviously he invaded Georgia, Crimea, eastern Ukraine.
I think Russia is probably responsible for the shooting
down of an airliner.
I wish, I wish Russia was a friendly rival as opposed to an
unfriendly adversary.
I don't want them to become an enemy.
So we have to understand the reality of the situation.
There's about more than 15,000 nuclear warheads in the world.
Russia has more than 7,000 of those.
We have little less than 7,000.
So they are a superpower by that measure alone.
He is the head of that nation right now.
We're going to have to deal with him, but we have to deal with
him from a position of strength, which is one of the resolutions
I supported, proposed and had passed was one to provide $300
million of lethal defensive weaponry to the nation of
Ukraine so they could defend their territory, integrity.
Again, we need to address Russia from a standpoint of
realistically looking at who they are, what they've done.
But we have to address them from a position of strength and
resolve.
- What's your opinion of Rex Tillerson for secretary of state
with his ties to Russia?
- I think he actually is an outstanding selection.
His background globally, his experience in the energy field,
his relationship with world leaders around the globe in a
very detailed fashion of working on oil exploration and other
things.
I think he really has an excellent background and
experience level.
I have no doubt that he'll be loyal
to the United States of America.
When he was CEO of Exxon he had one role.
As secretary of state, he'll have a different role.
I don't have any doubt that he can fill that role.
- Back to your wariness of Vladimir Putin and Russia.
It seems that you are parting ways with the president-elect
on this?
- I don't think so.
I think an awful lot of people are making an awful lot of
assumptions about what the president-elect's policies are
going to be toward Russia.
Let him become president.
Let him have his cabinet confirmed and then let's see how
he governs.
Certainly our role in the Senate is provide him as much
information, hold hearings, lay out the reality of the situation
and hopefully based on that reality he'll react
appropriately.
- All right.
We leave it there.
Senator Ron Johnson, thank you very much.
- Have a good day.
- I spoke with Senator Johnson earlier today.
Now to the Democratic side of the aisle, and for that we
welcome Senator Tammy Baldwin.
Senator, thanks very much for being here.
- It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
- So we know that the GOP is moving quickly to try to repeal
at least parts of the Affordable Care Act, but what happens to
that law if the subsidies go away and the individual mandate
and even expanded Medicaid?
- Yeah.
So, you know, the people of Wisconsin did not send me to the
United States Senate to take away people's health care and
that's exactly what they are proposing to do right out of the
box, starting this first week of the new session.
They have vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which has
implications also on Medicare and Medicaid, has so many
implications for all Americans who have health insurance
because of the protections that are part of that.
And even though the Republican establishment in Washington has
said for seven years that they want to have some sort of
replacement, they have nothing to show for it at this point.
And in fact it's apparent on Capitol Hill that there are huge
disagreements even within their own party about whether it's
repeal but delay that repeal, repeal and replace, when that
will happen, how that will happen.
The bottom line right now is that they are organizing to take
people's health care away, and that is something worth fighting
tooth and nail against.
- So what can you tell the more than 230,000 people in Wisconsin
that are covered by Obamacare?
- You know, several things.
One is I have no information to share with them about what the
Republican establishment plans to do to replace it, because
they have no replacement plan.
That is scary and therefore it is absolutely irresponsible for
them to undertake the repeal of the current protections for
Wisconsinites and, you know, coverage for well over 200,000
Wisconsinites.
But I also think it's really important that they speak out.
That they ask those questions to their members of Congress, to
those of us in the Senate, and have their voices heard.
I mean, if you think about this recent election, it was a lot
about people feeling that they didn't have a voice, that the
system was rigged, that hard-working people were
struggling to get ahead.
Well, isn't our health security and health care coverage a huge
piece of that?
They need to continue to speak out even beyond having
participated in the election.
- A lot of people are also, of course, worried about Medicare.
And what happens to Medicare if the surcharge on the high-income
earners goes away as any part of this repeal of the ACA?
- Well, first of all, there's lots of implications on Medicare
if one -- if they truly go ahead with the repeal of the
Affordable Care Act, Obamacare.
The passage of the Affordable Care Act extended the solvency
of Medicare multiple years, and so we will be immediately
dealing with that very significant concern.
We have to understand that they have no plan right now to
replace this, and it's why we absolutely have to fight right
now to prevent them from carrying out this undertaking.
- What's your response to Speaker Paul Ryan saying he'd
like to defund Planned Parenthood again as part of this
repeal?
- I think about the millions of Americans, women and men, who
receive needed preventive and primary care through Planned
Parenthood.
The impact of defunding, as they call it,
is going to further impact people's health.
You know, some have likened this endeavor on the part of the
Republicans in Washington as make America sick again,
playing off Trump's motto.
That is going to be the consequence.
There is real harm that will befall Wisconsinites and
Americans with this multi-pronged attack
on health care.
- Now, you wrote a letter to the president-elect Trump soon
after the election saying that you hoped that he would appoint
strong, independent-minded staff to police the financial sector
during his administration.
Now that you've seen some of his cabinet picks, do you think he
followed your advice?
- Oh, my goodness.
I have a lot of concern.
And of course we're about to undertake the confirmation
hearings, which will give the American public a greater sense
of who these individuals are.
But there's two things I want to note.
One is that most of Trump's nominees have not yet done the
financial disclosures, the ethics disclosures, the tax
return disclosures that are required during the confirmation
process.
So we at this point are going to be hindered in seeing where
there might be conflicts of interest.
Where they might be more loyal to their former corporate ties
than they are to the American people.
And we need to be sure that when people enter government service,
that they are serving the people of the United States, not their
former corporations.
Also, as you know, I've been a leader on reform that would sort
of end this revolving door between Wall Street and
Washington, where you put the fox in charge of the henhouse.
And I'd like to see the principles in my legislation
adopted as we examine these nominees.
- Moving just quickly to the Russian hacking, you've called
for a Senate investigation into that.
The president-elect seems to reject the intelligence reports
coming in.
Although today he had the briefing and he did praise the
intelligence apparatus.
But what do you make of his response kind of going through
this?
- Well, several observations.
One is he doesn't seem to take what we now know seriously.
We're talking about Russian interference with our democracy,
something that we prize, something that any patriotic
American should be defending at all costs.
The idea that there was not only hacking, but, you know,
involvement in this phenomenon of fake news, is deeply
disturbing to me.
And I feel like our president-elect needs to take
this much more seriously.
Then the added element of his deciding to trust Julian Assange
of WikiLeaks and Vladimir Putin of Russia over the intelligence
agencies that serve this country and protect our security against
cyber espionage?
That has been just, you know, again, deeply disturbing.
And I think we have to hold this president-elect accountable,
and, you know, I believe that's more than ever a reason why we
should move forward with a select committee to get to the
bottom of this.
It needs to be bipartisan
and the American people need that transparency.
- All right. We leave it there. - Thank you.
- Senator Tammy Baldwin, thanks very much.
- The repeal of the Affordable Care Act is just one item that
Republicans in Washington could pass that will impact future
legislation in Wisconsin.
In tonight's closer look, the new legislature was sworn into
office Tuesday and "Here and Now's" Zac Schultz tells us how
this session will be different from years past.
- If you will please stand and raise your right hand.
- The 103rd legislative session started the way they all do,
with newly-elected members taking the oath of office.
- Do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution
of the United States.
- Republicans returned with even larger majorities in the
Assembly and the Senate.
- And the constitution of the state of Wisconsin.
- This is the fourth straight two-year session the capitol
will be under complete Republican control.
And for the first time the leaders of the Senate and
Assembly don't have a clear agenda from the start.
- I haven't rolled out kind of a long list of bills that would
be part of an agenda.
- In 2011, Republicans had an aggressive agenda headlined by
what became Act 10.
In 2013 the mining bill was at the center of the attention.
And in 2015 right to work was a key early bill.
But in 2017, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says they will take
their time.
- I think the decision our leadership team has made is to
not rush into any package of bills that we'll bring to the
floor right away.
- There are certainly big issues on the table, but Speaker
Vos doesn't expect to come to the floor until February.
- We don't necessarily have AB1 written saying this is the way
we're going to deal with funding transportation.
This is the way we're going to deal with rewriting the school
aid formula.
- The budget will be the biggest battle at the capitol,
with Speaker Vos and Governor Scott Walker already sparring
over transportation funding.
But the biggest wildcard will be action at the federal level.
If Republicans in Washington repeal the Affordable Care Act
or pass an infrastructure package, that could lead to
changes in Wisconsin law.
- I'm optimistic that there is going to be a shift and that the
responsibility is going to once again fall on the states for
many of these areas.
- Democrats hope to be part of the debate on these issues, but
their biggest fears are the bills that haven't been
discussed.
- The part that worries me most, though, are the issues
that they're not talking about, because if history is any guide
over the course of the last three sessions, it wasn't so
much the issues that they talked about.
It was the issues that were sort of brought forward seemingly out
of nowhere.
- That was Zac Schultz reporting.
Governor Walker will deliver his 2017 State of the State address
Tuesday.
More on our coverage of that later in the program.
But now a look ahead to the coming state capitol session
through the eyes of our "Here and Now" political panelists,
Bill McCoshen from Republican consultant and managing partner
of Capitol Consultants and Scot Ross, Democratic activist and
executive director of One Wisconsin Now.
Thanks to both of you for being here.
- Thanks for having us. Happy New Year.
- Happy New Year.
- Obviously at the legislative level here in the state of
Wisconsin transportation funding is the big issue.
First to you, Bill.
What do you think the likely outcome is concerning raising
the gas tax or registration fees?
Will the governor relent there
if other taxes are cut elsewhere?
- I'm an optimist.
I'm hoping the governor will actually solve this problem as
part of his budget when he introduces it in a month.
What he has said publicly time and time again is he won't raise
the gas tax or registration fee unless there's an offset.
He's got the perfect opportunity to do that in his own budget in
the next month.
If that doesn't happen, I'm confident the legislature is
going to be looking for a long-term solution.
- Where do you think those offsets will come?
- It's hard to tell. I think there's--
State income taxes could potentially be decreased.
That could be an offset.
There could be loopholes that are eliminated
that could be an offset.
Just about anything's got to be on
the table at this point in time.
Speaker Robin Vos and Co-Finance Chair John Nygren
have said that their house
certainly wants to do something on this.
I think Majority Leader Fitzgerald has been open to it as well.
- Scot, what do you think of the split between Robin Vos and
Scott Walker on this issue?
- I think after six years of Republican control this is where
the rubber literally is meeting the road and we are seeing that
we cannot pay for the things that we need to pay because
Governor Walker governs by talking point.
He's busted the budget.
We wanted to be out there saying how much he's cut in taxes and
we can't provide the basic services like roads for rural
and urban Wisconsin that we've been able to rely on in a
bipartisan way for decades.
- What do you think of the offset that we're talking about?
- When I look at the budget, I see things like the
manufacturing and ag tax credit which is
a $160 million to millionaires.
So we can't pay for our roads because of those.
Creating more and more tax loopholes that will go
predominantly to rich people and corporations I don't think is
the way to solve Wisconsin's long-term transportation
problem.
Governor Walker campaigned in 2005 saying we need to get rid
of the gas tax indexing.
He got what he wanted.
Now we're in this pickle.
- The repeal of indexing is part of the problem.
No question about that.
That's taken a billion dollars out of the system over the
course of the last 10 years.
And frankly, that's how much we're short,
about a billion dollars.
So had that not happened, we may not be in this predicament.
But I'm confident--you got to give Governor Walker credit.
He did replace or restore all the funding Governor Doyle had
taken out of the transportation fund during his two terms as
governor.
Governor Walker does deserve credit for that.
Those were the two problems, the raids on the fund and the repeal
of the indexing.
And they've all culminated this year.
- Let's move to Washington and the lightning speed with which
the GOP seems to want to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
How wary do you each think that even Republicans are about this
problem of you break it, you fix it?
- I think for six years they've been saying they want to get rid
of Obamacare and now they don't have a plan.
They're talking about bits and pieces.
And I guess like the number one thing now is they want to repeal
funding for Planned Parenthood.
Paul Ryan has had ten terms in Congress.
His entire family has had their health care paid for, his kids
for ten terms.
Now he's going to go back and say, "Hey 20 million people
you're going to lose your health care coverage." I mean there was
just a report out today that said tens of thousands of jobs
would be lost in Wisconsin if they just summarily repeal
Obamacare.
- It's pretty clear that there isn't agreement on this yet
between the White House, the Senate and the Congress, but I
think there will be in relatively short order.
It will be one of the first things that they tackle.
Mike Pence, incoming vice president-elect, was on the hill
yesterday and said that was going
to be one of their first items.
I don't have any doubt that they'll get there
but I don't think they have the final answer yet.
- Well, the replace will be a difficult move.
- Yeah.
I don't think it will happen before the 2018 elections.
I think there will be a fairly lengthy off-ramp here for
Republicans so they don't own this come 2018 elections.
- On Russia, Vladimir Putin, how willing do you think the
American public is to make him our friend now?
- I don't think they know enough about it.
I mean they hear from Trump that he might not be the worst guy in
the world.
They hear from Tom Cotton or John McCain that he's a very bad
guy.
I think it's too early to tell and it remains to be seen how
that's going to play itself out.
- I think the American people deserve real answers about what
is in Donald Trump's taxes that we would be cozying up to
somebody who has done so many bad things like Vladimir Putin
has.
This is about America, not about Donald Trump's finances.
- We need to leave it there. Scot Ross, Bill McCoshen.
Thanks a lot. - Thank you.
- Tuesday, Governor Walker addresses joint houses of the
legislature for his 2017 State of the State address.
Now, the speech is generally short on specifics,
but serves as his overall blueprint for priorities
for the coming session.
Wisconsin Public Television will have full coverage of the
speech, including the Democratic response provided
by Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling.
WPR's Shawn Johnson joins our live coverage at
3:00 p.m. Tuesday, January 10.
Until then, I'm Frederica Freyberg.
Have a great weekend.