- The state of our state is strong
and the state of our budget, well, it's outstanding.
We are working and winning for Wisconsin.
- That was Governor Walker at Wednesday's budget address.
We should mention that Wisconsin Public Television is partially
funded by state dollars.
So is Public Radio.
And that brings us to tonight's "Capitol Insight." We welcome
back Wisconsin Public Radio's Capitol Bureau chief Shawn
Johnson to talk about the governor's budget.
Thanks for being here. - Thanks for having me.
- I want to start with another clip from the governor's speech
in which he sums up his impression of this budget.
- Overall our common sense reforms brought us here to the
point where we have a significantly better budget
outlook.
We call this the reform dividend.
And wow, as the Fiscal Bureau pointed out.
That's a lot of money.
- Governor Walker says, "That's a lot of money."
Where is it being spent?
- Yeah. It is a lot of money.
I'm not sure the Fiscal Bureau said, "Wow, that is a lot of
money," but that is, compared to his previous budgets,
this is the most you've seen the governor come out of the gates
proposing to spend on public schools.
The increase in per-pupil funding
is taking up the bulk of it.
Roughly $200 increase in each of the tiers of the budget.
So to put that in perspective, it's more than the Department of
Public Instruction was asking for.
So in that context, it's a lot of money.
- And that's not the only place he's spending money, either.
I mean, the University of Wisconsin system's getting an
increase in their budget and other places.
I mean, as Todd Berry told us after the budget, President of
the Taxpayers Alliance, the governor is spending all of the
money that's in the budget, too, spending down the reserves.
- Yeah.
He starts out with a surplus and ends with very little money at
the end of the budget to kind of address all these constituencies
that you haven't really seen the governor address in this way in
previous budgets.
It's not that he would not talk about schools.
Certainly that wasn't the case.
He always has said that his Act 10 was about helping schools,
gave them the ability to, you know, more freely decide how to
spend their budget.
But in previous budgets, his first budget, for example, he
cut roughly $800 million from schools.
In his previous three budgets, he's cut the University of
Wisconsin system.
He would increase them by either by $100 million or roughly $140
million depending on how you score it in this budget.
So a change of tune in a variety of areas for Governor Walker,
and, you know, we are under different circumstances now.
The economy is in a different place than it was back in 2011,
the national economy, the Wisconsin economy.
We also have a gubernatorial election right on the horizon,
2018 election, in which many people believe that Scott Walker
is going to run for a third term.
- Yeah.
And Governor Walker's had Republicans in control of the
legislature his entire time in office and this session
Republicans increased the majorities, but that doesn't
mean complete harmony at the capitol.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has been very blunt in his request
for more transportation funding and Governor Walker said he'll
veto any increase in the gas tax that the Assembly may try and
put in when they get the budget in their hands.
Let's watch Speaker Vos's reaction at the end of this clip
while Governor Walker was talking about transportation
funding in the budget address.
- Our budget includes more funding for local governments to
fix roads and bridges and potholes than they've seen in
more than a decade and a half.
It also includes the largest amount ever, ever for the
rehabilitation of state highways.
- Now, that was not a very subtle eye-roll when you're
sitting right behind the governor on public television.
- No.
It's kind of unheard of for a speaker from the same party to
react to something the governor is saying in that way on that
stage.
You might be tempted to kind of write it off as, whoops, he
didn't mean to do that, but then you look at everything else that
Robin Vos said on the day the budget came out.
He was at the Wisconsin Counties Association meeting that
morning, very clearly wanted to send a message there.
We had a quote from the speaker.
He said, quote, sometimes I think that folks forget that we
are co-equal of the governor.
He gets to put the budget out, but it's not like we just
salute.
He used that word again later when talking about the governor.
We're not going to just salute.
He said that the governor was trying to buy off local
governments with this increase in local road aids at the
expense of a cut to state funding for road projects like
the one in Speaker Vos's district.
So he's not being subtle here.
He's coming out saying pretty firmly that he wants changes to
this budget specifically as it pertains to transportation.
- And he's not the only one.
Usually the budget address is filled with applause lines and
standing ovations.
And this one should have been too with--he has a lot of tax
cuts were in here.
This is red meat for the conservative base.
But we actually saw a relatively lukewarm reception from both
parties.
Clearly Democrats aren't happy with just about anything that
Governor Walker proposes, but even the Republicans were slow
to rise on a lot of soundbites that sounded like they were
waiting for an applause line.
- Yeah, take for example, the tuition cut is probably the
biggest example of something where the governor probably
feels like he's got this populous message that he wants
to roll out there.
The tuition freeze has been popular with Republicans lately.
The tuition cut would seem is not at least with Republican
legislative leaders.
They feel like that the money that the state would spend
backfilling that tuition cut or the revenue that the university
would lose could be better off spent somewhere else.
And so they've said they're not onboard with that.
But even the income tax cut.
I mean, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, though not as
outspoken by any means as Vos this week on the governor's
budget, said that he didn't care for that income tax cut, thought
there was a better way to get bang for your buck if you're
going to cut taxes.
- So what does this mean in terms of how long this budget
will take a pass?
Obviously, it goes to the Joint Finance Committee next.
Then each chamber has to pass a version.
They could even have dueling version there which is extremely
rare for one-party control.
- Yeah.
When Republican control began in Wisconsin, they got budgets done
by July 1, which is when the next fiscal year begins.
You don't have to do that in Wisconsin because, you know, the
current budget will carry over to the next budget if you don't
have a new one in place.
So that pressure is not exactly there.
But they've done it.
You saw that start to erode last session over transportation.
Republican lawmakers didn't like what the governor put out there.
It took them a while to come to terms.
You heard Speaker Vos this week say it's not my goal, but I'll
take it to October if we have to, basically throwing it out
there that he's willing to stand his ground in some type of a
dispute over transportation funding.
Seems unlikely that Republican-controlled
legislature and governor's office would take this fight to
October, but, you know, again, this is a message that the
speaker wants to send early in negotiations.
- And you've mentioned it before, but a lot of people are
calling this a re-election budget.
And Governor Walker has been relatively clear without coming
out and saying it that he's going to run for a third term in
2018 and this would appeal to a lot of the base that he has in
southeast Wisconsin, but also maybe a new base that Donald
Trump opened up when he ran for president and won Wisconsin.
- Rural Wisconsin.
You see hints of that all over this budget, from the way that
he would include money specifically for rural schools,
schools with declining enrollment, schools with high
transportation costs.
The way that he includes some money, not much by the speaker's
standards, but some money for local governments to repair
local roads, which are in bad shape compared to other states
and getting in worse shape here in Wisconsin.
Those seem like nods to part of the state that has become more
important politically just in this last election.
If you look at how Donald Trump won Wisconsin, it wasn't by just
dominating southeast Wisconsin, which has been the path to
victory for Republicans in previous years.
It was by winning this swath of smaller counties, rural
counties.
And so that's a constituency that I think the governor wants
to make sure he addresses.
- We've only got about a minute left, but we've heard him use
some of those phrases we heard from Donald Trump.
I haven't checked the record, but I don't remember
Scott Walker talking about winning nearly as much as he has
since Donald Trump won.
- Yeah.
"Working and winning for Wisconsin" made ten appearances
in the governor's budget speech.
He mentioned it--and that's a 24-minute speech.
Clearly he wants to hit that home.
He said the same thing in his state of the state speech.
You're seeing it in his campaign material now, too.
So it does seem like he's kind of borrowing from what's worked
for Donald Trump in that regard.
- What role do Democrats have to play in this budget if any?
The last time around, on Joint Finance the Democrats were in
play to help release some additional bonding for some road
projects.
Do they have a small unsung role to play in this process?
- I would think practically speaking it's all about message
for them.
You know, probably they're going to try to position themselves as
the Scott Walker alternative going into 2018 and they got to
find a way to do that.
There is a chance they could become relevant if -- and it's a
big "if" -- if Republicans decided they wanted to try to
override a governor's veto on transportation for example.
They'd need democratic votes but that's something Republicans
have not been willing to do so far during their control of
state government.
It seems unlikely that they'd want to do that now.
- Shawn Johnson, thanks for your time.
- You're welcome.