Here & Now

Nygren, Goyke Share Views on Finished Budget

Frederica Freyberg:
In state government, legislative budget writers wrapped up their work this week on the two-year state budget. It now heads to the full legislature and then to the governor. The Republican budget differs from what Governor Evers proposed. On K-12 education, schools would see a $500 million spending increase. Evers had proposed $1.4 billion. In particular, special education funding would be 90% less than Evers plan. For the UW budget, the GOP provision gives the system $58 million as opposed to the $150 million Evers proposed. Joint Finance did approve $1 billion in capital funds for UW building projects. On health care, Republicans rejected Evers plan to expand Medicaid leveraging an additional $1.6 billion in federal money. They approved a $588 million hike in state funds for health care and related costs. As for the transportation budget, Republicans would spend $484 million on roads and highways. Evers wanted an increase in the gas tax to get to his $624 million. Instead, Republicans hiked registration and titling fees. On taxes, the Republican plan would total about $500 million in income and property tax cuts, reducing income taxes about $75 per person this year and $136 per person in 2020. Evers’ plan would mean about a $216 reduction. As the budget package heads to the legislature, some Republican state senators are balking at the spending hikes their own party approved in the process, calling it an effort to buy Governor Evers’ support.

Scott Fitzgerald:
I’m waiting for Tuesday to make any type of judgments. Obviously, I’ve been having ongoing discussion with all the members. I know that the finance team also has been talking to members along the way working with them. So, you know, I’m not going to jump to any conclusions on any one individual senator. Again, I think just like you have to do at the end of any finance process, is come together again and kind of start from scratch, run through the document and see what the issues may be.

Frederica Freyberg:
As to whether the Republican plan could see changes from the governor’s veto pen, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos had warned the budget could be delayed until October if Evers vetoes the whole thing. Vos has backed off that fear at this point.

Robin Vos:
First of all, I am not accepting the fact that Governor Evers is going to veto the budget. I think that it’s never been done in our state’s history. So I think it’s very unlikely when we have a budget that does focuses on the four most important pillars, right? What did Governor Evers say? Fix the damn roads. We’re doing that. What did he say? Make sure we have a budget that can help children. We’re doing a kid-friendly plus budget. He said make sure that we have the ability to take care of the most vulnerable. We’re doing that without expanding welfare. And we have enough resources left over that we prioritized a very large tax cut that’s going to help every single family that pays taxes in the state.

Frederica Freyberg:
Co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, Republican Representative John Nygren, just wrapped up his heavy budget lifting. He joins us now by phone. And thanks very much for taking the time.

John Nygren:
Good to be with you.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what is your response to the criticism from some fellow Republicans that your budget “big on spending and bonding and is trying to buy Governor Evers’ support”?

John Nygren:
Well, I wouldn’t agree with them. I think the level of borrowing is the lowest it’s been since 2009. The increase in spending over the biennium is about 3.8%, within the rate of inflation. You know what? We do live in split government. I would say from my perspective, maybe that 3.8 is a little bit higher than we would like. But we do have to work with a Democrat governor and for him to be able to sign this budget, meet some of his priorities. I think we’ve done that. He proposed an 8.3% increase. We’re around 3 and still met a lot of the priorities of not only Governor Evers but the people of the state of Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
If something had to be changed though to garner the support of any defecting Republicans on the Senate side presumably, what would that be?

John Nygren:
I’m not in the Senate. I’m in the Assembly. So I think that’s a conversation for Senator Fitzgerald. I think one — some of the concerns, some of the comments that have been made has been going throughout the process. We’re not necessarily looking at the budget in totality. I think they were looking at the budget versus the bill, which had a high level of spending, as I said, 8.3%. We made those changes. We took things out as we went. So actually, I think the perspective of some of my colleagues who weren’t paying as much attention as those of us on Joint Finance every single day, when they see where we actually got to, I think they’re going to be supportive.

Frederica Freyberg:
Given what you were just suggesting about how you make trims, what do you know about whether you will get the governor’s support?

John Nygren:
Well, when we look at education funding, $500 million, $200, $204 per pupil, a 22% increase in special ed funding. Actually it’s the level that Governor Evers asked for when he was DPI Secretary. $204 is what he called a kid friendly budget two years ago. We meet those objectives when we are able to provide for our most vulnerable. In many case, going well beyond what Governor Evers had. Because we had some real problems. Because of our economy is so strong, we have issues with being able to pay a good enough wage to be able to get people to work in our nursing homes and personal care workers for our elderly and disabled in their homes. We were able to go further than him. So I believe in a lot of these cases because we solved those problems, because we met the priorities not only of Governor Evers in many cases, but the people of Wisconsin, I think he should sign it.

Frederica Freyberg:
So when you’ve said that the budget was carefully crafted to avoid the governor’s vetoes, is this the kind of thing you’re talking about?

John Nygren:
Well I mean I think what we’re talking about wanting to avoid the veto is you have to be careful what language you put into the budget. The governor can veto down spending. It can’t veto it up. But however he has a very powerful line item veto where he can actually change actually what the intent is of the different provisions. So we have to be very careful. What I’m referring to is when we’re meeting many of his objectives, perhaps maybe in a different way, yet living within the means of the people of the state of Wisconsin, I believe that it’s not only a budget that we have been careful on the vetoes, but we’ve also been understanding that we now live in split government.

Frederica Freyberg:
So on the flip side, how carefully crafted was it to apiece fiscal hawks?

John Nygren:
Well, I think that that’s the things I’ve been addressing, rate of inflation, you know, borrowing is down. Actually using cash infusion, where possible, to be able to reduce the reliance on the tax burden. And then also realizing that we do have a significant surplus so let’s utilize that rather than raising taxes as Governor Evers did. Let’s use some of those surplus dollars to reduce that burden on the taxpayer.

Frederica Freyberg:
How different would your budget have been if Governor Walker was still governor? Would you have ever included transportation fee hikes or gone for bigger tax cuts?

John Nygren:
Well, I mean I think the tax cuts, definitely, we probably would have gone for bigger tax cuts. I think we got to about $560 million of tax cuts. Governor Walker actually proposed about $800 million on increases. So if Governor Walker was still governor, I think you probably would have seen us still try to get to a solution on transportation, at least from the Assembly perspective. We’ve been trying to get there for quite some time. Our Senate colleagues and the governor, Governor Walker weren’t necessarily always with us on that. So I think we would have tried. But I think the solution we came up with, actually increasing road aids for our towns and our villages and our cities 10% and then also in what we call LREP, we also provided — we tripled that amount to be able to help catch up. We know there’s some pent-up need in the transportation areas throughout our entire state.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. We leave it there. John Nygren, thanks very much again.

John Nygren:
Thank you very much.

Frederica Freyberg:
Democrats on the budget committee acknowledge that the Evers’ budget forced Republicans to, “move the needle on spending, “but still they say it doesn’t go far enough to address the governor’s priorities. Joint Finance Committee Member Democratic Representative Evan Goyke joins us from Milwaukee. Thanks very much for doing so.

Evan Goyke:
Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So you say that the Republican proposal falls short. How so?

Evan Goyke:
Well, I want to focus really on three primary areas and that’s health care, education and transportation. And just briefly on each, on health care, an ideological decision not to expand Medicaid costs the opportunity to save $324 million in state resources, while leveraging $1.6 billion in new federal funding. That created holes in other parts of the budget, like education. So the second area where the Republican budget fell short is on public school funding. And particularly how — and how much we fund special education. And so the governor proposed an historic investment in special education and Republicans cut 83% from the governor’s proposal. And then lastly on transportation, the way we fund roads I think is an imbalance. We should use the gas tax, which is closer to a user fee, and get all of those out-of-state drivers to help pay for our roads, not just rely on our registration fees.

Frederica Freyberg:
So all of that said, how do you expect the governor to handle the version that does not expand Medicaid or increase the gas tax or greatly increase special education funding?

Evan Goyke:
I think it’s a challenge for the governor. And I want to work with his team and with him on what steps moving forward he could use. You know, the state of Wisconsin has one of the most powerful vetoes in the country and it’s a unique veto. And so I don’t think we’re at a point in time today as we are talking where we can really say exactly what the right course of action should be for the governor. Now, one other point that I want to make, it’s important to note that while Joint Finance — the Joint Finance Committee is done, each chamber must agree on the budget as it’s written. And there could be further changes made by the Senate or Assembly Majority Republicans.

Frederica Freyberg:
How would you compare this Republican budget proposal to years past when the majority was working off Republican Governor Scott Walker’s plan?

Evan Goyke:
So in your introductory remarks, you hit the needle. There’s clearly a response or what I said in my closing remarks yesterday on the committee, the Republicans are trying to catch up to the governor’s leadership and his vision. So this budget that the Republicans have crafted spends about $4.1 billion in additional spending. The last budget under Governor Walker was about $2.2 billion. So almost double the level of spending than the prior Republican budget. And I think that’s a response to Governor Evers’s winning the statewide election for governor, calling for the increased investments that we’ve been discussing.

Frederica Freyberg:
You also said while you were on the committee that the Republican budget writers, you thought, tried their best. So what more can you really ask?

Evan Goyke:
Well, I think we don’t have to do things in a closed room with only one party. That’s how the budget was written by the Republicans. The Senate and Assembly Republicans would go somewhere in the state Capitol. They would close the door and they were negotiating with themselves. So that was the best they could do. But there are two parties in the Capitol. They could reach across the aisle and seek Democratic votes and Democratic input to reach a bipartisan compromise. So when I said they did their best, what we could do better is talk to one another and find common ground, especially on those three big items that I’ve mentioned.

Frederica Freyberg:
What kinds of concerns do you have about any changes that might be made in the Legislature, the full Legislature?

Evan Goyke:
I’m watching the Senate Republican Caucus very carefully. Senator Steve Nass, in the Whitewater area, has already said that he has problems with the overall level of spending. Senator Dave Craig has said the same thing, that he has grave concerns over the level of spending. If a number of other Senate Republicans have a disagreement with the level of spending, that could result in major changes and potentially throw off the entire budget as has been written.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. We’ll be watching. Representative Goyke, thanks very much for joining us.

Evan Goyke:
Thank you for having me.