Frederica Freyberg:

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.

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Funding for “Here and Now” is provided, in part, by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.

Frederica Freyberg:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

Senator Johnson, thank you very much for joining us.

Ron Johnson:

Hello, Frederica, Happy New Year.

Frederica Freyberg:

First let me congratulate you on your re-election. I don’t think we’ve spoken since then.

Ron Johnson:

I appreciate that. Thanks.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Ron Johnson:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Ron Johnson:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Ron Johnson:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Ron Johnson:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

What's your view on Speaker Ryan's call to defund Planned Parenthood as part of this repeal?

Ron Johnson:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

Related to the ACA Medicare, Speaker Ryan wants a premium support voucher plan. What’s your position on that kind of change?

Ron Johnson:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

What about the premium support idea of it, kind of a voucher?

Ron Johnson:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Ron Johnson:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Ron Johnson:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

What's your opinion of Rex Tillerson for secretary of state with his ties to Russia?

Ron Johnson:

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 will 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.

Frederica Freyberg:

Back to your wariness of Vladimir Putin and Russia. It seems that you are parting ways with the president-elect on this?

Ron Johnson:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We leave it there. Senator Ron Johnson, thank you very much.

Ron Johnson:

Have a good day.

Frederica Freyberg:

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.

Tammy Baldwin:

It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Tammy Baldwin:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what can you tell the more than 230,000 people in Wisconsin that are covered by Obamacare?

Tammy Baldwin:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Tammy Baldwin:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

What’s your response to Speaker Paul Ryan saying he’d like to defund Planned Parenthood again as part of this repeal?

Tammy Baldwin:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Tammy Baldwin:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Tammy Baldwin:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We leave it there.

Tammy Baldwin:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Senator Tammy Baldwin, thanks very much.

Frederica Freyberg:

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.

Pat Roggensack:

If you will please stand and raise your right hand.

Zac Schultz:

The 103rd legislative session started the way they all do, with newly-elected members taking the oath of office.

Legislators:

Do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States.

Zac Schultz:

Republicans returned with even larger majorities in the Assembly and the Senate.

Pat Roggensack:

And the constitution of the state of Wisconsin.

Legislators:

And the constitution of the state of Wisconsin.

Zac Schultz:

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.

Scott Fitzgerald:

I haven’t rolled out kind of a long list of bills that would be part of an agenda.

Zac Schultz:

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.

Robin Vos:

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.

Zac Schultz:

There are certainly big issues on the table, but Speaker Vos doesn’t expect to come to the floor until February.

Robin Vos:

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.

Zac Schultz:

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.

Scott Fitzgerald:

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.

Zac Schultz:

Democrats hope to be part of the debate on these issues, but their biggest fears are the bills that haven’t been discussed.

Peter Barca:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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.

Bill McCoshen, Scot Ross:

Thanks for having us. Happy New Year.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Bill McCoshen:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

Where do you think those offsets will come?

Bill McCoshen:

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 Ross:

Scot, what do you think of the split between Robin Vos and Scott Walker on this issue?

Frederica Freyberg:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think of the offset that we’re talking about?

Scot Ross:

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.

Bill McCoshen:

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 ten 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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Scot Ross:

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.

Bill McCoshen:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, the replace will be a difficult move.

Bill McCoshen:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

On Russia, Vladimir Putin, how willing do you think the American public is to make him our friend now?

Bill McCoshen:

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.

Scot Ross:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

We need to leave it there. Scot Ross, Bill McCoshen. Thanks a lot.

Scot Ross, Bill McCoshen:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

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.

Announcer:

Funding for “Here and Now” is provided, in part, by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.