Announcer:

The following program is part of our Here and Now 2014 Wisconsin Vote election coverage.

Older Woman:

My largest concern is the cost of college.

Man:

What can we do to improve the economy in this state?

Frederica Freyberg:

With just 18 days to election day, across Wisconsin voters are speaking their minds on the issues.

Woman:

How do you plan to address the issue of healthcare?

Young Woman:

What would you do to keep your college graduates in Wisconsin and keep them getting jobs here?

Young Man:

What is your stance on the Common Core Curriculum as it stands in Wisconsin?

Frederica Freyberg:

The front-running candidates are crisscrossing the state, incumbent Scott Walker running hard on his platform of tax cuts and job growth, Democratic challenger Mary Burke spreading her message of jobs and economic recovery to voters. Tonight, the issues in the governor's race go under the spotlight in our “Here and Now” Wisconsin Vote Candidate Special, a voters guide, with election day coming up fast.

Welcome to “Here and Now,” a Wisconsin Vote Candidate special. I’m Frederica Freyberg.

Glen Moberg:

I’m Glen Moberg, Wisconsin Public Radio's Wausau News Bureau chief. Tonight an up-close look at the issues and the front-running candidates for governor.

Frederica Freyberg:

Back in February, we invited the candidates who met our candidate inclusion criteria to join us for a debate on this night. You can find those criteria posted at wisconsinvote.org. The campaigns for Governor Scott Walker and Mary Burke acknowledged our invitation, marked their calendars, but told us they would wait until after the Augustprimary to confirm their participation.

Glen Moberg:

A few weeks ago, Democratic candidate, Mary Burke, accepted our invitation. Incumbent Republican governor, Scott Walker, declined.

Frederica Freyberg:

So as is our longstanding practice, we move ahead to give you, our audience, access to the candidate who accepted. Therefore, former Trek Bicycle’s executive, state commerce secretary and current Madison School Board member, Mary Burke, joins us now. And we welcome you.

Mary Burke:

Well, thanks, Frederica and Glen. It’s great to be with you, and great to be with your audience to be able to talk about the really important issues that are facing Wisconsin in this 2014 election.

Frederica Freyberg:

Before we get going in earnest, I wanted to just get your quick response to yesterday’s Marquette Law School poll, which puts you in a dead heat among likely voters with Scott Walker.

Mary Burke:

Yeah, well, it was good news, but it’s pretty much what I expected, and I know that this race is going to be a really, really tight one. It’s going to come right down to November4.

Glen Moberg:

Mary Burke, we look forward to hearing more from you on the issues during the next half hour, but we’ll also be hearing on tape from the incumbent, Scott Walker, including what he recently said about jobs in Wisconsin.

Scott Walker:

Look at the most recent numbers. Year-over-year, Julyof last year to Julyof this year, if you look at the federal numbers, the Federal Bureau of Labor statistics, BLS numbers, you know what we ranked? Third in the Midwest for private sector job growth.

Frederica Freyberg:

And some new numbers came out just today again. But it seems to me that voters must be confused by all this kind of dueling rankings. Because you continue to say that Wisconsin is dead last in the Midwest in private sector job growth. A Wisconsin PolitiFact, though, rated that as false. So why do you stand by that claim?

Mary Burke:

Well, because if you do take the time that Governor Walker has been in office, using the most accurate statistics, which is what they call the QCEW, and take the entire time that he’s been in office, ten Midwestern states and we’re dead last. And so what they had said was looking at a very different slice of time. And I think what the voters want to know and what we want to present, what I want to talk about, is the entire time he has been in office. But there are other ways to look at it that I think also present a picture of, we need to do better. I know that we can do better. And the job numbers out today, while if you look at them on a year-to-date basis, so Januarythrough September, and you compare 2014 to 2013 and ’12 and ’11, the fact is 2014 is the worst year of the last five. And so things are not getting any better. So whether you take the entire time that Governor Walker has been in office or you take year-to-year numbers based on the job numbers, that source that was released today with updated numbers, we’re not doing well. And we’re nowhere close to the 250,000 jobs that Governor Walker promised us. Now, I got into this race because I know Wisconsin has incredible potential, and we should be first in the Midwest. That’s what we should be setting as our goal here. And it is going to take doing things differently. And that’s why I have outlined in my jobs plan, Invest for Success, the core strategies on how we can do that.

Glen Moberg:

The governor says he doesn’t think the minimum wage serves a purpose. He said that in an interview this week. And then clarified it quickly, saying that what he really wants is to train people to make two, three, four times that. What’s wrong with that explanation?

Mary Burke:

Well, I’d say, first of all, and I’ll just clarify right at the start, I am very much in favor of raising the minimum wage because when people make $7.25 an hour– And I understand Governor Walker doesn’t even feel maybe the need to have that, but even at $7.25 an hour, people can’t support themselves without government assistance. You have people working full-time, living in poverty. Now, I have talked to business people, and when I talk to them, both those with small businesses and large businesses, they support increasing the minimum wage. They know that that money goes right back into our economies.

Glen Moberg:

But the governor has said he doesn’t want to repeal the minimum wage.

Mary Burke:

Well,–

Glen Moberg:

He said he didn’t think that he even believed that was something that was necessary.

Mary Burke:

Well, the thing is to say that everyone who’s making the minimum wage that are in retail jobs or home healthcare jobs, those are some of the big areas, that somehow you can transfer all of those jobs, hundreds of thousands of jobs, to be welding jobs or higher-paying jobs isn’t realistic. You know, we need to have retail jobs or those sorts of jobs. So that’s why raising the minimum wage is so important, because there are not going to be enough of the higher-paying jobs to be able to put all of those people to work. So the reality is very different. I don’t know what Governor Walker is thinking when he thinks that everyone earning minimum wage can somehow fill jobs in other fields, because that’s not the reality.

Frederica Freyberg:

What about the argument that raising the minimum wage would hurt employers and then they would therefore hire fewer people and you would actually hurt the economy, not help it?

Mary Burke:

Well, the fact is, especially if you do it over a three-year period of time, so three steps, is that a lot of employers actually find that their work force gets better and that they have less turnover, which costs them less money. The fact is right now we are subsidizing low-wage jobs because people do need government assistance to work at those. So it is costing us more. This is really common sense. It’s a win/win. It’s a win for our economy and it’s a win in that people are able to support themselves. And it’s a win because government budgets for public assistance, federal or state, should be able to go down as people earn more money.

Glen Moberg:

What’s your position on drug testing people on public assistance, unemployment compensation and food stamps? The governor says that’s part of his jobs plan, and he said it’s a compassionate part of it.

Mary Burke:

Well, I don’t think that it creates jobs. I mean, the governor also is on record as saying he doesn’t think we have a jobs problem, which I disagree with him as well. Now, if we have people who are on public assistance and there is fraud under those programs, then we should address that issue. I don’t want to have fraud within our public assistance programs. But I don’t think that is the way to do it. This is a program that could cost millions of dollars to implement, and actually the research or experience of other states in doing this show that it actually doesn’t even catch instances of this. So I think this is– I don’t see what purpose it serves at all. What we have to do is we need more jobs. And I think Governor Walker is just trying to distract from the really poor economy that we have under his leadership, distract from his jobs record, distract from the fact that he’s nowhere near the 250,000 jobs that he promised. And putting it and saying the issue is somehow someone else isn’t the reality.

Frederica Freyberg:

What about cutting taxes again toward growing more jobs?

Mary Burke:

Well, I’m a business person, and frankly giving tax breaks to those at the top and special interests, it doesn’t create jobs. We’re in the type of economy where it’s about people starting businesses, small businesses being able to grow, making sure that people have the skills, the education so that Wisconsin is competing for the jobs, not only of today, but of the future. And that’s really what creates jobs. And that’s one of the reasons that Wisconsin’s economy is lagging. Governor Walker thinks you give tax breaks to those at the top and special interests and it creates jobs, and that’s why we’re dead last in the Midwest.

Glen Moberg:

Let’s talk about one issue that's really important to people in northern Wisconsin, the possibility of an iron ore mine and the jobs it would create. But you say you’d be open to that under the right circumstances?

Mary Burke:

Yes.

Glen Moberg:

But you also said you would have vetoed the legislation that streamlined mining regulations that the company says that was the only way that they would locate the mine there. Aren’t you trying to have it both ways?

Mary Burke:

Not at all. I mean, the fact is, first we should focus on what’s most important here. And what’s most important is we do have an unemployment problem. We have a jobs problem in the northern part of the state. And we have seen a loss of jobs over a longer period of time, 2000 to 2012, lost over 5% of the jobs in northern Wisconsin. That’s unacceptable. But the fact is, how do you actually increase jobs, not just in that area, not just in mining, but in the northern part of the state as a whole? And so back to the mining. I will answer that question first before going on to the greater jobs issue in northern Wisconsin.

Glen Moberg:

Please, if you could move it along, because we’re almost done with this segment.

Mary Burke:

Oh, sure. There was bipartisan legislation on the table. Senator Jauch, Senator Cullen and Schultz had put together legislation that would have addressed the issues that the company had laid out but still protected our air and our water.

Frederica Freyberg:

We wanted to move it along to our next segment now, Glen.

Glen Moberg:

Let’s switch gears. And we will move into another issue area, education. A reminder that we asked Republican incumbent Governor Scott Walker to join us tonight. He declined. We did catch up with him on the campaign trail though, and this is what Governor Walker said about how Act 10 in his view has helped to improve Wisconsin schools.

Scott Walker:

We put in place major education reforms in the state that have turned our schools around. In fact, if you look at the last four years, graduation rates have gone up every year, 3rd grade reading scores are up, ACT scores have gone up. In fact, we’re the second best ACT scores in the country. Why? Because we put the power back in the hands of the taxpayers and the people they elect to run their schools.

Glen Moberg:

Being a school board member yourself, would you describe the reforms that Scott Walker put in place as having turned our schools around?

Mary Burke:

No. They have nothing to do– And Governor Walker is cherrypicking a couple of metrics. If you look at the entirety of how we’re doing in education, you know, the fact is Wisconsin has had strong public education for a very, very long time, including very high ACT scores. So to say that somehow what he has done has somehow caused education to improve, the fact is education around the state, our schools throughout the state, are facing some of the greatest challenges. That’s caused by areas of having higher and higher levels of poverty. We have seen throughout Wisconsin — This isn’t just an urban issue. It’s school districts in rural areas are facing it, where we have seen the percentage of low-income students rise from 32% to 42%. It puts greater stresses and challenges on our education system. And the fact is Governor Walker made historic cuts to our public education, the largest in the country on a per-pupil basis in his first budget and now it continues. In this school year, right now, nearly 200 school districts in the state saw their state aid cut. And so they have had to deal with ongoing cuts to education. And it will continue to show up actually negatively in our test scores in the future. This is not the path that we should be on in Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

Speaking of urban schools and poverty, Scott Walker says that Madison schools’ black graduation rate is worse now than Milwaukee’s, and he says that it’s the only public school system not using the tools of Act 10. So he kind of equates those two things. How do you respond to that? And how would collective bargaining help graduation rates?

Mary Burke:

Well, that is actually why I serve on school board in Madison and ran two years ago, because the results that we see are unacceptable. We do, among African-American students, have too low of graduation rates. That's why I actually created– six year ago co-founded an educations initiative, a partnership between the Boys and Girls Club and the public schools in order to address this very serious issue. And we are starting to see results. We have seen improvements in reading scores as well, and we have a new superintendent that is taking on these issues. But in terms of the Madison School District, I know the governor likes to say, oh, we somehow haven’t used the tools. The fact is the Madison School District is one of only 13% of school districts among– around the state that actually levies less taxes, spends less money than is allowable under state law. Our debt level is half on a per student basis of the statewide average. So we have been fiscally responsible, but we are focused on how we are going to improve student learning and get those graduation rates up. But what Governor Walker has done– We have to go back to the record he has, is that we are having more and more challenges throughout the state in terms of being able to improve student learning. And these ongoing cuts to education are just going to make it more and more difficult to make sure that we have great public education. And his statewide expansion of this voucher program could drain hundreds of millions of dollars from neighborhood schools.

Glen Moberg:

Let me ask a question about that. You said school vouchers are okay for Milwaukee and Racine. Am I misquoting you there?

Mary Burke:

No, that's–.

Glen Moberg:

But you don’t want the statewide expansion.

Mary Burke:

Yeah.

Glen Moberg:

Why not treat the whole state the same? I mean, if vouchers, as some have said, are a threat to our public schools, shouldn’t we eliminate them in Milwaukee and Racine as well?

Mary Burke:

Well, the fact is the program in Milwaukee for over 20 years and there's 30,000 students in the program. I want to put aside the battles in Milwaukee that have consumed people for 20 years around vouchers and charters and public schools, and say, hey, let's focus on what’s going to work. How are we going to improve student learning? The problem is is under the voucher program in Milwaukee overall student learning is no better in the voucher schools than it is in the Milwaukee public schools. And frankly they’re both unacceptably low. So we have to focus on what works. Now, in terms of the statewide expansion, Governor Walker wants to take a program that has no research that shows that it improves student learning. And meanwhile the Department of Public Instruction has estimated that this program statewide without income caps could cost the state $1.2 billion a year. Now, unless Governor Walker plans on raising taxes to pay for that, my guess is that’s going to come out of our neighborhood schools. And that’s why I don’t support it. Because the only way that you can pay for this is it will come out of our neighborhood schools. And that threatens public education for 900,000 school students across the state.

Frederica Freyberg:

I want to get to our next question. It’s on higher education. Would you continue the tuition freezes at the UW as a way to help reduce costs for students and families?

Mary Burke:

I want to reduce the cost of higher education. I would look at the tuition freeze. But I am concerned that unless it’s coupled with an increase in state aid to our UW system, we could be strangling our UW system. These are the economic engines in our communities throughout the state. It is short-term, shortsighted to just say, a tuition freeze and that’s fine. The fact is that could result in programs being cut and less students being served, high-need area, where we need certain types of technical skills, whether it’s engineering or business skills, that if we’re cutting those programs, that’s not serving the people of Wisconsin. So to– I want to look at it overall and say, do the universities have the resources where they can withstand another two-year tuition freeze? Absolutely, then I would support it. But I know that there’s schools that don’t have any reserves. And so I wonder what will impact them if you have that. Now, what I want to do is I want to reduce the cost of higher education for middle and working-class families, because too many people are being priced out of higher education. But right now under Governor Walker we have 41,000 people on the wait list for financial aid at our technical colleges and universities. So what I want to do is increase the amount of financial aid so that higher education is better affordable for middle and working-class families.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Thank you. We move now from education to health care. A reminder that we asked Republican incumbent Scott Walker to join us tonight. He declined. But in covering this race, we caught up with him in Hudson, where he told the crowd what he thinks about the Affordable Care Act.

Scott Walker:

We’re going to fight to repeal Obamacare to put you back in charge of your healthcare decisions as patients.

Glen Moberg:

The governor says if reelected he will work with like-minded governors, and there are a lot of them across the United States, to repeal the Affordable Care Act. What do you think of that act? Do you think it’s been beneficial? Or do you think it’s hurt the people of Wisconsin?

Mary Burke:

Well, there are certain issues I have with it. Certainly the roll-out of it we can all, I think, agree was not well done.

Glen Moberg:

But now that it’s been rolled out.

Mary Burke:

Well, I also have concerns about its impact on small businesses. I’m also concerned about individuals who were told that they could keep their own plans and now can’t. But what I want to be focused on as governor is how we reduce the cost of healthcare for people throughout the state of Wisconsin. And the fact is the additional federal funding that was available, that is available to Wisconsin that Governor Walker turned down, is turning away billions of dollars of federal funding that would come into Wisconsin that would actually reduce the cost of healthcare across the board. Now, when people don’t have health insurance and we’re not accepting that additional federal funding, people still get sick. The problem is we’re just not getting any money to pay for it, which actually increases the cost of healthcare for everyone else. So I’m going to be focused as governor on how we reduce the cost of healthcare. And frankly, Governor Walker’s decision was fiscally irresponsible. The majority of governors took this additional federal funding, including eight other Republican governors who took that money, and his friend, Chris Christie. So in the business world, frankly, if CEOs made this type of decision, they’d be fired.

Frederica Freyberg:

If you were governor and then you decided to go ahead and take that expanded federal funding for expanded Medicaid, what would that do to kind of the rest of the state budget that you would then be grappling with?

Mary Burke:

It would help the state budget. We know that in this state budget alone that the impact is $206 million. So actually Wisconsin taxpayers are paying $206 million because of Governor Walker’s decision to not accept this federal funding. So it will help balance the budget. Unfortunately, Governor Walker has gotten us into a position of a $1.8 billion projected shortfall in that next budget. So it’s more important than ever that we accept this federal funding and make the fiscally responsible decision.

Glen Moberg:

The governor says he rejected that money because he doesn’t trust the federal government. With a $17 trillion debt, he says it might not make its payments in the future. What’s wrong with that argument?

Mary Burke:

First of all, I think the federal government has made its payments. And if you look at the Medicaid system, it has lived up to its obligations. It hasn’t changed that in decades. And so I don’t know where Governor Walker is getting this. It’s a scare tactic. And frankly, it is fiscally irresponsible. And he’s trying to justify a really bad decision.

Frederica Freyberg:

We move now to the topic of abortion and limits to the procedure in Wisconsin. Governor Walker said this week that he doesn’t think this is an issue that matters very much to voters in Wisconsin. What do you think?

Mary Burke:

Well, I think it matters to women to know if they’re able to make their own healthcare choices. And the fact is Governor Walker put in place numerous pieces of legislation that stand in the way of women being able to make their own healthcare decisions. And whether it is with regards to abortion, whether it’s with regards to closing down clinics, many of them in rural parts of the state, that provided important things like cancer screenings, family planning, birth control. Decision after decision, Governor Walker has stood in the way of women being able to make their own decisions.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you feel as though this issue has kind of come front and center in this campaign because of your support from Emily’s List?

Mary Burke:

I don’t think that that has anything to do with it. I think it’s an issue that women do care about because it’s Madison politicians and Governor Walker that feel that somehow they can decide for women what decisions they should be making. And it didn’t stop with just healthcare decisions. Governor Walker repealed the Equal Pay Protection Act, which made sure that companies that were discriminating against women, paying them less for equal work, faced actually no real consequences for that discrimination.

Glen Moberg:

The president is expected to sign an executive order calling for National Guard troops in Liberia to build ebola treatment centers. This is a public health issue. As governor you would be commander-in-chief of our National Guard. Does it bother you or would you support the president’s use of the guard in that way?

Mary Burke:

I have real concerns about it, and I am concerned because we have not seen that the issues around ebola here in the United States have been well-handled. And so I would only want to support that if I knew that our National Guard troops were safe and protected, and that they were serving a purpose that was really important to the United States.

Frederica Freyberg:

What’s your confidence level of Wisconsin’s ability to deal with any kind of ebola in this state?

Mary Burke:

Well, we have the best hospitals here, we have the best people, but of course I am concerned that the procedures are in place and that our hospital personnel are trained to be able to identify the disease and act accordingly. This is a real threat, and we have seen in Dallas what has happened. Even when you have a good health care system, that perhaps the proper procedures and processes were not followed, that the CDC actually wasn’t supporting it in a way in terms of training that was most effective. And so we need to get on top of this, not only as a state, but as a federal government.

Glen Moberg:

Mary Burke, we are completely out of time. Thanks so much for being with us today.

That is our Candidate Election Special for tonight. Thanks to Mary Burke for joining us. You can find out more information about all of the candidates on the ballot for the governor’s race by going to wisconsinvote.org. Once you’re there, you can access previous interviews that those gubernatorial candidates have given both “Here and Now” and Wisconsin Public Radio. I’m Glen Moberg.

Frederica Freyberg:

And I’m Frederica Freyberg. Stay tuned for more “Here and Now” election coverage in the next half hour. Join us tomorrow night at 7:00 for the next Wisconsin Broadcasters Association debate with Mary Burke and Scott Walker. Stay with us after that debate for live analysis on “Here and Now” at 8:00. Have a good night.