Frederica Freyberg: The Minority party released its vision for State budget priorities this week.Democrat Peter Barca is Minority Leader of the Assembly.He joins us now from Milwaukee, and thanks very much for doing so.
Peter Barca: Good to be with you, Frederica.
Frederica Freyberg: Where do you think you could realistically get any traction from the Majority on any of your proposals?
Peter Barca: Well, I think we start with where we have traction with people of Wisconsin.Obviously, the Governor’s budget has not been well received in many communities across the state.Obviously, the University has a cut of $300 million that amount to an average of 13% in each University, has been widely criticized by everybody from businesses to academia to students who recognize that Wisconsin has always had a first class University system, one of the best in the country, if not one of the best in the world.
His decision to bond the entire$1.3 billion in transportation has road builders, construction companies, construction workers all completely opposed to that element of his budget.And just the fact that people can see that this is not an opportunity budget.It cuts the public schools once again, after he took $1.6 billion out of the schools, and then puts millions more into private, unaccountable voucher schools.It’s just not a pathway for prosperity for Wisconsin.It will not help workers to obtain more jobs or to get a raise and improve their personal income.It’s going to take Wisconsin backwards.It may help him presidentially as he goes to Iowa and New Hampshire, and other parts of the country as being the most far right wing governor but it certainly will not help our economy.
Frederica Freyberg: We’ve just spoken with Speaker Robin Vos.He suggests if the tax revenues look right, you know, later in the spring, they would like to put more money back into UW, K-12 and roads.So is that something that you consider working with the majority on?
Peter Barca: Well, clearly, I’m pleased to hear the Speaker say that.The Governor suggested that as opposed to the $5 a year in property tax cuts that he is providing that would be his priority, to maybe go to$10 a year as opposed to helping education.I mean, you know you have so many governors, even Republican governors, that claim to be education governors. This governor will never claim that. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. But, you know, this is a self-inflicted wound.
It’s important to recognize we’re in times of relative prosperity. As the President said in the State of the Union, we have job numbers that are up the best since pre-Recession. You have unemployment’s down. The stock market’s up. And that’s why states like Minnesota have $1 billion surplus. Iowa, $1 billion surplus in reserves. Indiana, $2 billion surplus in reserves.But in this state we have a staggering close to $2 billion structural deficit because of bad policy choices the Republicans have made. This continues us down that path, unfortunately.
Frederica Freyberg: Speaking of the Governor and the UW, he did say that he believes that this $300 million cut over two years, he describes it as a tiny fraction of the System’s total operating budget, and we hear the Chancellor sounding the alarm.What is your sense as to whether or not the University could withstand that, even with the flexibilities?
Peter Barca: I think it will harm this University system for a decade and maybe a generation.He misleads the people when he says it’s a tiny fraction of their total budget.Which may be the case, but in terms of the impact being13% of GPR, the problem is they can't make it up anywhere else.With the freeze in tuition, with their spending down their reserves.Private sector money they bring in, the money they bring in from research grants, many of that is locked in for five and ten years.They can’t go back and say we’d like to double that.So this is a huge cut by any measure and he should quit misleading people into thinking somehow the University has some pot of money that they can go back to research grants and other sources because that’s just not the case.
Frederica Freyberg: We need to leave it there. Representative Peter Barca, thanks very much for joining us.
Peter Barca: Great to be with you, Frederica.
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