Frederica Freyberg:

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.