Here & Now

for joining us.

>> Hey, thank you for your time.

I hope you have a good, good weekend.

help us better understand the broader motivations and implications of this deal, we turn to our reporters at Inside Wisconsin Politics Zac Schultz of PBS Wisconsin and Shawn Johnson and Rich Kremer from Wisconsin Public Radio.

>> To me, this is a political Rorschach test.

How you view this particular deal kind of matches your view on politics for some people and for a lot of ordinary people around the state, this was the epitome of a compromise.

And as we're about to run for election, those are things that normally you'd want to see politicians pass.

The other side of that test is political purity.

And there are a lot of people looking at this deal saying, this isn't as good as I would like it to be, and I think we can do better when we have more power next year.

>> We had a very unusual scene kind of play out.

The assembly met after waiting all day to see what the Senate was going to do.

They passed this bill in short order.

The Senate is meeting at the same time, and it's clear that things are not going well there.

And this bill actually fails on a vote of 15 to 18.

And I know people probably think big deal things pass, things fail.

Bills don't actually get to the point of failure hardly ever in the state legislature.

If it doesn't have the votes, it does not come to the floor, especially something as big and dramatic as this.

And for the governor to negotiate this and his Senate Democrats stand unified against it to help kill it with a few Republicans is something we do not see every day.

Zac, what do you think was motivating Senate Democrats here?

>> There's two factors.

I think.

First is they were insulted.

They were left out of the loop.

>> That is huge, actually.

>> That everyone knows they need at least a couple Democratic votes and probably more so.

The fact that they were not consulted did not have any input on this bill, and made it clear from the very first time it was announced that they were unhappy with it, showed the second part of why Senate Democrats were not in line with this comes next fall.

And that's what the reelection there.

They are not quite certain, but very confident that they're going to flip the majority in that chamber and that when they come to power in the next session, they will not only have a say, they will be the deciding factors in how any bills are passed and how budgets are passed, and so they can direct where that money goes.

And if they think they get lucky and there's a Democratic assembly, then they're going to say, all this money will be available for us to spend in ways that we prefer instead of having to compromise.

clear cut case where circumstances matter completely.

You know, if if Tony Evers were running for election in November and he said, this is my big bill, Democrats, this is what I want to run on.

I mean, they would have voted.

They would have voted yes.

No.

Republicans probably wouldn't have brought it up in that case.

So, you know, it's a it's a theoretical exercise.

But but Senate Democrats, I'm confident, would have been with him.

He is not on the ballot, though, this November, as Diane Hesselbein noted, and Senate Democrats are poised to.

They think, take that majority.

She has essentially been a co majority leader on some of the big bills that have come through the Senate this year, from the budget to gambling.

And so to freeze them out of talks like this, which is the way they viewed it, certainly, and to end up with a bill that was pretty Republican in nature, about a billion and a half in tax cuts, was not something that they enjoyed, you know.

>> Well.

And don't forget, there is another factor when it comes to everyone looking at the next budget and the next year.

And that is there's a lot of people who think we may be looking into a recession.

Yeah.

So most of this surplus is a projection of what the economy is going to bring in for tax revenues.

If there's an economic downturn in the next six months, that money disappears all by itself without having been sent out.

So you send it out.

Even though most of this is one time spending, it may not be there next year.

Now, they say even in the worst of circumstances, at least the state will have a little bit money to start the next year with.

So that is a legitimate concern considering where gas prices and grocery prices are right now.

And with no end to a war in Iran, that the economy could shift and go down and these tax revenues may not materialize.

>> Rich, one question I had for you that we kind of traded notes on throughout the night was, will voters actually remember this?

Like, will anybody be rewarded or punished?

>> You know, it's it's a huge question.

You all of what you're saying makes sense to me, someone who's been really following this.

But, you know, I also remember being at a Supreme Court election night event and a fellow at the hotel not knowing there was an election that day.

So there's a part of me I'm always skeptical that this sort of thing will stick in voters mind.

It's different, I guess, if you're getting your door knocked consistently and people are reminding you of that, or if you see a lot of commercials.

But, you know, in the grand scheme of things, a $300, $600 check, that's a big deal.

But, you know, all the political infighting and everything