Here & Now

Joint Finance Committee Votes On Medicare Rules, UW Funds

Frederica Freyberg:

The Joint Finance Committee has not yet taken up the portion of the budget that deals with K-12 education and choice. On other items, the legislature’s Republican-controlled budget writing committee late this week did vote to approve Governor Walker’s proposal to make Wisconsin the first state in the nation to require some adults to work and take drug tests to receive Medicaid. The same would hold for some Food Stamp recipients. The committee also acted on UW funding. WPT is part of the UW System. Joint Finance rejected the governor’s tuition cut but voted to freeze tuition again. In all, the Republican budget would increase UW funding by $36 million over two years, most of it tied to performance measures. Majority Republicans call it a major investment. Democrats on the budget committee call it an effective cut by not funding the tuition freeze.

Gordon Hintz:

Our future growth in new businesses, in new start-ups where we know we get the majority of our new jobs is directly tied to the investment that we make in the UW System. It is an economic generator. What is the place that has the highest job growth in Wisconsin over the last five years? It’s in Dane county. Why is that? Because we have a highly educated population.

Dale Kooyenga:

At the end of the day I think you owe us a plan as far as what’s going to give? Are property taxes going to go up? Are income taxes go up? Are we going to cut other things like Medicaid because we cannot afford Medicaid additions plus the $1.1 billion? I mean I think it’s responsible to have both sides of the ledger and the end of the day, here’s where we sit. If we’re sitting with six years consecutively now of frozen tuition.