Here & Now

Rep. Mark Born on Lawmakers Building Wisconsin's 2023 Budget

Frederica Freyberg:

The state budget is now in the hands of the Republican-controlled Legislature. Next, we turn to the co-chair of the powerful budget writing committee, Representative Mark Born. We sat down with him at the state Capitol and started by asking his reaction to the governor’s budget.

Mark Born:

The overall reaction, disappointment. It’s really not a realistic budget, unsustainable, massing spending, tax increases in a variety of areas and variety of ways, growing government, new programs even found a way to work a new agency in. That was kind of a surprise for some of us. So disappointing. Certainly not headed in the right direction. Not one we can really work with. We’re going to work from base again. We’re going to have to start from current law and build from there on a budget that works for the people of Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

What will your spending priorities be?

Mark Born:

I think no surprise to folks both because the people of Wisconsin are who tell us what those priorities should be but also it’s been pretty consistent for several years now there’s some real top priorities we keep building on from education to infrastructure investments to health care. I think there’s maybe one slightly new one this time that’s been getting a lot of discussion and work done on it already to look for ways to fund local governments in a better way or to make more sustainable long-term funding there and that’s certainly one we’re working on. I think maybe hopefully it’s an opportunity for compromise. We’ll see. The governor certainly approached it in some ways we will not. We’re not going to increase taxes in cities across Wisconsin which is part of his plan. That’s not the model but investments of new sustainable funding sources with changes, with reforms, with some accountability, with innovation.

Frederica Freyberg:

As to that common ground around shared revenue and money going back to local governments, as you know, the governor has announced he would like to take 20% of the state’s sales tax and return that to local governments and he credits the Republican Legislature with coming up with that idea. Is that the plan?

Mark Born:

It’s not — the plan, the details are certainly not settled. That’s what I was just referring to. He took some different approaches with some tax increases coupled with that 20% and things like that. We’re not going to do that. We have to make sure it’s focused on innovation, the future, some reforms. Not just the same old, same old at a local level but still, new sustainable funding for the future that can help those local governments provide services they need to provide in our communities. There’ll be some parallels but there’s definitely going to be differences too.

Frederica Freyberg:

I know that in the past Republicans have talked about being in favor of some kind of family leave and that was something that was announced in the governor’s budget address. Are you in favor of that or how might your model be different?

Mark Born:

I think it’s unlikely there would be a brand-new program of that level in a state budget. That’s really something that should run through legislation through the normal committee process, debate, discussion with stakeholders, with communities of interest and certainly the plan he put forward is — it will be removed as policy.

Frederica Freyberg:

You spoke about a priority being K-12 education. He wants to boost spending $2.6 billion. What’s your number?

Mark Born:

Well, our number will be decided over the next few months in the budget deliberations. That’s the way this always works so I certainly not going to have a number today but I know we will invest in education.

Frederica Freyberg:

What’s your reaction to the nearly $300 million toward the Brewers stadium?

Mark Born:

I think like anything that’s new or sizable, the devil’s always in the details. I think we’ve got a lot of work to do to look at that. I think we need to make improvements to the governor’s plan for sure and have a lot of discussions about that but certainly I think folks generally want to work towards keeping the Brewers in Wisconsin and Milwaukee hopefully for a very long time.

Frederica Freyberg:

As to tax cuts, Governor Evers’ budget cuts about $1.5 billion looks at a 10% cut for earners, married earners under $150,000. What’s your reaction to that, first of all?

Mark Born:

The simple reaction is overall tax cuts are good generally speaking but of course, the governor’s budget cuts a few taxes in one spot and then raises as a whole bunch in other areas. It’s really not tax reform. It’s not really tax cuts. It’s more of we’ll do a few nice things here and then do a whole bunch of things that are the wrong direction on tax policy in other areas and you certainly won’t see a Republican budget that’s going to look like that when it comes to tax policy.

Frederica Freyberg:

Will we see a flat tax in the Republican budget?

Mark Born:

I think for a while now we’ve been moving in that direction and I think that’s a great goal. Whether or not we’ll get to a flat tax in this budget I think remains to be seen but I think we’ll continue to do tax reform that moves us in that direction to makes us more competitive in the Midwest with most of our neighboring states having a flat tax.

Frederica Freyberg:

If you can’t come to agreement with where to spend this extraordinary surplus, will you just allow a lot of that to roll over to the next biennium?

Mark Born:

Our budget will invest in priorities both with one-time money, that’s the money in the savings account so to speak as well as our ongoing revenues. So I don’t think you’ll see our budget withholding a lot of money. We’ll certainly save for a rainy day. Our rainy day fund is the strongest it’s ever been. So we may keep a little bit money in the balance or in there but we won’t keep strong surpluses. If the governor’s veto causes that, that’s a different story. That’s his decision then. We’ll send him a budget that is reasonable, invests in priorities, has tax reform to return money to the taxpayers during these inflationary times. If his decisions like last time, some of his line-time vetoes left some money in the state savings account, so to speak, then that will be what happens but that’s not the way we’ll craft the budget.

Frederica Freyberg:

Representative Mark Born. Thank you very much.

Mark Born:

Thank you.