Here & Now

Phil Anderson discusses run for governor, Libertarian Party

Frederica Freyberg:

There's been lots of attention paid to the unprecedented number of Democrats running for governor in Wisconsin, but what of third party candidates? In tonight’s look ahead, we talk with Libertarian candidate for governor, Phil Anderson. Anderson is chair of the Wisconsin Libertarian Party, a former U.S. Army combat medic. He’s a realtor in Fitchburg and he ran for U.S. Senate in 2016. Phil Anderson joins us now. Thanks for being here.

Phil Anderson:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

We’ve asked all the Democrats that we’ve interviewed what sets them apart from each other, but what sets you apart from candidates of either major party?

Phil Anderson:

We have a radically different vision for what government should be. We believe that people have the right to live their lives as they choose, as long as they don’t interfere with other people’s right to live the same way with the same rights. That’s our basic principle. But how that plays out in state government, for example, is we believe government should return to being more local, more accountable and more transparent. So right now both Republicans and Democrats go to Madison to represent their parties and their constituents and they fight over how they’re going to control people’s lives. We want to return that control to people by getting rid of the state income tax and by getting rid of the state mandates that require local municipalities to act in certain ways, to pass certain laws to comply with state government.

Frederica Freyberg:

You have run for elected office before, not garnered very much of the vote. Why do you think your message is resonant?

Phil Anderson:

Well, when we talk to people, we get a really positive response. Basically, the first statement that I made in my last question. People do believe that they have the right to live their lives as they choose to as long as they don’t interfere with other people’s right to do the same thing. For Libertarians though, we’re not a good investment for those entities, for those interests that like to invest in politicians hoping to have influence after the election. Democrats accuse the Walker Administration of that. If there were a Democrat in the governor’s mansion, they’d get the same accusation. But we stand for a radically different view on that. We want to get rid of that influence there. And because of that, we don’t get a lot of campaign contributions from those big out-of-state donors that you hear quite often for Republicans and Democrats. And that manifests itself in how much coverage we get and how much media we can pay for when we’re running for office.

Frederica Freyberg:

Let's move to the issues. What in your mind is the most important thing that Wisconsin needs to do for its education system?

Phil Anderson:

We need to allow local units of government and municipalities to make their own decisions. Right now, there’s way too much control exerted from Washington and from Madison. Government used to be an idea where people would come together from various parts of the state or the country to make decisions, because all of the expertise, the knowledge, the books were all in one place. That’s not the case anymore. People have tremendous access to all kinds of resources, expertise and I believe that people in whatever municipality in Wisconsin, whatever school district in Wisconsin, should have the ability to retain their funds locally, their tax monies not flying off to Madison or D.C., and to make decisions that best fit their communities.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think is the best way to grow good-paying jobs in Wisconsin?

Phil Anderson:

By getting government out of the way. The Foxconn deal is a disaster of disasters for two reasons. Number one, I don’t think it’s productive to pick winners and losers in the economy because people do that every day when they decide where to work, who to hire, how to spend their money. But the other thing is even if you think that’s a good idea, the government should be involved in manipulating the economy, Foxconn is a particularly bad deal. It spends $3 billion plus of taxpayer money and we’re uncovering new expenses every day, local expenses, road building, exceptions from rules, that sort of thing. If we just let Wisconsin grow from within, if we believe that the people of Wisconsin are good at doing business, are good consumers, are good producers, are good employers, then let’s just get government out of the way and let them do that. And that’s how Wisconsin will grow best.

Frederica Freyberg:

How do you think state government should create a sustainable funding source for Wisconsin highways?

Phil Anderson:

Well, it needs to be tied to use, I think. Right now the gas tax is pretty much tied to — supposedly tied, but hasn’t always been tied very well, to roads. But we should make sure that we’re approaching that where we know exactly what the costs are, where the bids are open, where we’re not doing business with only certain road-building companies and where we can have the most bang for our buck in terms of what money we have to spend for roads. If we have devolve that to the more local or county level, let’s do that.

Frederica Freyberg:

If you say tied to use, does that mean something like tolls?

Phil Anderson:

I would be open to tolls. Tolls sound sort of scary. They sound very Illinois, which isn’t very popular in Wisconsin but they do reflect people paying for what they use. Let’s not fool ourselves. If people pay tolls to use the roads, that should be going directly to the roads. If companies, shippers, are paying tolls and that ends up in the consumers’ pockets as well, but that also enables an advantage in terms of price for local goods and services because they’re not paying as much transportation expense. It’s more directly tied to that. So in essence, more local companies that use the transportation system less will have a price advantage because they’re not paying for transportation they’re not using.

Frederica Freyberg:

With less than a half minute left, why do you think you could unseat Scott Walker?

Phil Anderson:

I think that our message resonates and because–you mentioned that we didn’t get a ton of votes last election cycle but we got 90,000. We’re going to build on that and do better and better. As long as we have an opportunity on platforms like this to get our message out, people understand that what we’re trying to do empower them and their communities to make good decisions and we trust them. We don’t need a central government that micromanages every aspect of their lives and the economy.

Frederica Freyberg:

Phil Anderson, thanks very much.

Phil Anderson:

Thank you.