Rep Steffen on Tax-Free Retirement

and a thank you to my colleagues what a wonderful hour of discussion on very important piece of legislation making the state of Wisconsin a tax-free retirement State incredibly simple to understand incredibly simple to communicate to our constituents and Incredibly helpful to hundreds of thousands of retirees in the state of Wisconsin now it's been mentioned throughout this discussion so I'll just touch on it quickly but the state of Wisconsin is an exporter of wealth 30% of Wisconsin's wealth is retained in individuals over the age of 70 30% in our tax policy drives them to live in other places other than Wisconsin you know one of the things when you're a lead author of a bill you have individuals and organizations from around the state and even around the nation who contact you to kind of let you know about their thoughts and their input and I received one that I won't forget uh a CPA who works here in Wisconson and he told me hey just so you know when when you pass this if this becomes lost I'm going to have to change quite a bit of the way that I talk about retirement uh to senior citizens I said well tell me what that means he said every time I go through this process of individuals who are turning 65 I provide them a list of the 13 states that don't tax retirement and I tell them it is in your best interest to move to one of these 13 states and when you turn turn 80 come back because Wisconsin has a far better Healthcare system for senior citizens can you imagine that CPAs from around the state of Wisconsin who are actively encouraging our retirees to move out of the state of Wisconsin those discussions and antidotes that we're referenced here are are not just that they are fiscal responsible decisions that are being communicated to our seniors the second issue is the loss of that wisdom that volunteerism that exists within all of our communities as a result of our retirees they are the ones who do the after school reading programs those that volunteer at our churches are nonprofits and I don't have to look any further than my own parents who live live in my community active with the Howard swal Historical Society active with the church and they even go to the public roundabouts in my community to trim the shrubs and clean up the trash now that's not something that's required it's something that they do out of the goodness of their heart and it happens those types of volunteerism exist throughout the state of Wisconsin we want to have people engage in their communities in all different ways like that and third is there ever been a better time to provide tax relief to our seniors where grocery bills have increased by over 20% higher fuel higher housing we have been blessed through great fiscal discipline and policy to have an opportunity to do something great and as had been mentioned the silence on the other side of the aisle on this bill has been deafening and I think there may be several reasons one is I just can't imagine sitting across from a senior citizen constituent and say I know that you sometimes are cutting your pills in half I know that there are sometimes when you're thinking should I just turn down the heat a couple couple more degrees and I know you may think that that $1,582 you could get every year is a good idea but boy do I have a brand new government program that you're going to be excited about I just tend to think that that would fall a little flat uh you know maybe it's also because this bill has bipartisan support I'm thankful for that I'm sad to see that one of my uh co-sponsors on the Senate side um Democrat she obviously left to become a Milwaukee judge so I can understand her not being able to continue her support you know Governor iers had mentioned that this is one of the policy items that he was actually very open to and perhaps that's the reason for the silence on the other side of the aisle you know Oscar wild once said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to Greatness Well the lady from the 23rd with the introduction of her bill that is a form of tax-free retirement is such an imitation so the Democrats have proposed a form a tax-free retirement but guess who gets it state government employees state government employees only so if you worked hard save $20 a week for your entire life and worked at the Burger Barn you're not going to benefit you save $40 a week having worked at the quick trip you don't get the benefit $60 a week being an auto worker a steam fitter or an operating engineer you don't get the benefit only state government employees and unlike our proposal which has a cap of 50,000 do you know what the cap is for State retirees $270,000 per retiree now I'm trying to listen to the governor the governor put a limit of 150,000 on it I mean even my first proposal wasn't that that rich so I'm hopeful that that expression of imitation was a sign of awareness intent that this is where we need to go as a state being a tax-free retirement state will benefit hundreds of thousands of our greatest assets here in Wisconsin our senior citizens who are living on a fixed income we have an opportunity to make a big difference in a lot of people's lives at a critical time