Republican Legislative Leadership and JFC Co-Chairs Press Conference Following 2025 Budget Address

Wisconsin I is proud to bring you budget 2025 your source for live and OnDemand coverage of the 2025 to 2027 Wisconsin state budget as a nonpartisan unfiltered platform Wisconsin i g Wisconsin I is proud to bring you budget 2025 your source for live and On Demand coverage of the 2025 to 2027 Wisconsin state budget as a nonpartisan unfiltered platform Wisconsin ey gives you direct access to the decision-making process watch and engage at whs.org this program is made possible with support from Wisconsin laborers District Council nicolay National Bank North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters operating engineers local 139 Wisconsin Realtor Association Wisconsin C's Association and Wisconsin Hospital [Music] Association watch Wisconsin I on Spectrum channels 995 and 363 and at whs.org [Music] okay hello everybody um first of all to the people of Wisconsin who are concerned about the budget that Governor iers just announced have faith most of the stuff that's in the budget the 20% spending increase the billion dollars in taxes all of the wasteful new programs that are being created and regulations on the private sector the increases on business the increases in income taxes all of those things debt on arrival we are not going to let Wisconsin become Tim Walt's Minnesota we saw over the course of the last year as Governor iers continued to campaign for bigger increases in taxes larger increases in spending like our neighbors to Minnesota and we also know the effect that that's had on their economy and the economy of um America we do not want that for us so we are going to go back to the base like we have before we'll talk about that today we're going to talk about some of the specific Provisions that are inside Governor I's budgets they are very familiar in many ways this is kind of like the movie Back to the Future he tried these things for the last uh two four and six years ago in his budgets just like then lots of tax increases lots of spending and I have a belief that my colleagues will reject them just like they did before we know that as families are struggling with Rising prices and Rising costs the last thing that they need is growing government higher taxes and more spending it's not going to happen in Wisconsin and you can have faith that conservatives Republicans in the legislature will make sure we keep our Pro business approach while investing in our priorities and ensuring that Wisconsin is a place that you can still afford to live even if the people who spend most of their time in Madison have a different version of reality so to talk about some of the specifics I'm going to turn it over to senator markline who will talk about the process thank you so we've been here before um as the speaker said um we've seen this movie before for um the state is in good Financial condition right now and that's because of the sound budgeting that we've done as Republicans over the last better than a decade now this budget included as the speaker said all kinds of policy uh and that policy is going to get removed from the bud budget probably in the first action that we take in our our first meeting um we're going back to base like we have for the last uh several budgets we're going to build a budget that's uh that's uh Fair that's uh sustainable uh into the future and doesn't uh impact our businesses and our families adversely so um it also want to caution um some people that the the Surplus that we have is largely one-time money okay and so we're going to be cautious as we build a budget not uh spending a lot of ongoing programs on that's based on a one-time Surplus so um again we look forward to to the the process um and um I will turn it over to representative herd thank you Wisconsin Republicans are listening to wisconsinites all the way from Superior to Kenosha and every place in between so this next step of the budget we will be going throughout the state as a committee and listening in public hearings as well as all kinds of our Representatives having individual listening sessions talking to to all stakeholders and then as we do our public hearings every wisconsinite should know they will have a chance to be heard to tell us what they want to do and how they want us to spend the money thank you the next person I'll be speaking is Senator teston well thank you representative herd and proud to be here with my legislative colleagues I guess my initial reactions are uh based on the governor's budget address is that he's a former educator and apparently uh mathematics was not his strong suit because if you take a look at what the governor has proposed the state is going to be facing a multi-billion dollar deficit going in the next bium and as legislative Republicans have shown previously in our last budget that we can make key investments in our infrastructure our schools we also provide in tax relief which I want to remind folks that under governor iers in the last budget vetoed nearly 95% of the tax cuts that we approved so we are going to continue to pass a responsible budget that balances that provides significant relief to our taxpayers here in the state but more importantly we are going to pass a budget that ensures that uh Wisconsin does not become the next Minnesota and so I look forward to work with my colleagues over the course of the next several months to provide significant relief to Wisconsin and ensure that we keep moving on the right track and so with that I'd like to turn over to uh the co-chair represent Mark Bourne all right thank you Senator uh I guess as the speaker started out saying we're in a familiar spot um I think the someone else said we've seen this movie before that might have been Senator markline um so we know that this is another executive budget that's bloated Reckless spending um just finding ways to grow government making up all sorts of new agencies or sub agencies or offices again tonight so we know we have to toss it to the side and and as my colleague Senator Mark line said start from base uh we also know from our past experience one of the ways that we sought to bring responsible budgeting to this to uh the state budget was to make government smaller and less intrusive in our lives we chipped away at agency budgets and uh reduced employees in the last budget we reduced the governor's uh wish list of new employees by 800 and then we also cut another 800 from the base we heard loud and clear in this last election from voters both in Wisconsin and nationally that they've had enough um they know government is too big too wasteful and they're tired of the abuse and overreach and so we are going to increase our efforts in this budget to look for more opportunities to cut both spending and positions um some of that will be led in the assembly by our government oversight accountability and transparency committee but it'll also you'll see those efforts increasing on our legislative joint committees such as audit and finance we will work to reduce the size of government and support ways for families and businesses to thrive without the heavy hand of government with that I'll turn it over to the Senate Majority Leader to uh talk about returning funds to the taxpayers and to wrap things up good evening everybody it's great to be here tonight um as almost every other speaker referenced uh we we've been here before we've seen this play before um speaker said that it's Back to the Future it's more like Groundhog Day um same thing happening every budget session um so a little recap of what happened last session the governor started with a over $7 billion Surplus and turned that into a $3 billion deficit with this budget we fixed it and we in the process we tried to cut taxes by $4 billion the reason we have a $4.3 billion Surplus right now is the because the governor refused to give broad-based tax relief to the hardworking families of Wisconsin what we saw with the Trump campaign and and voter frustration all around the state of Wisconsin is they're having a hard time paying for their gas for their eggs for their groceries for their rent for everything and you know the governor had a few sort of gimmicky tax cuts here and there that he referenced um frankly his speech was uh devoid of a lot of specifics of what he actually wants to do but a lot of gimmicky tax cuts what we're going to do is do provide broad-based tax cuts to all taxpayers in Wisconsin and that's what we're going to do before we send a budget to him but as as the other speaker's reference will as we have done in the past will take his um irresponsible budget turn it into a responsible budget that invests in education that invests in healthare but doesn't overspend and grow the size of government so that uh we open it up to questions what do you think of the governor's request to keep 500 million in the bank to respond to president Trump's decision um guess I'm standing here I guess I'll take this question um I think the more worrisome thing is with an irresponsible Supreme Court we don't know what's going to happen and which is going to make this budget process very tough when we're waiting for Supreme Court decisions to come down the pipe um I'm sure that uh what they're doing in in Washington they're rooting out waste and fraud which is a great thing um so uh which is something the assembly is trying to do with their go committee something we've tried to do with the joint audit committee and something we'll continue to do to uh make sure that Wisconsin government is spending money as wisely as possible I mean it seems like spefic on the broad based tax cuts are we talking rebay checks or c the tax braacket what what kind of Rob tax C all tax cuts are good um but I think as our caucuses have looked at it we want something I think Devon was exactly right there's a lot of gimmicks that were in the governor's budget we would like to focus on ones that have broad-based appeal and are going to apply to lots of people in Wisconsin not just people who do a small thing or make a small decision uh to do something different so I think you're going to see the bills that we announce uh in the coming weeks will'll be much more broad-based much more focused on getting money back to families to deal with the r in costs and and inflation and prices uh than what governor I has [Music] proposed that mean cuts for each TX bracket all those potentials are on the table the first thing we have to do is you know it's kind of normally what governor iers will do is they give us the budget and brief so they have the opportunity to see if there are things in the budget that we can support for whatever reason in the hyperargininemia understanding of how the budget all adds together so the first thing we want to do is to say okay are there some broad-based tax cuts in the governor's plan that we could potentially incorporate into our own ideas uh I'm I'm doubtful but if there are some I think that'd be a great place for us to start it it seems like the governor said tonight that these tax these increases in spending are needed because of President Trump and Elon Musk well you know what's interesting is 20% increase in spending I think last budget when Joe Biden was in it was a 17 or 18% increase in spending so it's pretty similar to what he's done before I think Governor iers is a typical Democrat politician hiding all the bad things you notice he didn't talk about the tax increases that are in his budget he didn't talk about um you know all the things that would probably be not as powerful one of the colleagues here mentioned the fact that he barely mentioned crime he barely mentioned the corrections plan that he brought that he leaked out early so I don't know why that was I think that if you consider where he's coming from he sounded just like a hyperarc governor that could have been in any state in wi in America right the sad part is America voted Wisconsin voted for Donald Trump and his agenda to cut spending and find inefficiency in government giving a 20% increase to the bureaucracy is the exact opposite of what people voted for four or five months ago what are the thoughts of his concept of incentivizing local governments if they free property taxes in lie of course what the share Revenue deal as many local communities are still kind of struggling to budget right now well you know last session we had our Innovation budget or our Innovation fund um it's taken the department of Revenue almost 2 years to write the rules so that we could get that money out the door to try to help incentivize consolidation and cooperation so I don't have a lot of faith in a bureaucracy that's barely at work not able to get rules done two years after a budget passed to somehow say they're going to work on freezing property taxes it sounds to me like they're going to raise taxes on some to lower taxes on others and our goal is to lower taxes for everybody and raise taxes on no one Senator Mark you mentioned that this Surplus is a lot of one one time money and that's one of the reasons why Republicans don't want to increase spending but if you cut taxes that's also forever so why is it okay to cut taxes with one time money but not to increase spending whatever tax proposal that we're going to advance is going to be um prudent uh we're not going to uh create a structural deficit in the in the future um our um our tax Cut's going to be affordable you know so I'm confident we can do um we can do a tax cut that's uh that's reasonable significant broad-based and uh you know it's not going to create any issues in the future all right thank you everybody you have been watching a production of Wisconsin ey your unfiltered window into legislative deliberations and public policy programming where our mission is to provide wisconsinites an opportunity to access the legislative process and connect with conversations that inform our citizenry please consider supporting our mission 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