Doyle-Free Wisconsin
 In a recent interview with the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, Republicans Scott Walker and Mark Neumann shared their vision for a Doyle-free Wisconsin. Both men recently announced their intention to seek the Republican nomination for Governor in 2010.
Following are excerpts from the interview. You can read the full transcript on our website, or listen to the podcast here.
1. Wisconsin’s Budget Deficit
MODERATOR: Okay. It's July 2009. One of you two is the governor of the State of Wisconsin and you're faced with a $6.6 billion deficit. What do you do? How do you get out of a hole like that, Mark, without – given the fact that most of the state budget is eaten up with shared revenue payments, UW payments, things like that, what do you do with a deficit like that, how would you close that gap?
NEUMANN: What we did in our companies is we went in to our managers, our company, our partners and owners with us in these businesses, and we said we’re not going to be in business unless we bring our operations costs down to a certain level, and we told them what that level was. We knew where we had to be in order to survive and then we let our department leaders, our partners in business, figure out how to get their own operation to that level.
The first thing as governor, I wouldn't have this $5 billion or $6 billion shortfall that he has today, because we need to realize that what he did is he proposed spending increases, roughly in the amount of his short bonus, a little bit less than we're seeing now. If I were coming into this recession I would not have proposed a budget, I would have froze spending at last year's level and most of the deficit would already be gone.
WALKER: Well, in our case, what we've done in the past in arguably the toughest circumstances in the state, and that is control spending. That's what I think the public is crying out for. It's something that just about everybody other than a handful of politicians in Madison get. That's why we finished out 2008 at the county level with a several million dollar surplus, because we controlled spending even when the economy took a dive last fall. We're just not hearing at least many voices, not those in the majority, certainly not those out of the governor's office, talking about controlling spending when everybody else - I mean I don't think there's any of us who don't know of a family member, a friend, a neighbor who at their business or in their own households isn’t controlling spending. And the fact that you've got anywhere from 7.7 to 10 percent, depending on how you measure, overall in growth of state spending, it's just unheard of. And I think that's the first and foremost priority.
2. Cutting Spending
MODERATOR: You've got maybe 80 percent of the state budget falling into five categories: shared revenue with local communities, the public school funding, UW system funding, corrections and medical assistance – much of medical assistance comes from the feds. Where are you guys going to cut to eliminate the deficit, which programs?
WALKER: Well, in terms of controlling spending, it's a combination of things. I think certainly you do it with State employees, but you apply that same standards to those governments at the local level, be it municipalities, counties, or school districts that receive significant state funding.
But I also think you’ve got to apply a similar standard to municipal, county and other levels of government at the local level if you're going to get a handle on it. And again, now is the time. I know of employers all across the state where people are willing to give up increases, they’re willing to make changes in their wage and benefit structure in order to guarantee jobs, and that's what it's all about. It's about protecting jobs. And why is it when everybody else is doing it to protect jobs in the private sector we shouldn't expect that out of the public sector?
NEUMANN: I'm going to respond, and this comes from past experience in government as well as private sector experience in business. It does not go – it does not work for a leader to come in and say, "I'm going to cut here and I’m going to cut here and I’m going to cut here.” Doesn’t work. We’ve found in Washington and we will find again in the state government that if you really want to control spending what you've got to do is start at the top and say we're going to spend this much money and that's all.
3. Taxes
MODERATOR: What about taxes? Are either of you prepared to say, "Read my lips, no new taxes”?
NEUMANN: Yes.
WALKER: Absolutely. I mean I've done it for seven years. I'll do it for eight more, or four more first, and then eight more after that if I'm your governor.
4. Local Cost Controls
MODERATOR: Let me ask you a related question. Would you be in favor of granting cities and counties more power to set their own taxes to run local governments and hence have less state aid going to them?
WALKER: No. Because to me – ultimately the reason why I've been so adamant as the county executive and holding the line on taxes is not because I want my level of government and other levels of government to have the taxing authority. It's been because I've seen too many people, too many young families, too many employers, too many seniors, being forced to move out, in this case out of my county. I see the same thing at the state level. And to me, no matter whether it's the town government, the city government, the school district, the county, whoever it might be, if our overall tax burden goes up too high and that's driving - as Mark was just talking about before - if that's driving more people and jobs out of the state, that goes completely at odds with where I think the majority of people in the state, certainly where I want to be, and that is a state where I want more people to want to live here, more jobs to come here, more people that choose to retire here. And part of the way, it’s not the only way, but certainly one of the biggest ways government can help do that is remove the barrier of high taxation.
NEUMANN: Well, let me start by saying that I'm not sure that I'm smart enough to tell our local people how to run their own governments in their own backyards. So I would – I've been to these boards, lots of these boards. My faith in this nation and in this state stems from the people. And the people at the local level, these are smart people on these boards. They know what they're doing, they've been around. They understand the issues better than any person at the state level could possibly understand those issues. I think it's necessary that the state leads by example. And as we set policy at the state level that reels in spending in the means that I talked about before, by controlling the growth rate of spending so we can bring down taxes in a sustained, substantial way over a period of time, we're going to encourage them to do the same thing, and I think that you're going to find that some of them follow closely and some of them don't. The ones that do follow closely are going to continue to create that environment where taxes are low so businesses locate there and they're going to grow and thrive, and the other ones are going to be forced to be brought in line by their own understanding of what's happening in their neighboring community where the taxes are brought in line.
MODERATOR: Am I correct in concluding that you, Mark, feel that local governments should have more leeway in setting taxes than what Scott is saying here?
NEUMANN: You went to, in setting taxes, and I would say that our state and local government should have more leeway in determining their own policy for their own people in their own communities, and that relates not only to taxation, but it relates to a whole realm of issues.
WALKER: And if we had pure authority at the local level that would be great, but right now under current statutes, Wisconsin sets, again, usually the parameters to what local governments can provide in wage and benefit packages through Med. Ar. Mediation and arbitration artificially inflates the wage and benefit packages for employees – public employees in the state of Wisconsin under the current statutes. But if we could do away with that, and then you wouldn't have to have the need, but as long as we have that I would certainly advocate in a heartbeat. I talked about that in our State of the County address this year. That if state government wants to get serious about controlling spending, you've got to give the tools to local governments to be able to control the wage and benefit structures. When you've got a policy that mandates essentially a 3 or 4 percent increase just because everybody else in the surrounding area is getting it, it makes it very difficult for those of us who are trying to hold the line on taxes to do that under the climate. We have, but it still is an incredible challenge.
NEUMANN: Here we go again. And this is – this bothers me a lot about government as it exists today. What we're doing is talking about what is today, instead of creating a vision for what can be in our future. And as long as we deal with what is today, we're not going to bring our jobs back. We have to start talking about vision for the future, and if that's empowering our local people to make more of their own decisions, that's what can be for Wisconsin's future and that's where I'd like to focus my attention.
5. Big Ideas
MODERATOR: Was W-2 a success? And if so, where does it go now?
WALKER: It was initially, but again, we've had over the years, particularly under this governor and he's doing it again, is softening up on the requirements. Probably the worst example is under childcare right now. There needs to be much tighter restrictions as to what qualifies as work, how people are identified.
NEUMANN: Well, and I think that's the right question. I go back to when our – when we enter this race for governor, it's going to be about what can be instead of what is.
MODERATOR: Can I follow this up, because – on this? Because I mean back in the 1980's the Republicans were arguably the party of ideas. You had welfare reform you had lower taxes, flatter taxes, school choice. So what's the next big conservative idea? What’s the next one?
NEUMANN: Here's a big new idea. Suppose we look at the improved environment that our government is trying to obtain through cap and trade and we put out a different way to obtain that, a way that in fact creates jobs right here in the great state of Wisconsin. And when I'm talking about this stuff, I'm not talking through my hat. We've already started doing it.
MODERATOR: Yeah. Are you in favor of cap and trade?
NEUMANN: Cap and trade – what we're going to do – what we’re going to do if I'm elected governor is we're going to lay out a plan to accomplish the goals of cap and trade improved environment without the cap and trade taxes on our businesses, okay?
WALKER: I think one overall is in terms of the – really the role of the governor. I mean right now we've largely got the bureaucrat in chief. I think we need to go from that to a role of really an advocate in chief. I mean we've got great managers. I put a cabinet in place. I know how to pick great managers. We're going to do that. But I think the governor has got to be something more than that. We've got to get to a point where we have an advocate who advocates for the state, for its jobs, for its businesses, for its citizens.
And I would take that a step further in two specific categories. Certainly in education, I would go beyond just looking at just lifting the cap for school choice, and looking at, we ought to be able to expand the ability to have options no matter how it might be, whether it's through a traditional parental school choice, whether it's through a tuition tax credit, whether it's through a variety of other ideas out there, to expand those parental options for involvement in a child's education.
The other part is on healthcare. You know, we get a lot of talk about big government-run, bureaucratic-driven healthcare, and I think Republicans can really move forward to talk about healthcare but in a way that's a partnership, not something that takes the place of the private sector, but rather is a partnership with the private sector in terms of market-based solutions that have been talked about but haven't been fully implemented and laid out.
MODERATOR: What's the policy that gets you there? What's the government mandate or regulation?
NEUMANN: Not government mandate.
MODERATOR: Okay. No –
NEUMANN: Government encouraging businesses and providing business opportunities and climates for things like –
MODERATOR: Subsidies? Tax breaks?
NEUMANN: No, sir. We don't have to change a single one, just leave them alone. Just – if government would just plain leave things alone, it's fine. You guys, I'm telling you, the world has changed to a point right now, and I get very excited about this because I'm seeing it firsthand, the job opportunities in the environmental areas are immense.
MODERATOR: Is there anything you disagree with here so far?
WALKER: No. You – Charlie you've heard me talk about this before. I'm all for going green as long as it saves green.
6. Statewide Smoking Ban
MODERATOR: Will you sign the smoking ban, the statewide smoking ban?
NEUMANN: I'd have to give that more thought to answer that Charlie, I think.
WALKER: No. I think local businesses should be able to determine their own fates.
7. Public Employee Benefits
MODERATOR: Okay. Should public employees be required or encouraged to pay more of their own pensions?
WALKER: Absolutely.
NEUMANN: That's a – that’s big-picture question. Getting back to what I said before, you've got to look at the overall budgets. If they say, I want to take less wages and have that covered I'd certainly would be accepting of that.
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All the Governor's Appeasers
 Business leaders Thomas Hefty and John Torinus Jr. recently issued a call to arms to get Wisconsin's economy back on track. Their report says Wisconsin has fallen behind the rest of nation in job growth and per capita income, while the Doyle administration “massaged the unemployment rate to make Wisconsin job performance look better than it really is.”
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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Patrick McIlheran says Doyle should stop trying to rewrite history and start listening to Wisconsin’s biggest employers:
Or take the new Wisconsin Business Council. One of its organizing forces, Marc Marotta - Doyle's 2006 campaign chairman, not coincidentally - says the group means to be the go-to group when government wants to sound out business. It's a complement, not competition, he says, to the established Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce. "All sorts of things have shifted here," says Madison PR guy Jim Wood in explaining why the group had to be invented. "The conversation needs to be different."
Which I take to mean that the Democrats got tired of hearing business groups say that raising taxes is unwise, regulatory inflexibility hurts, turning schools over to teachers unions is ineffective and making it easier to sue the stuffing out of everyone is stupid. They wanted someone who wouldn't nag them.
But if WMC, which has something in excess of 3,500 member businesses, keeps on complaining about the same things, wouldn't you think that a largish cross-section of Wisconsin businesses really is worked up about taxes, regulation, workforce and legal climate? That's maybe a gauge you don't want to ignore.
But Governor Doyle prefers to do all the talking, soliciting contributions,-- rather than advice--- from those who are content to ruin the state’s long term potential for economic growth so they can make a killing in the short haul. For appearance sake, these very special interests are banding together to pat Governor Doyle on the back.
A recent letter to the editor from Tom Cardella, Eastern Division President of MillerCoors, suggests that he is either sampling too much product or angling for some government goodies.
We at MillerCoors know from experience that Wisconsin is a great state in which to do business, regardless of what biased studies or special interest groups suggest ("Backward we go in Dairyland," July 12 Crossroads).
After doing business here for more than 150 years, we can state for a fact that Wisconsin is open for business. Wisconsin has a good comprehensive strategy to promote and grow businesses here, and the Wisconsin Department of Commerce, led by Dick Leinenkugel, has been successful in implementing that strategy. Wisconsin also has an outstanding education system - from grade schools to technical colleges and universities - and the workers and innovators who come out of our schools are among the best in the world.
Let's be clear that under Gov. Jim Doyle, Wisconsin is committed to strong businesses and growing opportunities. We are proud of the strategy Wisconsin has to move forward, and that's why we remain committed to doing business and brewing great beer in Wisconsin. Miller Brewing cut 100 jobs from its Milwaukee operation a year ago, with the possibility of more layoffs to come. If there is a comprehensive state strategy to grow businesses, Mr. Cardella might want to share it with his higher ups at MillerCoors before they slash more Wisconsin jobs.
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When Jim Doyle 
