Even Democrats running for Congress are running on the success of Act 10.

In 2005, the year Harris was elected county executive, Winnebago County’s budget was $151,236,268. On his congressional campaign website, Harris boasts that he reduced spending from that budget – created by his predecessor – to $145,150,144 in 2014. That’s a decrease of $6,086,124.

But Harris’ claim is misleading. Of the nine budgets he presided over, six of them were larger than the 2005 budget he uses as a baseline for campaign rhetoric according to county budget records. In 2009, for example, Harris’ Winnebago County budget was $174,882,422 – an increase of $23.6 million from the last budget of his predecessor.

From 2007 through 2012, Harris created annual budgets that were all bigger than the last budget of his predecessor.

In assembling his 2012 budget, Harris told the Oshkosh Northwestern that he made use of collective bargaining reforms passed by Republican lawmakers and signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker.