I just finished listening to his announcement. It was long on policy and optimism and short on attacks with a huge chunk of the speech dedicated to foreign policy. He spoke without a podium to a fawning crowd of supporters.
Of the 14 other Republican announcements we have seen so far, this was, by farm the best. It was especially a dramatic contrast to Hillary Clinton’s announcement via video.
As expected, Walker signed the budget before his announcement for president today. While he had a lot of vetoes, none of the major things – like school choice expansion, partial repeal of prevailing wage, etc. – were touched.
WAUKESHA — Gov. Scott Walker signed the state’s 2015-17 budget Sunday, including more than 100 line-item changes to the version the Legislature adopted swiftly last week after several weeks of Republican gridlock.
“The difference between Wisconsin and Washington is we actually get things done,” Walker said Sunday evening to a crowd just before he signed the next Wisconsin state budget, and about 24 hours before he announces his bid for the White House.
Before signing the $72.7 billion spending plan, Walker used his powerful veto pen to alter 104 items — nearly twice as many as he has previously.
Friend, as a trusted leader in the Conservative movement I need to ask you an important question.
Should I run for President of the United States?
I have been praying about this decision for a long time and if I do decide to seek the Republican nomination for President I need to know you’ll stand with me.
America is at a crossroads and the lack of leadership over the past six years has put us on the wrong track. The challenges facing our great nation are robust and the next president must have the experience to solve complex problems.
Friend, you have been on the front lines, fighting for our shared conservative values. You and other grassroots leaders were instrumental in Republicans taking control of the U.S. House in 2010 and the U.S. Senate in 2014.
Now we must stand together to stop the Obama-Clinton machine from keeping the White House in 2016.
I didn’t inherit fame or fortune and I don’t think being President is by birthright, but I do believe I am uniquely qualified to lead this country.
When we took office as Governor of Wisconsin our economy was in shambles due to years of reckless liberal spending, our unemployment rate was at 8.1 percent and we were ranked 41st in the country for places to do business.
The future looked bleak but I knew the conservative reforms we were about to put into motion could be the shot in the arm our state needed.
In four years we turned a $3.6 billion deficit into a surplus, unemployment is down to 4.6 percent and Wisconsin now ranks 12th in the country for places to do business.
Leadership and courage were the keys to my success and I know this kind of experience is just what our next President needs.
What worked in Wisconsin can work for America, but I can’t do it without your support.
The deal for the Bucks arena was finally announced. The only significant new detail that was revealed that hadn’t already leaked is that the owners – not the taxpayers – will be on the hook for any cost overruns for the project. That’s very good. Other than that, nothing has really changed since this weekend.
As a side note, this was a masterful bit of politics by Governor Walker. He managed to hold a press conference announcing a significant deal for economic development with his only two real Democratic rivals – Milwaukee Mayor Barrett, who ran against Walker for governor, and Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, who is widely believed to be sowing the seeds to succeed Walker – at his side praising it. And the press conference was in Madison – Walker’s home turf. Furthermore, Americans for Prosperity, a group funded by the Koch brothers, opposes the deal, thus giving Walker some political separation on the national stage. Irrespective of what happens to the deal, today was a win for Governor Walker.
Scott Walker’s political organization is beefing up its policy muscle, plucking a top leadership aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from Capitol Hill, sources said on Friday morning.
Andrew Bremberg, an adviser and counsel to McConnell on Senate nominations, will join the Wisconsin governor’s Our American Revival group, which is serving as Walker’s political platform as he mulls a presidential run.
Walker’s job approval has fallen to 41%, with 56% disapproving, according to the latestMarquette Law School poll, which has been Wisconsin’s leading survey. That’s the lowest approval figure for Walker in several years of Marquette’s surveys.
The approval numbers for Walker have been very consistent since 2011. He has had rock-solid support among conservatives and a high percentage of Republicans. H has also had rock-solid opposition from the liberals and most Democrats. The middle ground has only been about 7 or 8 percent of the population. Given that nothing has happened that indicates that Walker has pulled any additional support from the liberal factions of Wisconsin’s electorate, the fact that his support has fallen to 41% indicates that there is erosion in the heretofore “rock solid” conservative factions of the electorate.
Why?
As one of those conservatives, it is apparent to me. Walker’s wrong-headed decision on the Kenosha casino; his support for a big borrowing plan for the Bucks arena; his inattentiveness to advocating for the conservative elements of his budget proposal; his MIA status on the UW tuition increase; etc… I still strongly support Walker, but not as strongly as I did a year ago. I suspect that a lot of conservatives are of the same mindset. Those former Walker supporters who aren’t as conservative as me are the ones falling into the disapproval category of this poll.
I suspect that Walker’s support in Wisconsin will erode further the longer he spends outside of Wisconsin running for president and the more, whether perceived or real, Wisconsin conservatives think that their agenda is being subjugated or watered down by Walker’s presidential policy stances.
Walker’s budget calls for cutting $300 million from the system and extending a freeze on resident undergraduate tuition to July 1, 2017. In exchange the system would be free of state oversight starting in July 2016.
The plan has left students and legislators worried that the Board of Regents could dramatically increase tuition when the freeze ends.
Walker’s administration sent a letter to the leaders of the Legislature’sfinance committee on Monday saying the governor was modifying his proposal to limit post-freeze tuition increases to the rate of inflation. Walker has hinted since February he may impose tuition caps.
What I don’t like about this proposal is that it assumes that the current tuition is appropriate compared to the average Wisconsinite’s other relative costs. Is it? Could it cost less and still provide the same or better education? Just because a family’s other expenses increase, does that automatically mean that tuition should go up by the same amount? Why? Why shouldn’t the legislature’s efforts go into driving down the price of tuition relative to a family’s overall expenditures as a tuition freeze does over time? Wouldn’t that be preferable to locking in automatic tuition increases every year? And yes… I assume that if this is in place that UW would jack up tuition by the rate of inflation every year if they were able to.
During a question-and-answer session, Walker said that undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States should not be deported, the Republican source said.
Though Walker once supported a path to citizenship as part of comprehensive immigration overhaul, his New Hampshire comments are at odds with more recent assurances that he opposes what he calls “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants. Walker admitted in a Fox News interview earlier this month that he changed his position on the issue.
The newly-reported comments are also in conflict with the sentiments of many conservatives who hold sway in Republican primaries and fiercely oppose the idea of granting citizenship to undocumented immigrants.
Walker’s remarks were reported Thursday by the Wall Street Journal, citing two attendees who confirmed the comments on-the-record. One Republican at the dinner, Franklin Mayor Ken Merrifield, told the Journal that Walker said illegal immigrants should “get to the back of the line for citizenship.”
This jibes with what I’ve heard about Walker, for years now. And frankly, when you consider that — after getting off to a fast start — the rough couple of weeks Walker has endured, you wonder if maybe he might have hit this same ceiling so many micromanagers before him have hit.
This is not to say that micromanagers never win; they sometimes do. But while I certainly understand the temptation to essentially run one’s own campaign (I say “essentially” because there is always someone given the de facto title of campaign manager), there are lots of reasons why this is a very, very, bad idea. Where to begin?
One of the problems with being your own chief strategist is that you cannot act dispassionately. Political attacks are, by definition, personal to you (if only Sonny Corleone had checked in with a wartime consigliere!).
It’s also horrible time management. In a campaign, time is the most important commodity, because a). time can be used to replenish other commodities (for example, to raise money), and b). time is the only commodity that, once expired, cannot be replenished.
The contributions by Menard, made in 2011 and 2012, were uncovered among hundreds of emails and internal documents seized by state prosecutors in the course of a wide-ranging criminal investigation into whether Walker’s campaign committee violated state campaign finance laws — including those requiring public disclosure — by funneling large donations to outside, nondisclosing advocacy groups, such as the Wisconsin Club for Growth, with which they were believed to be closely coordinating their efforts, sources knowledgeable about the investigation told Yahoo News.
So the story is that people anonymously gave money to groups who advocated for their beliefs and interests. That is perfectly within their rights to do and those rights have been affirmed by the Supreme Court. In fact, there is nothing more quintessentially American than people spending their time and money to advocate within our political system. Yet, somehow, it’s a scandal.
The only real scandal here is that an activist Democratic D.A. has abused his office and forced public disclosure of what was supposed to be constitutionally protected anonymous political activity.
A digital strategist to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker resigned Tuesday night following an outcry over remarks on social media that seemed to disparage the Iowa caucuses.
Republican consultant Liz Mair had joined Walker’s political action committee, Our American Revival, ahead of the governor’s all-but-certain presidential run. Her departure came just one day after her hire was first reported.
“The tone of some of my tweets concerning Iowa was at odds with that which Gov. Walker has always encouraged in political discourse,” Mair said in a statement. “I wish Gov. Walker and his team all the best.”
Mair’s months-old comments, which surfaced Monday in the hours after her hire was first reported, put Walker’s campaign-in-waiting in a tough spot as outraged Iowa Republicans immediately called for her ouster.
“In other news, I see Iowa is once again embarrassing itself, and the GOP, this morning. Thanks, guys,” Mair wrote in one January tweet. In another, she suggested that Iowa should lose its role as the first-in-the-nation nominating state. “The sooner we remove Iowa’s frontrunning status, the better off American politics and policy will be,” she wrote.
First, on the content of her tweets, she’s right. Iowa’s parochial interests, like ethanol, have driven far too many national priorities because of its front-runner status.
Second, it was a mistake for Walker to let her go over this. He has a history of questionable staff choices and, if anything, his greatest failing has been misplaced loyalty. Yet in this case, he appears reactionary and disloyal. Mair’s tweets were not offensive and expressed an opinion shared by a large swath of voters. The fact that some Iowa bigwigs disagree does not make her wrong.
Walker would have been better served making a statement like, “I don’t share Liz’s opinion about Iowa, but there’s room in the Republican Party and my campaign for all kinds of opinions,” and moving on.
With a maximum of 1,001 points, Mr. Walker’s bracket is more conservative than average. It takes a bolder path — more reliant on upsets — than only 45 percent of other entrants. Mr. Bush’s bracket, which has a maximum of 1,276 points, is less conservative than average. It is more dependent on underdogs than 58 percent of other brackets.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — An official at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library on Monday sought to clarify her account of how Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker came to handle a family Bible the late president used when taking the oath of office.
Library registrar Jennifer Torres said a “simple misunderstanding” left the wrong impression that Walker personally sought to hold the book. A spokeswoman for the Reagan Foundation says Walker’s retelling of the moment is correct.
I wonder if all of the lefties who have been slamming Walker for this will retract their comments and apologize.
In the moderated discussion with ethanol magnate Bruce Rastetter, Walker dropped his previous flat opposition to ethanol mandates, offering a new stance that’s well-suited to a state covered in cornfields. Walker signaled he now favors keeping the mandate for now and phasing it outin the future — without saying over what period of time.
“It’s an access issue, and so it’s something I’m willing to go forward on continuing the Renewable Fuel Standard and pressing the EPA to make sure there’s certainty in terms of the blend levels set,” Walker said. “Now, long term — we’ve talked about this before as well — my goal would be to get to a point where we directly address those market access issues and I think that’s a part of the challenge. So that eventually you didn’t need to have a standard.”
Walker, a past critic of ethanol, acknowledged in January that he would have to spell out his position on the issue as part of his likely presidential bid. In other key issues for Iowa, Walker said that he favored drawing down federal tax credits for wind power over time and opposed mandatory labeling of foods made from genetically modified crops.
“This is one of those where I believe it’s served its purpose,” Walker said of the credits. “I would support phasing that out over a period of time.”
When Walker arrived in this state for his breakout speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit in January, he was a candidate with more potential than organization or momentum. Now he has staff and an office in the state, a national campaign apparatus and a leading position in many polls.
Increasingly, he is adopting positions, such as supporting ethanol incentives, that fit the needs of his likely presidential campaign even if they are inconsistent with all of his past stances.
Not only is it just a bad policy position, it’s s stupid political stance for Walker. He has made his reputation on being an “unintimidated” conservative and has won three statewide elections in a blue state because of it. It wasn’t just his conservative positions, but the feeling that voters had that Walker would stand by what he said. His waffling and changing positions to appease people for his presidential run undermines both political foundations. If he keeps this up, he’ll win the Iowa corn farmers, perhaps, but he will erode his overall base.
Congratulations, Wisconsin. Today was a healthy bipartisan spread of stupid decisions that will hurt the state for years to come. First, Governor Scott Walker reaffirmed his decision to turn away thousands of private sector jobs and over a billion dollars in private economic development despite an offer by the Menominee to essentially indemnify the state taxpayers for any possible losses that may result from building the Kenosha casino AND give $220+ million to build a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks.
With that decision, Walker also made it exceedingly difficult to pass any state funding bill to help build a new arena for the Bucks. Many people from outside Milwaukee already opposed taxpayer support for an arena, and now they likely won’t support a dime of my tax dollars going to build an arena in Milwaukee since Walker is turning down over $200 million in private funding for that project. Walker’s decision makes it quite unlikely that Wisconsin will have an NBA team in 36 months and all of that private investment and economic activity will leave the state too.
To cap it off, Mayor Tom Barrett finally got his trolley in Milwaukee, thus obligating the taxpayers to hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer expense for decades to come.
MADISON (WITI/AP) — Governor Scott Walker has abruptly backed off his proposal to eliminate the University of Wisconsin System’s public service mission statement.
Walker tucked language into his budget proposal that would have replaced the statement, known as the “Wisconsin Idea,” with the charge of meeting the state’s workforce needs. The move drew the ire of UW System President Ray Cross, who says the Wisconsin Idea is the reason the system exists.
The Wisconsin Idea was created back in 1904.
It’s a statute. The fact that it is 111 years old should make it a likely target for updating and reform, not a piece of sacrosanct text. Walker should have stood firm and made the argument for reform.
Governor Walker gave his budget address tonight. The biggest thing that wasn’t already floated is a major change in School Choice. WisPolitics has some details:
In addition to lifting the caps on the number of students and schools that could participate in the choice program statewide, Walker is calling for a change to how the vouchers are funded for students added to the program and new limits on who can join.
After the program was expanded statewide two years ago, reports found the vast majority of students who joined were already attending private schools. Under the budget, those now in the outstate choice program would be allowed to remain. But those seeking to join the program going forward would already have to be attending a public school.
The vouchers are also now funded through a GPR appropriation. But funding for the outstate slots would be changed, under Walker’s plan. The schools who lose students to the choice program would have their aid reduced, and that money would then be pooled statewide and divided equally among the outstate choice students.
Doing so would smooth out the differences in the amount of state aid sent to districts based on property values, administration officials say. For example, districts with high property values receive less in state aid than those with low property values. The approach would ensure students from both districts would receive the same sized voucher, administration officials say.
Eh… it’s a step in the right direction, but I’m not crazy about it. What Walker is trying to do is make it so that he can expand school choice without adding spending. It’s a good goal, but a flawed way to get there.
The “problem” that Walker highlights is that many of the families who qualified for vouchers were already attending a private school. So the kids were already attending private school and it wasn’t costing the taxpayers anything, but now it is. It is an expense that the state taxpayers did not previously have.
This is only perceived as a “problem” in the context of government spending, but not in the overall purpose of school choice. The philosophy behind school choice is pretty simple. The taxpayers are obligated, both morally and constitutionally, to pay for an education for Wisconsin’s kids. In the existing system, rich families already have a choice to send their kids to the school of their choice. Means-tested vouchers level the playing field by facilitating the same choice for all families.
In this case, it is quite true that there are many families who qualify for vouchers – meaning that they are in the lower part of the income scale – were already sending their kids to private school. Some of them are making tremendous sacrifices to make it happen. Some are receiving financial aid through their churches or elsewhere. Some are managing to pay for it with support from their extended families. Now they can receive a voucher to make the sacrifice not as painful. So what? Why is this a “problem?” Are these families somehow less worthy than families who made different choices by sending their kids to public school? I certainly don’t think so. If people are worried that they were managing to send their kids to private school already, then lower the income threshold overall.
What I don’t like about Walker’s plan is that it creates a patchwork of rules that does not treat all people the same. Under his plan, families in Milwaukee and Racine are unaffected. Any of them still qualify irrespective of whether or not they already attend a private school or not. Families who already qualified for vouchers in the rest of Wisconsin can keep getting them. But families who either didn’t win the lottery last time, are just having kids come of age, or perhaps just slipped under the income threshold to qualify, may only receive a voucher if their kids attend a public school.
What a mess…
If this passes, expect a lot of families to enroll their kids in public school just to yank them out after the first day and move them to a private school with a voucher.
Like I said, it’s a step in the right direction in lifting the caps and looking for a better funding mechanism, but it should be a program that treats all families equally.
Madison — Gov. Scott Walker isn’t backing an increase in the gas tax and instead wants to rely on $1.3 billion in borrowing to fund transportation projects over the next two years.
Under the Republican governor’s plan, bonding for transportation would rise by about 30%, but the state’s overall borrowing would drop. That’s because Walker is recommending that the state delay construction of buildings that haven’t already gotten initial approval, including for the University of Wisconsin System.
I tend to agree with Speaker Vos.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) greeted the plan with deep skepticism.
“To continue to just borrow and spend isn’t fiscally responsible,” he said in a statement. “We will certainly be pushing for a permanent fix instead of just more bonding.”
The problem is that there is a substantial and structural difference between the amount of money being spent on transportation and the money being generated by transportation taxes for that purpose. Borrowing to fill the gap does not fix the problem. It merely maintains the status quo for a future legislature and governor to handle. This looks again like Walker looking to push hard and controversial decisions until after a potential presidential bid.
The only real solutions to transportation needs in this state are as simple as they are difficult. The state needs to either cut spending to match the current level of available funds, or find another revenue source to make the level of funding available match the level of spending being requested – or some combination thereof.
I, for one, advocate the former. The people who get to spend and receive the money, like the DOT and the road builders lobby, want the latter. Walker is trying to avoid the debate altogether.
As part of the UW plan, Walker would turn the system into a public authority. Walker will call in his budget for another two-year freeze on tuition for undergraduates who hail from Wisconsin. After that, the system will have the authority to increase tuition on its own.
UW President Ray Cross said the cuts are “substantial.” Still, he said the public authority status, similar to the relationship UW Hospital has with the state, would give the system the ability to manage on its own things like procurement and some building projects.
“These flexibilities will allow us to manage pricing in a way that reflects the market and actual costs,” Cross said. “The flexibilities also ensure our continued commitment to affordability, accessibility and quality educational experiences for our students and Wisconsin families.”
We have had this ongoing debate in Wisconsin about the relationship between the taxpayers and the university system. There is no question that the state university is a tremendous value for the state both in terms of educating the population and economic development. It is a critical piece of Wisconsin’s puzzle.
The taxpayers get frustrated when they see tuition rising sharply for their kids while they see the universities spending money on things seemingly unrelated to education. The taxpayers rightfully wonder why they are spending so much of the state’s resources on the universities if they are not using that money to fulfill a primary function of the system – to educate the kids of Wisconsin.
On the other side, the university wants more independence to make decisions without the oversight of the taxpayers. They argue that the university has many missions, including education, that they can better fulfill without state management.
Walker’s proposal seeks to meet some of both demands. It would give the university system more of the independence it wants while reducing the exposure of the taxpayers for those decisions.
One thing I don’t like about the plan is that it turns the funding for the university into a block grant that is indexed to inflation. This makes the funding more automatic to give certainty to the university officials, but it also makes the funding much more inaccessible to the legislature to change. One thing we don’t need in Wisconsin is another huge part of the state budget that is set aside to automatically increase without the active control of the legislature.
We will have to see more details of the plan as it unfolds. How much independence are we talking about? How will the cuts be spread out? We’ll have to see.
