 Hello, welcome back to the Donahue Group. We're feisty and ready to talk about state issues and maybe just segue a little bit into how the national issues just force their way into state politics. I'm Mary Lynn Donahue, the host of this often difficult to control group, but joining me today, Cal Potter, former state senator. Very difficult to control. Just bad people off camera here. Tom Pineski, University of Wisconsin-Shaboygan mathematics professor. Ken Risto, dressed to match the set. This color and the color of our beautiful new set is just a very, very nice palette. He and Martha Stewart were in consultation this very morning. I heard an immediate visor. Was her money your challenge? I got him cheap in the John McCain campaign. He was cut loose. No, no, no, no. But the rest of us are just all blending in with this. This is actually a very nice new set, and we're just kidding, but it is nice to be here. It doesn't feel quite so cramped, and so we appreciate that. And the sun clock for the sun god. We are in that great time of state government when they're trying to pass the budget, trying to construct and deconstruct and- Sausage making. Sausage making at its best with all sorts of vile parts in it. Cal, you were part of that process for many, many years, and things have changed somewhat. Have they not, in terms of how all of this works, or is it still pretty much the same? Well, I had the, of all the 24 years I spent in two houses, only two years of it was in the minority. That was two years in the mid-90s when the Republicans controlled the state Senate. When you have split houses, it makes things very, very difficult, of course, because you end up with no agreement come July one because there's usually a radical difference in the packages passed in respect of houses. For many years, Tommy Thompson, from 16 years, dominated Wisconsin's governorship as a Republican, but we had democratically controlled legislatures for many of those years. And so what you had is you had Tommy's version of the budget and then you had the legislative version of the budget. What has really changed now is you've got a Senate version of the budget. You had the governor's budget, which went to the Senate and was modified, but not drastically, but then the assembly came in with their own version, which was radically different. And so when it goes to what is known as a conference committee to resolve the differences between the two houses, you have just a Herculean task to resolve the differences because they're so far apart. There were a lot of fee increases particularly in the Senate version emanating many from the governor, particularly fees on user type things in real estate and other types of areas, where the governor's trying to raise revenues for specific programs that he thinks are tied to in some way to that program or the constituency of that program. Well, when the Republicans in the assembly who have just lost the Senate don't have the governorship anymore, a fee is a tax and therefore you're not gonna go along with any type of tax because you want the Senate back and you wanna keep the assembly and they are within three seats of losing the assembly. So you need to have some type of very steadfast message and that's what's coming out of the assembly. No taxes, no fees, but the problem is you have to finance state government, it costs money. There are inflationary costs, gasoline costs alone for school districts and municipalities and so on and the state as well, gobble up an increased amount of budget every two years and so as a result they do need more revenue and that's what we're having a problem with is you've got two radically different budgets in two houses going to a conference committee and there's no need for any side to compromise quickly. The problem is the taxpayers and the people of Wisconsin need a budget as of July one and here we are as we tape almost middle of August and we don't have any really serious movement towards resolution. So what will change? And I remember in the Tommy Thompson days, weren't there just budgets that were months and months and months overdue? There were some times when there was a delay and it, because there wasn't agreement and it did go off into, I think the latest I've ever seen it was usually October. Then the fire starts to heat up because, as Tom knows and the people who've been in yourself who are in school boards and municipal bodies, you need to share revenue forecasts, you need your school aid forecast. You can't print a property tax bill by the middle of December and send it out for everybody unless you've got all those local aids delineated and that goes all the way from transportation to shared revenue. So the heat will be on these people as you get closer to fall. They finally resolve it because people on a local level who are decision makers and people who have to run the local services are saying, hey kids, you know, stop throwing sand, get serious. You gotta have a budget, whether it's now or later, it's gonna be a budget. You might as well do it now because it'll make life a lot easier for all of us who need to know what our aid payments are. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. Well, just you mentioned getting serious as deadlines come. I think the president of the UW system is already suggesting that fees be raised for the Madison and Milwaukee and the four year universities because school is starting in September and he doesn't figure the budget's gonna be done, so. And it's a jump, it's a 5.4% increase in tuition. And the UW colleges, he let stay with no increase, which at least this is the president Riley. So he's suggesting to the Board of Regents and they're gonna take it up next week and see if they go ahead and raise the fees because they have to know and the institutions have to function. So it's already taken place. And that's the assembly and I'm gonna make some partisan shots here. The assembly didn't do a very good job, I think, of portraying a conservative budget. If I were to bend them, I would have simply said, we're gonna freeze it and pass the same budget that you had two years ago and that way we're responsible. We're not raising spending, we're not doing it. What they did is in many cases they cut certain programs and they did some pet programs that our Democrats are taking potshots at. For example, tax exemption for gold bullion dealers. Well, that doesn't fly very well. They, for a constituency that they wanted to- Chicken bullion is one thing, you know, beef bullion, but not gold, all right. They extended Milwaukee School of Choice to Racine County. You know, now there, and at the same time, they took some programs such as Homestead Property Tax Relief, which has historically gone to anybody of modest and low income to help them pay their property tax. What they've done with it, they've modified it to in order to free up money for these other programs that they passed, they've modified it so it only applies to people 65 and over. Well, here you get a widow, 64 years of age, who's making $14,000 a year if she's lucky, who's now gonna be an agony over how, whether she's gonna have Homestead Property Tax for you to help her pay her property tax. Well, Democrats are naturally gonna kick the Republicans in the assembly in the rear end on that issue. They ought to be kicked in the rear end. Why should you put somebody who's of modest income, a woman, a widow through anguish because you wanted to free up money for Milwaukee School of Choice being extended to Racine or bull, gold bullion dealers? You know, so what they've done is they've created a package that has a lot of fodder for political barbs from the Democrats. So as this game goes on, and you're seeing these Molotov cocktails being thrown at each other, there's a genesis of this assembly budget that has created this fire. If they would simply, like I said, extended the budget of what we have today, they probably would have less of this hostility that's now going on. And I think some of the proposed cuts have had the opposite effect of really energizing constituents that may not have paid all that much attention to the state budget, which goes on forever, and who knows what's in it finally. Senator Assemblyman Lasse from Green Bay, Frank, right? Not Alan. Frank Lasse has suggested cutting all state funding for the university. Well, that was passed by the assembly, the cut funding for the law school. One of the best law schools in the country. One of the best law schools in the country. There are only two law schools in the state of Wisconsin to cut all state funding. At the same time that we're saying, and certainly one might take issue with whether or not we're short of prosecutors in Sheboygan County. But those people come from law schools and the Wisconsin law schools don't generate all that many lawyers and people don't particularly like lawyers until, of course, they need one. And then my lawyer is the best thing in the world. But also cutting funding for public radio and television. And by all measures, those are. This was the first in a nation, public radio. Oh, was that right? I didn't know that. It was 1917. 1917. And it's considered one of the best in the country. If you look at today was Mike, the programs that emanate out of Wisconsin, many of them are picked up by national radio. There's such, of course, such quality. Yeah. I don't have all the details. You grab a little more, but I would take issue with the word cut. It's you, the Democrats proposed so much and the Republicans proposed a little less. So the Democrats say it was a cut when it's really a increase. So I would take the issue with the word cut. You use cut in a couple of places on the Republicans cut the budget. I don't know. My guess is they probably increase the budget, but not as much as the Democrats, so the Democrats yell it's a cut. Well, and there is some truth to that. But the public, the funding for public radio and the law school, as I understand, is elimination. I don't know what you said, property tax regulation. It's gutting the program. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you couldn't say the governor's asked for $3 million and... We'll give you $2 million. Right, and so then that's where... The agreements are cut. Sure, and that's a political tack, I think, that's used on both sides, depending on who can gore what ox, but it's... It was simpler decisions by, I think, a number of people in the conservative Republican caucus in the assembly who are the clones of... They were legislative aides, they've not done very much else in their life. They ran for the legislature, they were sent out, they won, they come back, and they think it's cute to start playing games with programs, cut the law school, cut homestead property tax relief, and do things like that, that there's not a lot of thought there, and I think of what Tom's talking about, the overall budget, they might be a 3% increase rather than a 6% increase relative, but they did some stupid cuts and stupid things in that document that people who are custodians of the public service and will shouldn't have done, and they're paying the price for it by having a lot of criticism because of some of those particular decisions. Yeah, I mean it energizes the opposing base. And creates bases like you said, people who are in those programs, I'm sure the ARP and other coalition of aging groups are not happy about what happened to homestead property tax relief, even though it applies still to people 65 and over, and a lot of people who are under 65 who doggone well need help paying their property tax. Yeah, well it'll be interesting, and I do have to remember that Frank Lasse was the person who had suggested that was going to introduce a bill requiring all teachers to carry guns. And in response I think to the tragic school shooting in Casanovia? No, I'm sorry. The one that's just been on trial. Just found guilty. And just found guilty. But Stephen Colbert had a great report on that, that just the title of the report, talking about Frank Lasse's proposal is Chock and Awe. I just thought that was pretty cute, and who knows what it's, well attacking lawyers is not quite, I spend a lot of time with high school teachers, and you don't want us armed. You really? And that includes yours truly. I think this conflict is probably a plus. The group that can't shoot straight. You know, like you said, you served, and it was generally you had the common, you might have had a different governor, but you had, yeah, you had a Republican governor, but both the House and the Senate were usually the same party. Only a couple of years they were different. So I think this is a plus that they could, I'm not, I don't think the Democratic ideas are the greatest. And you don't like the Republican ideas. So I think if, and of course, and ultimately in the end, Governor Doyle's gonna line I and veto whatever they send forward, and then it'll be all together different. But I think this is a plus, because then you really have to argue about priorities. Spending seems to be a priority for the Democrats and holding the line on taxes or fee increases, what you call it, seems to be a policy of the assembly. So, and then you have to figure out what's important and what's not, where the Democrats really don't have to give. It's gonna be the pressure on the Republicans, but. But I just think overall tax policy really is a policy and it's a question of who pays what. And so I don't think that either political party wants to not have taxes because taxes is the source of their power. It's just who pays and how things get distributed. And I think that's the big philosophical difference, but launching from that grand philosophical thought to I think a really excellent debate that is going on at a fairly high level in the legislature and I think around the state and who would have thunk five years ago that we would be talking as a state and really as a nation in some respects about universal healthcare. That if you're sick, you ought to be able to get to a doctor to a healthcare facility. Now the Senate has passed by all measure a fairly comprehensive, maybe a little scary plan for universal healthcare coverage. Still maintaining private insurance and so forth. A lot of third party pay or systems. My understanding is that Governor Doyle's support for the Senate plan is not overwhelming. Clearly the assembly is not interested, but even in the assembly, I think there's discussion about how do we provide healthcare for people who don't have access to it? We're a civilized society and if my brother needs to go see a doctor about his arthritis, he ought to be able to do that even if he doesn't have insurance or I do a lot of social security disability work. So in my office weekly, I see people who just don't go to the doctor because I mean if they get really bad, they'll go to an emergency room, but they have lots and lots of significant untreated chronic health problems that just, there's no access to care. So I think it's interesting that at least the discussion is on the table. I mean even the, Wisconsin's made the editorial The Wall Street Journal as we're the model to look at meaning we're the guinea pig for socialist kind of medicine for our states around the country. But it's interesting, relatively few people are talking about, we used to talk about socialized medicine, this terrible thing. The ground to me at least has shifted considerably. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, of course will go up in flames talking about socialized medicine, but most people of all political persuasion are talking about, how do you access healthcare? I mean we're all offended by Walmart people working full time and not being able to go to the doctor. Or being dumped on public programs. Exactly. And then people complaining about public welfare and public tax dollars being used to help these poor people. If you're a good capitalist, you ought to say the private sector ought to take care of that. And we all know that Medicare is, I mean say what you will is incredibly efficient and has provided universal healthcare for those who fit within the criteria. And they do it efficiently and quietly and it all gets done. So, I mean that's socialized medicine certainly in a certain way, but. I think we ought to face the issue it's political power that's preventing this from occurring. And it's a philosophy amongst some people particularly in the private sector who is saying it is not the responsibility of an employer to provide that type of benefit to their employees, their employees out on their own in the area of healthcare. However, that's a little hypocritic because what do we do when they're injured on a job? We have workers' compensation. Every state has it. When somebody's laid off and you lose your job, what do you do? You go on unemployment compensation. It's a government program. Everybody in the private sector buys into it and provides it. We just have not taken that next leap and said, well maybe when people are sick, it's kind of like when you lose your job and when you get injured on a job, somebody ought to help you. And we just haven't taken that next step. And we've said there was an editorial and local paper from one of the executives from one of those small business groups. Again, espousing the idea that healthcare is an individual responsibility. Well, if you don't have a job, you don't have much income, your employer refuses to provide you with that healthcare. You've got a pre-existing condition. Where the hell are you supposed to get healthcare? Somebody ought to step forward and do it. And the private sector ought to do it. I think they ought to. I think if you believe in capitalism and you believe in the strong private sector, it's no different than we provide public schools and public roads and public airports and workers compensation. And it's a lot of basic things. This is a basic thing. And we ought to use our collective brain power to find out how we can get it done. But we just have not bought into that because we have all these high-paid lobbyists who are saying, oh, not my insurance company might be damaged or my drug company might be damaged. Or my HMO might be damaged. So we can't change the system. We talked about in the last program how we can't change government because somebody's ox is gonna be gourd. And that's what's happened here. We got the status quo. But 47 million people need relief and need help and somebody ought to step forward and start doing something about it. But at least the discussion, a round of applause, I think, for everybody. It's started. You're right. But I am amazed at, and that's been my philosophy, but certainly not a universally shared philosophy. What does it mean to be in a civilized society? But the discussion is on the table and everybody is talking about it and there are lots of plans out there. And so there are still some rumblings about socialized medicine and so forth, but I think that's really gone by the way. Not completely, of course, but there was an article, an editorial in the Green Bay Press Gazette that was featured in the Plymouth Review this past week that I thought had a good suggestion, which is take, this is such a big discussion and it's such a huge allocation of everybody's resources. Take it out of the budget bill, make it a standalone bill, and there are tons of different permutations on that Senate plan. And some that are completely dramatically different, some that are much more government-oriented. But get it on the table and just have a high quality, high-powered debate about how we're gonna solve the problem. Small employers in all honesty, Cal, can't afford to cover their employees. I mean, any reasonable family plan these days is gonna cost between $12 and $1,500 a month. I mean, that's a whole different thing than paying a minimum wage, which I frankly think anybody can pay, five, 68 an hour, and then in a couple of years, 725, let's pay a living wage of $10 an hour. People can afford that, but $12 to $1,500 a month for, and that still has high out-of-pocket deductibles and that sort of thing. The system's not doing too well, and Medicare, I think, say what you will, has fixed a whole lot of problems and has made a lot of people very rich, but has also... Helped a lot of people. Provided, kept my mom alive. You know, without Medicare, my mom would have died at age 52, and she lived to be 78 and had a good life, and it's because of Medicare, and... And Medicaid. And medical assistance, you know. We think of it oftentimes as people on welfare, but most of your aged people, once their house is gone and their bank account's gone, if you're in a nursing home, some type of custodial type care, it's the government that's helping you out, so we made a system, take care of our elderly to work, and it takes care of people no matter whether you're injured, you know, at age 15, you're in a nursing home or whatever, somebody's taking care of you through medical assistance. Well, Kalin, I've been hopping up and down about this. You're rarely quiet. Any thoughts on this? Well, I think the reason why there's a discussion is because it is starting to hit everybody, and it's pitting people against people. I mean, the Shaboy Ginary School District teachers have really a very, very, very good medical policy. And then we have now a discussion in the city of Shaboy Ginary about possibly privatizing some services that's being discussed, and I suspect that it's not gonna make city of government more efficient. I mean, I've watched the guys in my neighborhood pick up trash and they're moving. They're moving a lot faster than I would be moving. They're working hard, so if there's gonna be money and savings being made, they're gonna do what the Shaboy Ginary School District is throw a lot of reasonably decent paid janitors out the door and replace it with minimum wage people with no benefits. So what we're having is literally, my concern is a race to the bottom, where all of a sudden public employees have to defend what was a reasonable health care package. Some can argue maybe we need higher deductibles and we need to make some fine tuning, but it's a race to the bottom where pretty soon the city employees won't have it and then they'll come after the teachers, and by the time we get done, you really, for lack of a better word, get a wise medical care in the county, in the city of Shaboy Ginary. What galls me a little bit is when you, and I know that the district doesn't talk much about this out loud, is that there are a lot of people in the private sector who beat up on public employee programs but are perfectly comfortable, and I've said this before in this show, perfectly comfortable funneling their own employees to those programs, and I find that pretty appalling. So I think eventually we're gonna probably try something like Massachusetts and see if it works as the first step toward trying to get coverage to everyone in a reasonable way. You know, Hillary got pilloried about, Hillary got pilloried, not bad, about her health care plan because it was so complicated. Well, it's a complicated thing, especially if you don't want socialized or one payment system, you just don't. If people don't wanna do that, they don't want everybody under Medicare, you're going to have to try to figure out a way to do it through employees, employers rather, and that means you gotta sort of look at certain employers differently than other employers because the small businesses can't afford it, and well, certainly large corporations can. And so it's gonna be complicated. And so I think Wisconsin will probably follow Massachusetts lead, that great conservative Republican Mitt Romney, newly born again, the conservative. Good man, good man. We'll see. But Republicans think he's a good man, but I really think we're gonna probably try some sort of, as Cal said, of an approach to be pretty much employer, assist employer, provide in health care with some subsidies for small businesses, some kind of a mix like that, and see if that works. But I think it is that you're bringing a huge political group, groups of political people with large amounts of money to bear. I have friends who are in the healthcare industry. They're spending their time, these sales reps are just spending gobs of money. It's good for Stefano and his restaurants. Entertaining people to push people to use drugs that they may or may not, well, they may or may not need their preferential treatment. And I can't tell you, oftentimes I walk in and I get samples of things. One of the lucky ones that actually gets inside the doctor's door and they say, well, can try this. We've got a bunch of samples lying around here. So the waste in the system is extraordinary. Only no one wants to confront that either. So. Well, it'll be interesting, but I think it should be a pullout discussion. And I think it could bring out the best in citizens. And I know I'm being a little bit polly-ish. I would ask, I mean, I just recently came across public employees and how much they contribute to their insurance, single digits. Where other maybe private sectors are double digits. When the public employees step forward and say, I'll contribute double digit on around a 20%. And maybe part of that goes to help fund a program like this. Then that'll be a good discussion. And since you're a public employee, that's not a problem. We're wrapping up. It's a very complicated issue because from the public employee's point of view, they negotiated those benefits in lieu of actual financial, especially in our case where we face a 3.8 cap. You say how much money do you want in your wallet as opposed to how much money do you want in your benefits? And you make those conscious decisions at the invoicing table. All right. All I can say in closing is be careful what bridges you drive over. And hopefully we'll all gather together again next month to talk about other interesting issues. Thanks for joining us.