MADISON – Wisconsin lawmakers are forging ahead Wednesday with legislation that would send hundreds of millions of dollars to schools for special education and to lower property taxes, distribute income tax rebates, and eliminate taxes on overtime and cash tips.
The state Assembly was debating into the afternoon on the bill negotiated by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican legislative leaders, but its future is uncertain in the state Senate, where Republican candidate for governor Tom Tiffany has made calls sharing his opposition to the deal.
Democratic lawmakers and candidates for governor have joined Tiffany in blasting the deal since it was released Monday. On the floor, Democratic state Rep. Angela Stroud of Ashland said the bill was inadequate.
“I cannot support a piece of legislation that spends so much state money and does so little in terms of solving big problems,” Stroud said.
Stroud said she opposes the tax rebate provision that sends checks to income tax filers of up to $300 per person.
“At a time when our president and his party are taking away healthcare subsidies, slashing funding to address food insecurity, and actively harming all of us with a reckless war of choice with no plan that is driving up gas prices, this bill fails to help the people who need it most.”
Republican members of the Assembly defended Evers, an odd posture for the GOP members to take given the contentious relationship between Republican lawmakers and Evers over the last eight years.
“Whether it’s the back room or the front room, who gives a damn,” Rep. Bob Donovan, R-Greenfield, said in response to criticism from Democrats and Tiffany of how the bill was negotiated.
“It’s a good compromise,” he said, noting no one gets everything they want all the time.
“I wish rainwater was beer, but it’s not.”
Evers said Wednesday the position from Tiffany and Democrats is “odd.”
“I just think it’s kind of an odd position for people to say, ‘We’re not going to do this now, we’ll do this maybe in a year and a half we’ll get this done,’ when we could do it right now,” he told reporters in Oak Creek.
“That is not something that you can run for reelection on and win,” he said.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said there were measures that Republicans wanted that Evers wouldn’t accept and vice versa.
“You know what that is? That is compromise. That is saying, let’s put aside the things that can never happen and focus on the things that can,” he said on the floor.
Molly Beck and Hope Karnopp can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com and hkarnopp@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Fate of tax relief, school funding bill uncertain as lawmakers debate
Reporting by Molly Beck and Hope Karnopp, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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