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MADISON, Wis. — As Gov. Scott Walker prepares to announce his campaign for president next month, promising to bring what he calls “big bold leadership” to Washington, as he did in Wisconsin, he faces a cloud over that story line: Republicans back home are in revolt.
Leaders of Mr. Walker’s party, which controls the Legislature, are balking at his demands for the state’s budget. Critics say the governor’s spending blueprint is aimed more at appealing to conservatives in early-voting states like Iowa than doing what is best for Wisconsin.
Lawmakers are stymied over how to pay for road and bridge repairs without raising taxes or fees, which Mr. Walker has ruled out.
The governor’s fellow Republicans rejected his proposal to borrow $1.3 billion for the roadwork, arguing that adding to the state’s debt is irresponsible.
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“The governor rolled out $1.3 billion in bonding,” Scott Fitzgerald, the Senate majority leader, said in an interview. “It’s not been well received, is the best way to put it.”The budget stalemate forced Mr. Walker late last week to move the goal posts on the announcement of his all-but-certain presidential candidacy. For months, he said it would come after he signed a new budget — timing meant to contrast his ability to get things done with Washington dysfunction.
But on Thursday, Mr. Walker said he would announce after “the end of the budget year.” That is, any time after June 30, the last day of the fiscal year. With lawmakers saying they might not finish their work before mid-July, he will not wait for a finished budget.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Walker, AshLee Strong, said the governor “is optimistic an agreement will be reached in the coming weeks.”
It is unclear if Mr. Walker’s feud with his Legislature will ripple out to voter perceptions beyond Wisconsin. Polls suggest that he is the early front-runner in Iowa and a top-tier candidate nationally, because of his reputation with conservatives built on defeating public-sector unions and surviving a recall election in his first term.
Mr. Walker is making the case that unlike the senators in the Republican race, who include Marco Rubio of Florida, Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, he has a record of hard-won policy achievements.
“Some want you to think they fight,” Mr. Walker wrote of his rivals on the conservative website RedState last week. “But speeches aren’t fighting or winning.”
In front of partisan audiences around the country, Mr. Walker often portrays himself as more ideologically conservative than he has been in Wisconsin. He takes credit, for example, for signing an anti-union “right to work” law this year, something that actually bubbled up from his Legislature after the governor insisted in his re-election race in 2014 that it was not a priority.
“I don’t think he’d be in the position he’s in right now if it wasn’t for the Republican Legislature,” said Mr. Fitzgerald, who sponsored the bill. “We’ve been a big part of that list of reforms.”Mr. Walker has notched other recent successes in the Legislature that are red-meat issues on the campaign trail, such as requiring drug testing for people on public assistance and loosening tenure protection for professors.
One issue he played down in 2014 but has seized on in early nominating states, where social conservatives are highly influential, is banning abortions after 20 weeks.
Mr. Walker repeatedly refused to say if he favored such a ban during his close re-election last year, when polls showed him unpopular among women. In March, as doubts about his anti-abortion credentials were raised by national conservatives, he pledged to sign a 20-week ban that was “likely to come to my desk.”
What he did not explain was that he had asked Wisconsin lawmakers to send him just such a bill, during a meeting in his office with Mr. Fitzgerald and Robin Vos, the speaker of the State Assembly, also a Republican.
“Walker weighed in and said the 20-week abortion ban is something he would like to see hit his desk,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “It sent a message to us.”
The governor specified that the bill should include no exceptions for rape or incest, according to Mr. Fitzgerald.
The dispute with the Legislature is, at root, a debate over what is best for Wisconsin’s economy. Republican lawmakers favor investments in infrastructure and higher education, and the governor is committed to not raising taxes.
Mr. Vos has accused Mr. Walker of avoiding an “adult conversation” on infrastructure costs.On the campaign trail, Mr. Walker boasts of lowering taxes by $2 billion and presiding over a drop in unemployment from 7.7 percent in January 2011, when he took office, to 4.6 percent. His fiscal discipline is echoed in his penny-pinching lifestyle. (He recently told of buying a $1 sweater at Kohl’s.)
What he does not mention is that Wisconsin ranked 35th in job growth in the nation during his first term, and that it trails its neighbors in the Upper Midwest.
The tax cuts and weakening of public sector unions have not spurred the economy enough to avoid a projected budget deficit over the coming two years.
The state’s nonpartisan budget office estimated this year that Wisconsin would save $345 million in its budget over two years by accepting Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Unlike the Republican governors of four nearby states, Mr. Walker refused expansion, a litmus test for conservatives.
The governor got the greatest resistance on his budget blueprint, which covers two years, over two proposals: to fill a hole in the transportation fund with the debt financing, and to cut $300 million from the University of Wisconsin system.
“The university doesn’t deserve this cut,” said Senator Luther Olsen, a Republican, as lawmakers voted last month to restore $50 million of the governor’s cuts. “We are fools if we go around bashing one of the best things in the state of Wisconsin.”
To pay for road and bridge projects, Mr. Vos, the Assembly speaker, and other Republicans favor raising vehicle registration fees. Mr. Walker labeled a fee increase the same as a tax increase, and promised a veto.
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“He wants to make a political point that ‘I didn’t increase fees or taxes,’ ” said Representative Gordon Hintz, a Democrat on the Joint Finance Committee, which drafts the budget. “The false choice created by the governor’s presidential politics leads to outcomes which negatively impact the people of Wisconsin.”
To accommodate the governor, Republicans are wrangling behind closed doors over some combination of borrowing and delaying needed projects.
The governor’s press secretary, Laurel Patrick, said Mr. Walker had been consistent in opposing an increase in the gas tax or vehicle fees without a corresponding cut in taxes. “While obviously not our preferred option, if legislators choose to reduce bonding for transportation in the budget, Governor Walker would sign it,” Ms. Patrick said in a statement.
Mr. Fitzgerald, the Senate majority leader, said he did not have the votes to pass a budget yet. “We’re trying to figure out how to get out of the box,” he said.Click & Close Ads
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Sunday, June 28, 2015
