Unintimidated

by Scott Walker

  We also dramatically expanded school choice in Wisconsin. We lifted the cap on the number of students eligible to participate in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program so that children won’t have to see their futures decided by a lottery. We lifted the income limits on school choice eligibility, so that middle class families can escape failing schools as well.

  Then we expanded school choice geographically from Milwaukee to Racine, the next most troubled school district in the state, then to a statewide program. Because students get report cards, we established report cards for schools so that parents can see which schools are succeeding and which ones are failing their students. And we expanded charter schools by allowing any University of Wisconsin System four-year campus to create a charter school.

  In our 2011 budget, we stopped funding for Planned Parenthood. Instead, the state now contracts with less controversial organizations (like county governments) to promote health care for women. I also signed legislation prohibiting any health plan offered through an exchange operating in Wisconsin from covering abortion, and a bill that requires schools that teach sex education to stress abstinence as the only reliable way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. At any other time, these might have been huge fights—but because of the fight over Act 10, they received little notice.

  We also enhanced public safety and the Second Amendment rights of our citizens. My predecessor, Jim Doyle, had repeatedly vetoed legislation to allow the carry of concealed firearms. I signed it into law, transforming Wisconsin from one of the more restrictive to one of the freest states in the union when it comes to the right to bear arms. We restored truth in sentencing by repealing the early release program approved by the last administration, and passed “castle doctrine” legislation to protect homeowners who defend themselves and their families with deadly force from intruders who break into their homes. A group of more than six hundred criminal defense lawyers and academics rallied to oppose the bill. There was a time when that might have seemed like a lot, but after seeing one hundred thousand protesters in our state capitol, a coalition of a few hundred opponents seemed meek by comparison.

  In normal times, many of these initiatives might have faced organized opposition. But in Wisconsin, the organized left was so worked up over Act 10, they barely registered a mention, much less a protest.

  Since the fight over Act 10, we have not slowed the pace of reform in Wisconsin. I continue to follow the advice Mitch Daniels gave me a few weeks after my election. Never stop reforming—always have the next big idea ready.

  Because our reforms got spending under control, in each of my first two years in office, property taxes went down, while our budget deficit became a surplus. We used that to push major tax reform and nearly $1 billion worth of tax relief.

  Our current budget cuts individual income tax rates for all taxpayers—as well as lowers the tax burden for small businesses and key industries like manufacturing and agriculture. In addition, we added a tuition tax deduction for families who send their kids to private schools, and we froze tuition at all University of Wisconsin campuses for the first time in the history of the system.

  This was a down payment on my goal of reducing the tax burden in our state every year I am in office. We plan to cut taxes over and over and over again until Wisconsin is leading the country in economic recovery.

  We are expanding school choice even further. After lifting the caps on size and income in Milwaukee and adding a voucher program in my first budget, we expanded vouchers statewide for low-income families. Expanding school choice gives students in failing schools better options. It also strengthens traditional schools by giving officials in struggling schools an incentive to use the tools in Act 10.

  We gave every public school administrator in Wisconsin the same freedom and flexibility that charter schools enjoy. They can now change the curriculum, expand the school day, reward good teachers, and get rid of failing ones—all without getting permission from (or dealing with grievances from) the teachers unions.

  Many school districts across the state have used those tools to balance their budgets and improve the quality of education. Unfortunately, some refused to use the tools we gave them. Perhaps they are satisfied with mediocrity. Or perhaps they are so beholden to the unions that even when liberated from the grip of collective bargaining, they still refuse to make the changes necessary to improve performance. Whatever the reason, they need an incentive to use the tools in Act 10.

  School choice provides that incentive. If officials at weak or failing schools have to compete for students, perhaps they will summon the will to change. We gave these officials the tools they need to turn their schools around. Expanding school choice will give them the impetus to use them.

  Our next big initiative is entitlement reform. We are pushing fundamental reform of Wisconsin’s three major entitlement programs: Medicaid, unemployment assistance, and food stamps. Our goal is simple: to help as many people in our state as possible move from dependence on government to independence, dignity, and self-reliance.

  Medicaid is the fastest growing entitlement in our state budget. And like so many other government programs, my predecessor dramatically expanded Medicaid without providing the money to pay for it. According to the Wall Street Journal, Governor Doyle opened up the program to people earning twice the poverty rate, which led to a 73 percent increase in enrollments. But he did not have the money to cover the 99 percent increase in state Medicaid spending. So he capped enrollment in Medicaid, shutting out people below the poverty line who should be getting Medicaid coverage, while people above the poverty line received care.1

  Then, in 2009, he used one-time federal stimulus funds that were supposed to go to infrastructure to cover ongoing costs of Medicaid. Soon the one-time money ran out, but the increased bills kept piling up. So when he left office, he handed us an entitlement program that was growing out of control, without the funds to sustain that growth.2

  Doyle’s Medicaid expansion was bad enough, but then President Obama passed Obamacare, which mandated yet another expansion of Medicaid—one that would have grown the Medicaid rolls in Wisconsin by an additional 32 percent.

  The federal government promised to pay 100 percent of the costs for three years (and 90 percent after that). But I had little confidence they would keep their new promises because they were already reneging on their old ones.

  In our 2013–15 budget, we had to increase spending on Medicaid by $644 million. Nearly 40 percent of that money—almost $208 million—was for the current costs of Medicaid that the federal government promised to cover but had reneged on, and other federal changes. If Washington cannot fulfill its current commitments, why on earth would we trust Congress and the administration to cover even bigger costs in the future—especially when they are sitting on a $16.7 trillion debt that is projected to reach $20 trillion by the end of Obama’s presidency?

  One of my first acts as governor was enabling our attorney general to join the lawsuit challenging Obamacare. And while I was disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law, thankfully the Court did rule that the Obama administration cannot force states to accept the Medicaid expansion. From the moment the Court issued its decision, I knew that I was going to turn it down. It would have been fiscally unsustainable and would have added tens of thousands of people to the Medicaid rolls when my goal was to have fewer people dependent on the government, not more.

  But I also wanted to reduce the number of uninsured people in our state. So instead of just simply rejecting the Medicaid expansion, as some governors did, I looked for a way to achieve that goal without putting more people on government health care. I approached my decision on Medicaid in much the same way I did my decision on collective bargaining. I had my staff examine all the possible alternatives and search for options to save money while making government work better for our citizens. And after two years of study, we came up with an i
nnovative approach that not only rejected the Medicaid expansion but also reduced both the number of people on Medicaid and the number of uninsured people in our state.

  Under our plan, every person in Wisconsin who is living in poverty will be covered by Medicaid. We removed the caps Governor Doyle imposed on the number of participants, while moving some eighty-seven thousand people living above poverty into the private or exchange markets, where they can get insurance premiums for as low as $19 per month.

  By doing this, we can give eighty-two thousand people currently living in poverty access to Medicaid they were once denied. By taking this approach, we will reduce overall the number of people in Medicaid while ensuring that, for the first time, 100 percent of those living under the poverty line are covered. At the same time, we will move the vast majority of people in our state into the marketplace and the exchanges. And we will reduce the total number of uninsured in Wisconsin by 244,580 people—a 47 percent decrease.

  Some argue that the exchanges, where many of those moved out of Medicaid will get their insurance, are still heavily subsidized. That is true. But it is far better to have people in subsidized exchanges than in Medicaid. In Medicaid, everything is covered by taxpayers at no cost to the individual. In the exchanges, people at least have to pay a premium that corresponds with their level of income and the level of coverage they choose. That is a step away from government dependence. And as their incomes rise, they will transition out of exchanges and into the private market.

  Some critics have said that people moving out of Medicaid will have trouble navigating all the choices in the exchanges, and will simply end up in the emergency room. If that’s their position, then their problem is with Obamacare, not with our plan. After all, the president is the one who created the exchanges in the first place.

  I could have simply rejected the Medicaid expansion. Instead we found an innovative way to have fewer people uninsured, fewer people in Medicaid, more people in the market, and 100 percent of the poor covered for the first time. Under our plan, the people of Wisconsin will have better health care and will be less dependent on government.

  Moreover, our Medicaid reforms addressed a fundamental problem with entitlements generally: Too many entitlement programs have expanded beyond their original purpose of helping the truly destitute. In Wisconsin, the expansion of Medicaid to cover people above the poverty line had actually denied many of those below the poverty line access to the program—because there was not enough money. It is this expansion of entitlements beyond their original intent that is bankrupting states and bankrupting our country.

  With our reforms, we are reclaiming Medicaid for those for whom it was intended: the poor. We are making the program sustainable now and for the future in order to keep the promises we have made to those who are truly in need—while moving people above the poverty level into the market with their neighbors and fellow workers.

  In addition to reforming Medicaid, we are also reforming Wisconsin’s unemployment assistance program. Recipients used to have to demonstrate that they were searching for work just twice a week. We raised that to five or more. When some in the legislature complained that five times was too burdensome, I replied that, quite frankly, I considered that too few. I am a preacher’s son. If I was unemployed, the voice of my father in my head would be telling me to get out there and look for work six times a week—and to take off Sunday to pray that I would find work the following day. So with all respect, I don’t think five days a week is an unrealistic expectation.

  We introduced similar reforms to our food stamp program. Right now, the federal government has a requirement that able-bodied, childless adults of working age have to either work or get employment training in order to receive food stamps. But in the past, forty-six of the fifty states have been granted a waiver from that requirement—including Wisconsin. Not anymore.

  At the end of 2012, I notified the federal government that Wisconsin would no longer be asking for that waiver. Instead, we established a training program for the 75,878 food stamp recipients in our state who are childless, able-bodied, working-age adults. Today, these individuals need to be either working part-time or signed up for one of our employment training programs in order to receive food stamps.

  The new program is part of a $100 million plan to expand and revitalize workforce development in Wisconsin. Because Act 10 allowed us to move from deficit to surplus, we are now able to increase resources for grants for employers, support for apprenticeships, programs for veterans, and funds for our technical colleges and University of Wisconsin System—all aimed at training citizens of our state for jobs in areas like manufacturing, information technology, and health care.

  The new approach is good for employers, who desperately need skilled workers to fill positions in areas like manufacturing and health care. It is good for taxpayers because the temporary cost of work training is less expensive than the cost of long-term government assistance. But most important of all, it is good for our fellow citizens in need because it gives them a chance to develop the skills they need to find good jobs, get off of government assistance, and once again enjoy the dignity of self-reliance and earned success.

  Last year, I learned about a young woman named Elizabeth. She was a single mom in Milwaukee who had fallen on hard times and was struggling to make ends meet. So she signed up for food stamps. Because she was a parent, and it was before we changed the waiver process, it was voluntary to sign up for employment training along with food stamps. But Elizabeth, to her credit, decided to take advantage of the employment training we offered. She enrolled at one of our technical colleges, worked hard, and became a certified nursing assistant (CNA).

  She was such an inspiring success story that when I announced in my 2013 budget address our initiative to require, and increase funding for, job training as part of reform of Wisconsin’s food stamp program, I asked Elizabeth to be there so I could introduce her and point her out in the gallery. She thanked me but said she couldn’t come that night. You know why? She had to work that day as a CNA, and then that night she had to attend class where she is studying to become a registered nurse.

  Elizabeth used the food stamp program exactly as it was intended—as a temporary hand up, not a permanent handout. She needed government assistance, but she did not want to be on government assistance. She wanted the dignity of work and the happiness that comes only from earned success.

  We want to share that dignity and happiness with all the people in our state.

  Sadly, it seems some folks in Washington measure success in government by how many people are dependent on the government. I measure success by just the opposite—by how many people are no longer dependent on the government. We want fewer people on government health care, fewer people receiving unemployment, fewer people on food stamps—not because they’ve been kicked to the curb but because they no longer need the help. We want to empower them with a job in the private sector and the dignity that comes from work.

  I don’t believe that most people grow up in America hoping that someday they will be dependent on the government. I don’t believe that most people come to this country as immigrants hoping for a handout. I believe most people want to live the American Dream. They want to live lives of dignity, independence, and self-reliance. They want the chance to work hard, pursue their dreams, and leave their children better off than they were.

  There’s a reason why in America we take a day off to celebrate the Fourth of July and not the fifteenth of April. In America, we value independence from the government and not dependence on it.

  Our reforms are moving citizens in Wisconsin from government dependence to true independence.

  We need to do the same for citizens across this great land of ours.

  CHAPTER 26

  The Lessons of Wisconsin Can Be Used in the Battle for America

  There is a lot conservatives can learn from the battle in Wiscons
in that can help us win the battle for America. We did a lot of things right in the fight over Act 10, but we also made a few mistakes. Here are some of the lessons learned from our experience that can help inform the larger debate over the future of our country.

  CHANGE THE POLLS, NOT YOUR PRINCIPLES

  If you know you are doing the right thing, and the polls say voters disagree, change the polls, not your principles. President Reagan used to look at polls not to determine his positions, but to see where he needed to do more to persuade the public. That’s a sign of true leadership.

  If I had listened to the polls during the fight over Act 10, I would have backed off of our plan. One poll found that if the gubernatorial election were held again, I would have lost to my opponent by seven points. My approval dropped to 37 percent. But I was so confident our reforms would work that I pressed forward into the political headwinds. And my confidence was vindicated. Our reforms did work. And voters stood with me in the recall election.

  I wanted to win, but I also wasn’t afraid to lose. I cared more about getting things done than getting reelected. That liberated me to take bold actions I might never have taken if my first priority had been political survival. Too many people in politics today spend their time trying not to lose instead of trying to do the right thing. I often say that politicians need to spend more time worrying about the next generation than the next election. The irony is that politicians who spend more time worrying about the next generation than the next election often tend to win the next election because voters are starved for leadership.

  DON’T COMPROMISE YOUR PRINCIPLES BUT DO BE WILLING TO COMPROMISE

  Another important lesson is that while it’s important not to compromise your principles, do be willing to compromise.

  My original plan for Act 10 was to eliminate collective bargaining altogether for all government workers. But when my staff pointed out that police and firefighters could go on strike, possibly endangering public safety, I didn’t hesitate to exempt them.