The leaders who are supposed to govern in our name are squandering a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in our future. The Senate’s decision to approve this budget, without the amendments it so desperately needs, will reverberate over the next couple of years and beyond. We deserve better.
Under Governor Evers’ budget proposal, our schools, small businesses, and local governments would receive the resources they need to give every Wisconsinite the opportunity to keep a roof over their family’s heads, put food on the table, and get access to a doctor when they are sick. Under the budget passed by the Assembly, the rich get richer and everyone else keeps struggling. That’s not how Wisconsinites treat their neighbors, and we’re calling on the Senate to vote down a budget that fails to invest in us.
Republicans know their ideas aren’t popular, so they want to rig the rules to make it more difficult for Wisconsinites to have a say, all the while handing tax breaks to their wealthy friends and corporations. The good news is that we have leaders like Governor Evers and Democrats in the state legislature alongside Senator Baldwin and Representatives Moore, Kind and Pocan to stand up for our freedom to vote and fight for a future where we all get what we need.
Instead of putting Wisconsin on the path towards a vibrant economy and good jobs for our residents, Republicans are taking us down a dead end, with vindictive cuts to public transit and insufficient access to the DMV. There is a better roadmap forward, and it includes supporting Gov. Evers’ budget plan that invests helping workers get to work.
On Tuesday, the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau updated its revenue estimates, revealing that the state is poised to have billions more than previously expected. This new information snatches away the final fig leaf for legislative Republicans who have attempted to defund popular and necessary services, including education, job training, and financial aid for technical college and University of Wisconsin students.
Republican leaders evidently wouldn’t know good policy if it showed up and knocked on their door. Legal cannabis would mean pain relief for those suffering from cancer, eliminating unnecessary criminal records and barriers to employment, fewer people in our prisons, and more money in our coffers.
We all share the goal of getting Wisconsinites back to work, in well-paying jobs that support a family. The best thing we can do to advance that goal is to respect our workers. That means taking up the policies proposed by Gov. Evers in his budget that would make sure Wisconsin workers have a voice on the job, the freedom to bargain together, good wages, and benefits like family and medical leave.
Governor Evers’ budget makes bold, strategic investments in the things we need for a better future for everyone in Wisconsin, and his plan to support public schools in every community and for all students shows that. The cuts Republicans made to the proposed education aren’t just fiscally irresponsible, they are a disservice to our children.
Instead of bringing good jobs to their communities and expanding BadgerCare to people making less than $18,000 per year, Republicans in the State Legislature are playing politics with our lives and livelihoods. It’s time to expand BadgerCare and live up to our Wisconsin ideals of caring for our neighbors and building stronger and more vibrant communities.
BadgerCare Expansion exemplifies what the Evers administration is all about: working towards popular, bipartisan policies that would make a real difference in Wisconsinites’ lives. It is time for Republicans to come together with Democrats to make this healthier, more prosperous future a reality.