Frederica Freyberg:
But first all eyes were on Gov. Doyle Tuesday night as he made his way to the podium inside the packed chamber, members of both houses gathering, as well as Supreme Court justices, tribal leaders and special guests. He focused on jobs, the economy, education and getting green. Gov. Jim Doyle joins us now. Thanks very much for doing so. We want to tick through some of your priorities, but we want to start with trains. Now, Wisconsin got more than $800 million for high-speed rail between Madison and Milwaukee. How many jobs do you project that might bring?

Jim Doyle:
Well, in the end five years from now when you look back, I'm not going to say a number because it will be — but it is clearly thousands and thousands of jobs, from the construction — and this is the money — this starts because this leg then moves on — the line moves on from Madison to the Twin Cities so that for years to come the construction — it's a huge, huge construction job. Operating the railroad. But, in addition, Wisconsin will be manufacturing the passenger rail trains. There will be servicing yards for these trains as well that are agreed about, agreed upon will be in Wisconsin. There are hundreds and hundreds of jobs involved there, long-term, good-paying jobs. In the first year it’s projected very reasonably, 1200, 1500 jobs. In the second year as the ramp-up takes place, probably looking at a total that year of 4,000 jobs. It's enormous. And it also is going to be transformative. Madison now connected by the most modern rail in the entire country with Chicago, Milwaukee's service which is already one of the most heavily used — it is the most heavily used train service outside of either coast in the United States now becomes modernized. It is transformative.

Frederica Freyberg:
How did Wisconsin fare compared to other states?

Jim Doyle:
We're the biggest winner of them all. There are a few states that got more money, but they're talking about California getting $1.2 billion, Wisconsin getting $800 million. We were funded entirely, our entire request was funded, which I think we may have been the only one that that happened for. And the reason is because we're ready to go. A lot of the money that will go into the other states is really for them to begin to prepare to put these lines in. In Wisconsin, we have the right-of-way, we've done the engineering, the environmental work. We are ready to go. So — and we also made the commitment as a state — it was very clear they were ready to bet on us because we had already made the commitment to move in this direction with the purchase of these trains. So we fared better than any state in the United States.

Frederica Freyberg:
So do you think we should call this the Doyle Express?  

Jim Doyle:
No. You know — I want it to be the Gatsby Express. Because for anyone who’s read The Great Gatsby, it ends with the narrator coming to his hometown of St. Paul after this experience that he’s lived through on Long Island. The final chapter, he's on a train coming through the Wisconsin countryside from Chicago heading to Minneapolis. So I've always wanted this to be called the Gatsby Express.

Frederica Freyberg:
You said you wanted to act quickly to pass the Clean Energy Jobs Act and you say that this would create 15,000 jobs?

Jim Doyle:
Yes. This will create — it already has created — in Wisconsin four years ago, we enacted the new portfolio standards which is a fancy word. It says 10 percent of our energy by 2015 would come from renewable sources. That law, passed four years ago, with Republicans, by the way, has already created thousands of jobs in Wisconsin. The wind industry has grown here dramatically. What I am saying is that what we should do is move that standard to 25 percent by 2025. And there is no doubt what that does is drive investment and create jobs and clean energy.

Frederica Freyberg:
But what the business lobby is saying, WMC namely, that these will be government-subsidized jobs and that they just don't like it. Costs more than it's worth.

Jim Doyle:
It's just ridiculous. I mean, much of their objection has been to cap and trade, which is a national piece of legislation. It's not included in this legislation at all. Second, we're not talking about a public subsidy. What we are talking about is that as utilities make investments in what their future energy needs will be, they have to be in renewable sources. It has already worked tremendously in Wisconsin. And up until about four weeks ago, five weeks ago, Republicans all supported this. But then the whole — you know, the heat turned on in Washington and the partisanship against President Obama and all of that and somehow they have really switched their position here. I only need to remind people that renewable portfolio standards were enacted by a Republican-controlled legislature when I was governor of Wisconsin. It was a strong bipartisan effort and it has worked tremendously in this state.

Frederica Freyberg:
Let's talk about cuts. You said in the State of the State that you were going to need to make good on $200 million in cuts. Would those be across the board again or kind of targeted?

Jim Doyle:
They'll be targeted. I have — we have managed this very — compared to most states, we've managed it very well. Our schools and universities have not seen the kind of devastation that's happened in other parts. We've maintained health care for people in Wisconsin. We're going to continue to do that. It’s going to be another tough round, but compared to the $3 billion that we’ve made, we're going to be able to manage this. I want to emphasize, these cuts were — when I signed the budget, I vetoed an additional $200 million in spending to give us the cushion that we needed. Not surprisingly, the forecasts right now are about $200 million less than what were forecasted. These cuts are already part of the budget. This isn't going to require us to go back and redo the budget.

Frederica Freyberg:
Education. We remarked on the night of the State of the State that you seemed most passionate in your address when you got to the part about Milwaukee Public Schools. And yet now the special session has ended and people are declaring this dead, this mayoral takeover of the Milwaukee Public Schools. What is your reaction to that?

Jim Doyle:
It's far from dead. In Milwaukee four of the five senators who represent families that have children in MPS schools, four of the five support this bill. There is strong support for it. The fact that one house on an administrative matter closed out a special session. This bill is also before the legislature right now. It's not going to go away. I hope everybody listened to the President of the United States. In that speech, what he said, and these were almost exactly as I remember them, the president's exact words, in Race to the Top, he said, we are not going to reward failure. We are going to reward success. We are going to go to those states that are willing to challenge the status quo. We're watching people in Milwaukee now desperately clinging to a status quo and I think they're finding it very, very hard. When you look at what has happened in Milwaukee with all the investments the state has made, the federal government has made, and the test scores, the average — and averages aren't fair because a lot of students are doing better — but the average in Milwaukee Public Schools, the average is equal to special education students throughout the rest of the state. I don't know how anybody can defend this system right now. Obviously, as I said, change is hard. Taking on the status quo is hard. I love the Milwaukee Public Schools. I know many wonderful teachers and great principals. But it does not have clear, consistent, long-term reform leadership. That's what it needs.

Frederica Freyberg:
President Obama also said in his State of the Union that he felt as though the partisan stalemate needed to come to an end, whereby every day is election day. It was evidenced in our state during the State of the State when one side would stand and applaud and the other side would sit silent. Is it naive for voters to expect more?

Jim Doyle:
No. They should expect more. You just brought up three really good topics. Green energy has never been a partisan issue in this state until about, as I say, four, five, six weeks ago, when the National Association of Manufacturers turned on the heat and then everybody started doing this. The tax ranking. I don't think Republicans like to hear the fact that in the 20 years before I was governor we were always in the top 10. We were ranked number four when I took over. We are now 15th. Ironically, they should take credit for that. There was a Republican legislature during many of those years. So you’d think they would be standing up and saying they were part of that effort. So, you see, even in things that they have supported, if it's coming out of a Democrat's mouth — and you saw that with the president. Here's my view. I think that, you know, I just want to say this clearly. We've got a great president and he is going to get reelected three years from now. Let's at least give a president a couple years to come in and do what needs to be done before you start to destroy him. And they started from the day he first took office.

Frederica Freyberg:
Jim Doyle, thanks very much.

Jim Doyle:
Thank you.