Frederica Freyberg:
As we mentioned, one side of the Assembly chambers was more supportive of the governor's view of the State of the State than the other. Republicans gathered immediately after the speech in the Assembly parlor to respond to the governor's views. Among them was Assembly Minority Leader Jeff Fitzgerald. He joins us now. Well, $800 million in federal money for rail line, $55 million for big manufacturers to bring down energy costs, tax incentives from the state, credits for capital investments and yet you guys still don't like it.

Jeff Fitzgerald:
I think Gov. Doyle in his State of the State tried to basically tell the people of the state of Wisconsin that Wisconsin's doing great and we're doing the right things. But unfortunately he's not telling the other side of the story and that is that Democrats and Jim Doyle, by raising taxes by almost $5 billion in their first five months in charge here, really has hurt jobs and the growth of business in the state of Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
We should suggest that that $5 billion is taxes and fees, right?

Jeff Fitzgerald:
That is correct.

Frederica Freyberg:
Not just straight across the board taxes. And I think you took great exception when he started talking about our tax rankings, which he defends and says it's true. He says you can't say it's not true that our rankings have gotten better.

Jeff Fitzgerald:
Yeah. And I think Gov. Doyle once again is leaving out the other half of the story there. Those are numbers back from 2007, 2008. And back then Assembly Republicans controlled the chamber. And if people remember, there was a huge budget debate and a budget fight that went into the fall, where Democrats were at $18 billion and Republicans were at zero. Now, we settled at about $400 million difference there to pass that budget, which moved us down in the rankings. But if we would have passed that $18 billion then, that would have put us in the top five. And he forgot to leave out that now that with the $5 billion they passed in this session, that will put us back into the top ten.

Frederica Freyberg:
Now, it always begs the question when you talk about the increase in taxes and fees. We were facing this gigantic budget deficit of truly crisis proportion. So what instead would the Republicans have done?

Jeff Fitzgerald:
Well, I think you have to look at it and try to grow your way out of a budget deficit. And what you shouldn't do is tax people during the worst recession we've seen in 80 years. So the only way to kind of get out of a budget deficit of $6 billion is to cut your spending and put incentives out there to make Wisconsin more competitive from a business standpoint and grow your way out of this economy.

Frederica Freyberg:
Now, we do have some of those incentives in there and we've heard about companies that have relocated from other states to come here just because of those kinds of incentives.

Jeff Fitzgerald:
I think Gov. Doyle mentioned a few of those companies, but he's kind of cherry picking. It surprises me that he didn't mention Thomas Products company up in the Sheboygan area left the state due to higher taxes. Briggs & Stratton also left the state due to higher taxes. When that tax was imposed earlier this year, businesses, you had Harley-Davidson two weeks later, you know, when they took a $20 plus million hit, lay off 400 plus people. They can say there's some stuff out there, but the overall tax climate here for businesses in Wisconsin has driven jobs out of the state.

Frederica Freyberg:
If you had your way, you would reverse the combined reporting.

Jeff Fitzgerald:
Absolutely. I think that would be a first step. I think what you have to do is become more competitive. We're losing a lot of jobs to states like Georgia, Louisiana, even Michigan. That's because these states are getting very aggressive. They're setting up super funds where you can go out and not only retain jobs, but attract new ones.

Frederica Freyberg:
What do you do about the need for revenue in these times? We've cut spending across the board, 10 percent cuts, the furloughs, more to come. What more would you cut?

Jeff Fitzgerald:
Well, that's the fallacy that's out there. We didn't cut spending. This year's budget, there was a 6 percent increase in spending at the state level and they went to the people of Wisconsin to reach in their pockets one more time to pay for it. You know, when you look at the state budget from last session to this session, you went from $58 billion to $62 billion. So how they can say that is cutting spending is not the overall case. They'd like to lead you to believe that that's what they did, but I think people can do simple math. When one budget goes from $58 billion to $62 billion, there wasn't anything cut.

Frederica Freyberg:
Do the Republicans have a sense of a targeted cut that they would make that would make a difference?

Jeff Fitzgerald:
I think what you have to do now is look at incentives to spur growth and I think there's a couple proposals that when Republicans took office here early last January, we went on the road and started the Wisconsin Jobs Now task force and went across the state and actually talked and had round-table discussions with actual business people and said, what can we do to help you create jobs in Wisconsin and help to keep jobs here? And one of the big things we heard was the overall tax burden. But another thing we heard was, please give us a jobs tax credit. So, in other words, if you're hiring employees, you're going to get a tax break there, which frees up some capital for them to hire actual people.

Frederica Freyberg:
Let's talk about clean energy jobs. The governor says this is a good idea, not just for the environment, but for the economy.  

Jeff Fitzgerald:
Yeah, and I think he was referring to the global warming bill that's out there right now. And, you know, personally I don't think anybody's against green jobs. But at what cost and are you substituting that for manufacturing jobs here in the state of Wisconsin. And the way the bill is in its current form, you know, you will create some of these so-called green jobs, but you're also going to lose manufacturing jobs.

Frederica Freyberg:
Why?

Jeff Fitzgerald:
Because what you're doing is you're going to have to take that renewable energy source, they're going to take that and move it up to, you know, 25 percent renewable by the year 2025. So that is not — you know, you're basically looking at wind and solar energy to do that. It's not an efficient way of creating energy. So that mandate put on companies is going to cost them in their electric rates which will then get passed on to consumers. There's been a study done. It looks like Wisconsin would lose about 43,000 manufacturing jobs if this was put into place.

Frederica Freyberg:
One last item and that is Milwaukee Public Schools. The governor still continues to push on mayoral takeover of the Milwaukee Public Schools. Can't everyone agree that kind of all of Wisconsin needs to help Milwaukee schools?

Jeff Fitzgerald:
Well, Milwaukee, MPS definitely does need help. For years we've seen the Democrats say, we should just throw more money at the problem. We have seen that it hasn't fixed that. But it was kind of ironic how the governor basically tried to say that we can't be partisan on this issue. And the real problem is is that Democrats don't agree on what should be done with MPS. They can't even get the people that actually represent the city of Milwaukee all on the same page. So I have yet to talk to anybody on the governor's staff or the governor that has not reached out to me or any of my members to ask us where we are on this issue.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. We need to leave it there. Jeff Fitzgerald, thanks very much.

Jeff Fitzgerald:
Thank you.