Opposition grew to the governor's budget proposal to borrow one-point-three billion dollars for highway projects, instead of raising taxes-and-fees for them. Speaker Robin Vos repeated his concerns about building up the state's debt. Still, Vos said new money has to be found to pay for necessary roads. Hazelhurst Senator Tom Tiffany said the transportation funding plan gives him the "biggest heartburn" of anything in the two-year, 68-billion dollar budget. Earlier Wednesday, a coalition of a dozen groups of road builders, local governments, and labor unions criticized the increased bonding.
State Representative Rob Swearingen of Rhinelander said he was pleased to hear some things from his Task Force on Rural Schools efforts last year...
".....so my hope is that it survives the Joint Finance(Committee) and at the end of the cycle here before July 1, hopefully these rural schools get some much needed relief...."
Democratic State Senator Janet Bewley from Ashland says many items in the proposed budget trouble her. She mocked Governor Walker's theme of Freedom and Prosperity, saying there wasn't much there for northern Wisconsin...
".....other than a rather glossy title of Freedom and Prosperity, I didn't hear anything in what he had to say that would enhance the freedom or propsperity of the people of the north...."
She says the revenue limits on local governments and school districts will continue to hurt them, and was disturbed with an effort to seize local control from those governments, and the making of the Natural Resources Board as an advisory group to the DNR secretary. She says the proposed changes for the UW System and local schools will hurt education.