January 25, 2012

 

PRESS STATEMENT

The following is the statement of Senate Democratic Leader Mark Miller reaction to Early Excerpts from Governor Walker’s State of the State Address:

“Obviously it is the Governor’s job to be a cheerleader for Wisconsin in his State of the State Address.  A Governor should be proud of his policies and suggest they are working to make the state a better place to live, work and play.  However, it is unclear from his early excerpts that he truly understands the state of the state for working families.

Six straight months of job loss since his policies have been implemented hardly make the case that Wisconsin is moving forward.

He touts property tax decreases, but omits his tax increases on seniors and working families by cutting the Homestead Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit programs.

Giving $2.36 billion worth of tax credits to big corporations and special interest at the expense of investments in education, health care, and jobs, makes it hard to look past his suggestion that he feels the pain of hard working families and small businesses.

Democrats have heard from employers as well.  They have told us time and again, they need help training workers for good paying high demand jobs that are available today, especially in manufacturing.  He does little to address the training needs of workers in his excerpts.

We are all hopeful there will be more to come tonight in his speech about job training, because the $71 million cut to the technical college in his budget is all we have to judge him on.

We all support the elimination of waste, fraud and abuse.  However, Governor Walker’s idea to create another bureaucratic board to cut down on red tape just seems like a ruse.  Not to mention, the creation of the board is based on a failed commission that issued a report fraught with misrepresentation.

These are not innovative ideas nor do they create jobs for Wisconsin working families now.

Democrats will continue to fight to create well-paying jobs, support new economy industry and research, preserve access to quality affordable health care for children, families and seniors, ensure our children have access to a world class education and workers have job training, target tax savings to the middle class, working families and small businesses that need it most, and protect our clean air and water.

We are ready to work together to move our state forward – cutting where we can, investing where we must, protecting critical community services, and building a more prosperous future for all Wisconsinites.

We look forward to the Governor’s speech tonight, and are hopeful he will promote real job creation ideas, whether they are introduced by Republicans or Democrats.”

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