Q&A: Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker states his case to be elected Wisconsin governor in 2010

Send to friend

Scott Walker has a big job. As Milwaukee County executive, he's in charge of the government of by far the largest county in the state — and the county with the biggest problems.

But he has his sights set on an even bigger job — governor of Wisconsin.

Walker is running for the Republican nomination against former congressman Mark Neumann and three other candidates. If he wins the September primary, he'll likely take on Milwaukee mayor and Democratic candidate Tom Barrett next November.

Walker was in Appleton on Tuesday and met with The Post-Crescent editorial board about his vision of governing the state. Here's an edited transcript of the interview:

What the biggest problem in the state and what is it going to take to solve it?

Without a doubt, jobs. People are scared to death about losing their own job, their spouse's job, their kids' jobs.

I think it's going to take a series of things. I think it's going to take undoing the damage that's already been done, as well as taking a couple of giant steps forward. That means making it more attractive to do business here, keep and grow business and attract new jobs to the state.

And that's everything from lowering the tax burden to easing the regulatory burden, really dealing with a lot of the legal burdens that small and mid-sized employers face, and ultimately providing an option for particularly small and mid-sized employers to have affordable health care — not necessarily government-run health care but have government being involved as a partner in helping them get access.

Taxes, regulation, litigation and health care are the biggest challenges we face and where government can play a role, but making it clear that government doesn't create jobs. It creates an environment that's positive or negative for creating jobs.

What are the tax burdens that should be reduced to help create jobs?

The big industries in the state are manufacturing, agriculture and tourism. And yet much of the focus lately in the state Capitol is not on any of those categories.

Manufacturing is the largest piece of the state economy and yet often those industries are treated like ugly stepchildren in the state Capitol.

I'd love to reduce the tax burden on employers, specifically on manufacturers. If there's a way to tie that to job retention and growth, that would make sense.

If you're going to reduce the tax burden, while addressing a structural deficit estimated at $2 billion, what are you going to cut to balance the budget?

To balance the budget, it takes two things — spending controls combined with a growth strategy.

On the spending control side, it takes a series of things, but most important, creating a balance between public-sector and private-sector wages and benefits.

If you compare where government employees are at all levels with the private sector, there's a complete unbalance.

When you talk about, at the local and state level, employees paying next to nothing in premiums for health care, very few in the private sector are looking at that. With just some modest adjustments there, it would provide significant long-term savings.

I'd do a series of other changes. As county executive in Milwaukee County, the mess we inherited is similar to the mess the next governor will inherit.

We reduced our debt by 10 percent already and by the time my building plan is done, through 2012, we'll reduce our debt by 28 percent. I've reduced the size of my workforce by over 20 percent by contracting out for services and through attrition.

On the growth side, I actually think you can increase revenues if you make some strategic and aggressive tax cuts. …

I believe if we were to end the state income tax on retirement earnings, we could actually fundamentally shift money to be invested in the state of Wisconsin.

As governor, I'd sign the legislation and go down to Sedona and Naples and Tampa and Austin and hold welcome-home parties. I'd say we want the human capital back but we also want the financial capital back.

We want the wealth that financial adviser after financial adviser is telling people in their retirement years to send it somewhere else.

What's an appropriate percentage for public employees to contribute for health care benefits?

I asked in my original budget for county employees to make a 5 percent contribution to their retirement and a 15 percent contribution to their health care.

The system we inherited had a fixed-dollar amount, not a percentage, which is a huge problem because there's no skin in the game for anybody. …

It not only helps drive down the cost to taxpayers but I think when you have people having a greater involvement in their health care decisions, it drives the overall use of health care down, which also helps everybody else in the private sector.

But a lot of those people you'll be asking to pay more for benefits are in unions. They aren't going to give that up so easily. How do you solve that?

We've gone the opposite track in this budget. Gov. Doyle and the legislative majority eliminated the Qualified Economic Offer.

To me, instead of eliminating it, we should be putting it in — and we can do that through the statutes, not just through collective bargaining.

The one complaint that many teachers who are friends of mine said about that situation, up until that last budget, was, why were they singled out?

And I agree. I'd like to see that reform, particularly on the benefits side, so that the true ability to pay should be accounted for.

So you would actually, in effect, favor expanding the QEO to affect all government employees?

I think you have to, yeah. I'd like to see some restraints in terms of providing real property tax relief both for our residents and our employers.

But to ensure that you do that and not jeopardize core local government services, you've got to free up local government officials to not be strangled by things like mediation and arbitration and, now, the lack of a QEO.

How should the school funding formula be changed?

There's got to be a greater balance. There's got to be, built into the system, not only a greater sense of fairness but there have to be things that encourage not necessarily consolidations of districts but consolidation of services.

The more we can encourage greater consolidation of services and efficiencies, I think those are all strengths.

Do I today have a white paper on reforming the school aid formula? No. One of the benefits of coming out in April is that I get to spend about a year and a half having a conversation about it.

Stepping back to the formula, we need to have a state where every kid has access, within obvious financial reason, to the best possible education, be it public, be it charter, be it private or be it home-school settings.

The reform that we're going to have to have to ultimately improve the school aid formula is going to have to take a number of things into account.

And, it goes back to the whole jobs scenario, but you can't tackle the hold-harmless component you're going to need to balance out the winners and losers in a school aid formula unless you have revenue gain and not revenue loss in the state.

Any time you can have a printout where there are winners and losers, you're going to lose on reform.

It's a pretty tough time to be a leader at any level. Why do you want to be the leader of the state now?

I'm an eternal optimist. I have great faith in people. In that regard, I think great challenges bring great opportunities.

I think sometimes the things we really need to do, we as a people, not just elected officials, are reluctant to do when things are pretty good. It's only at times of real challenges that we make changes that are not just important for the times but provide a much greater benefit into the future, but we're only willing to do it because of the times we're in.

From a jobs standpoint, there are things we have been unwilling in this state do for years to put us in a better business climate because we were relatively well off before.

Right now, people are doing it in their own lives. We're saying, "I have to do without certain things." That gives us a tremendous opportunity in government.

http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20091125/APC06/911250543/1979