(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s governor says politics sank last week’s $1.8 billion tax deal, but he is also saying that he didn’t do much to help the deal.
Gov. Tony Evers sat for an interview with UpFront on Channel 12. He blamed Wisconsin Senate Democrats, Republicans at the Capitol, and Republican candidate for governor Tom Tiffany for the tax package’s failure.
“It’s all politics,” the governor said. “We had it. We worked with the leadership, majority leadership in both houses, and things were in a place where I thought, everybody thought, that we’d be in good shape, and in the Assembly, it did work that way; in the Senate it didn’t. And we could blame Tom [Tiffany] because he reached out to people, but at the end of the day, whatever he does in his spare time isn’t really germane to me.”
The tax plan would have meant tax rebates of up to $600 for married couples, as well as no taxes on tips or overtime, and $600 million for schools.
Tiffany, who is the only Republican running to replace Evers, said on the morning of the vote that he wouldn’t vote for the package if he was still at the Capitol.
“The Tiffany thing sure didn’t help, when he’s corralling people, saying, you know, ‘If you vote for this, you’re going to be in a bad place,’ whatever he was saying,” Evers added.
But the plan died because every Senate Democrat voted against it. The governor then admitted that he didn’t look to change their minds.
“It was a done deal. After that it kind of fell apart,” Evers said.
Evers said he didn’t try and whip any Democratic votes or change the minds of Democratic senators.
Instead, he blamed them for playing politics.
“They believe that somehow putting money back into people’s pockets that are struggling financially across the state, apparently they don’t believe that’s an issue,” Evers said “They’re going to say, ‘Well, we’re going to fix it next time when all these wonderful things happen after Evers is gone, and we’ll get a new governor and we’ll have Democrats all over the place.’ That’s fine. That’s a wish list.”
