Brookfield Lawmakers Praise Walker for Making Tough Choices

As far as newly elected state Rep. Dale Kooyenga is concerned, Gov. Scott Walker's budget address Tuesday was all about keeping the promises that Republicans made last fall on the campaign trail.

“There wasn’t a person on our side of the aisle who didn’t campaign at least some of the major points in the governor’s speech,” Kooyenga said Tuesday, shortly after Walker unveiled his budget plan.

“One, balancing the budget.

“Two, drastically reducing the structural deficit.

“Three, creating jobs.

“Four, not raiding segregated funds.

“And five, do all of those without raising taxes or fees.”

Democrats will disagree, but Kooyenga, a Brookfield Republican elected in November, said Walker and the rest of the GOP are leading the state in the direction it needs to go.

“For the longest time, we’ve elected politicians in this state," he said. "Now we’ve elected leaders, leaders who are saying we are here to do what’s right."

Kooyenga pointed out that there are no gimmicks in Walker's budget, which will reduce the state's structural deficit from $2.5 billion to $250 million, mostly by cuts in spending and reductions in state aid to schools and municipalities.

“Wisconsin’s budget in the recent past has followed Enron accounting," Kooyenga said. "Walker is the first governor in many years who has not pursued fraudulent budgeting.”

The same point was made Tuesday by Brookfield's other state representative, Republican Paul Farrow.

“We needed to reduce spending at the state level, we needed to quit raiding segregated funds and we needed to get our structural deficit in order,” he said. “It’s a difficult decision that had to be made.”

Farrow said moving some of the transportation funding items around into the general revenue is similar to how other states handle transportation funding.

“I think the governor took a good step forward looking at alternative ways to fund transportation, which is going to be one of the biggest keys we have for infrastructure growth," Farrow said.

Farrow said he believes most of what Walker proposed will be passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

“We’re in a bad time, we need to get ourselves in order, there are going to be some short-term adjustments that will have to be made,” he said.

State Sen. Rich Zipperer, a Republican whose district also includes part of Brookfield, said Walker is addressing "our state’s problems today, instead of once again pushing them off to the future.”

"Walker put forward his budget proposal which will balance the state’s books without raising taxes or fees, and without raiding segregated funds," he said in a statement. "The families and job creators in the fourth most taxed state in the nation simply cannot afford to expand the size of government.”