Ari Fleischer is speaking  |   Home  |   Jed’s Song O’ The Day - 7 May 2005

Speaker John Gard

Earlier today, Owen had the opportunity to interview Assembly Speaker and likely 8th CD candidate John Gard.  Owen was geek enough to record the thing, but not geek enough to manage to get some kind of transcription software, so he used his old standby:  me. 

Thank you, Speaker Gard, for taking the time to sit down with Owen.

The interview is in the extended text.  I’m sure Owen will provide analysis as soon as he gets the chance.

Owen:  Which of your accomplishments in the Assembly are you the most proud of?

Speaker John Gard:  I think there’s two.  One, being part of a team that’s I think brought a conservative majority to the Wisconsin legislature and one that we believe we are turning into a permanent majority.  And that is, you know, years of work and effort fighting on issues from tax reform, welfare reform, education reform, a variety of things that impact all the communities we represent.  So.  When I started there were 58 Democrats and 41 Republicans and today there’s 60 Republicans and 39 Democrats and what that has done is brought a much more pro-life legislature, a much more taxpayer friendly legislature, and, you know, we’re not perfect, but that has impacted everything the state’s been doing and I think that’s for the better.  So that’s the thing you’re most proud of because it is sort of the summary of all your work. 

The second thing is I was the author of W-2.  And at a time when a lot of conservatives still were thinking like a minority it was the first major, fundamental policy reform in Wisconsin when we took over the majority.  And really, as I said before, we tried to change the state and we ended up changing the nation because when I started to work with members of congress and work with other legislators from other states and our welfare model has become the model for the nation.  And, you know, we started out with 97,000 families on AFDC in the early 90s and we’re down to just under 10,000 and it’s completely changed the way government- and taxpayer-aid is dealt with.  So those are two things I’m the most proud of.

O:  Speaking of W-2, did you happen to read Sheriff David Clarke’s recent column regarding W-2? 

JG:  I didn’t read his, but I saw Barbara Lawton’s.  Sheriff Clarke is, I think, a phenomenally good guy and somebody..I really value his friendship.  He stops in to see me whenever he’s in town and we think a lot alike.  There is a group of folks in Madison right now who are trying to rewrite reality and act like if you could just get more people into these programs, somehow welfare would be better. The fundamental issue here is are we prepared to see this through and change the generations of dependency?  There are some of the providers in Milwaukee that have really screwed up, but the vast majority of the people who come to the taxpayer and ask for help do pretty well and are no longer required to stay poor. 

O:  So you see it more as a culture change rather than just throwing more money after the same old stuff? 

JG:  I mean, I’ve looked into the eyes of a lot of young women in meetings I had in Milwaukee and other parts of the state when I dealt with this.  And the number of people that I met who were in the third generation of reliance on the AFDC really sort of jolted me and I think a number of my colleagues.  And you know, it’s not perfect, it’s not easy to be poor, but I say to folks, it’s not supposed to be.  And the government is there to try to give people opportunity, not to guarantee success.  I mean, it’s up to every individual in this great country to seize the opportunities provided.  I mean, if you’ve got young children, out of wedlock and you need some help, we’ll help you with food stamps, help you with childcare, help with medical care, but you have to go get a job.  Because that’s how you build yourself up and W-2’s been pretty successful. 

O:  Now, you’ve been in the Assembly for awhile now, you’ve cast a lot of votes, made a lot of decisions, any one vote you would like to take back?

JG:  Huh.  I haven’t really thought about that, because I just, every day I just try to think about what’s next.  And you’ve got to stay focused on moving forward, not thinking about what’s in the rearview mirror.  And I am far from perfect, and when you’ve cast the number of votes I’ve cast, you’re going to mess up once or twice.  But everybody does.  The fact of the matter is, we are trying to bring a more conservative, family-friendly government to Wisconsin and I think we’ve made progress.  I’ll give you an example.  A couple of years ago, for several summers in a row, I was asked to sort of lead the budget conference committee when Chuck Chvala was leading the state Senate. I had to support things that I lost sleep over having to do, but in the end, we just stayed focused on our belief that eventually the conservatives would win in the state Senate, which they have.  And you know, you’ve got to govern. And one time, some time some conservatives want to throw grenades but they’re afraid to govern.  And I believe that the vast majority of people in this state are conservative.  I believe they want conservatives to govern, and they want us to lead.  And that’s what I do.  And I don’t spend a lot of time looking in the rearview mirror.

O:  Regarding some specific policy issues…As we know, TABOR is coming up.  The Lassee/Wood version’s been introduced.  What do you see as the future for TABOR?  When do you think it will be brought to a floor vote?  Do you think that version will stand or do you think it will take major modifications? And where does it go from here?

JG:  I’ve co-sponsored the Lassee/Wood version.  But I think you’ve got to focus on building a working majority.  Glenn Grothman and I talked a lot about this.  He’s got a different dynamic than I have in the State Assembly, I want to go out and give people a reason to be in favor of this, not get up and point fingers at those who are against.  And I think Frank spends way too much time picking on people.  You’ve got to go into any place you can find and give people a reason to say yes.  And that’s what you do when you lead.  So, I’m optimistic that eventually it’s going to happen.  It doesn’t matter if we vote for it this May or next May, we can’t get it to the people before April 2007.  So I’ve got to get through this budget first, we’ve got a couple other issues we’re working, but in the meantime, I think you just got to build one vote at a time.  I don’t want to have a stare down with the Senate, I think there’s enough good people on both sides who want to do the right thing.  I think any version that’s out there right now, is likely to have some modifications to it.  But the goal here is to have a government that over time sees personal income rise significantly faster than the tax burden. 

O:  Now, as I look at the Lassee/Wood version, and I like a lot of things about it, one thing about it that I’m not crazy about is the exemption for state mandates.  I think that leaves a lot of room for definitional disputes there down the road.  How do you feel about that provision of that bill? 

JG:  No version that will pass will be perfect.  I think what you bring up is a legitimate concern.  I think Frank, to his credit, is trying on some of these to reach out to some of the criticisms he’s received.  But TaxPayer Bill Of Rights is one answer.  My belief is that a conservative governor and two conservative houses of legislature is another answer.  I think you’ve got to not put all your eggs in one basket.  And you get to the mandates, and the reality is, you will be tied up in courts forever if you put mandates in there. And I think people, if they vote for the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, they will do so believing it’s actually going to make a difference.  So you need a coalition of the willing, as I keep saying in the legislature to fix a lot of the mandate problems we’ve got.  And I think that’s one way to address it.  But, again, you can’t do anything if you don’t get 50.  So you’ve got to get to 50. 

O: What about concealed carry?  It’s an issue that frustrated a lot of us when the override failed by the one vote from Sherman switching last year.  Any prospects for that coming to a vote soon?

JG:  I think two things.  I think it’s something that we will not do before we deal with the state budget.  My hope is that we can build support among the law enforcement community.  I’ve talked to probably 20 sheriffs around the state, working with them to try to find a way to get them to cool their jets and be supportive of it.  I represent a district which borders the UP, where they have concealed carry.  And I bet you there’s not 20 people up there who know it.  So all of these scare tactics are just that, scare tactics.  It works, 47 other states can’t be wrong.  And my hope is that, I know we had the votes to pass it, but our goal is how to get around Jim Doyle.  So that’s why I think we’ve got to spend our time with the law enforcement community to try to get some of those folks on board.

O:  Regarding the voter ID bill, obviously it just got vetoed.  The override failed.  You’re proposing a constitutional amendment to put voter ID in there. As a conservative, I have to confess, I’m fairly uneasy with that, because it seems like more of a policy issue than a constitutional issue to me.  You being a conservative as well, what convinces you that the constitution is the right place for that bill? 

JG:  I think if you lose faith in the election process, you lose faith in your elected government.  And at the core of our constitution, the core of our democracy, is the right to vote.  We’ve changed the constitution twice in the past about the vote.  In the past, minorities didn’t have the right to vote.  Women didn’t have the right to vote.  And the people rose up and said, “Wait a second. That’s just not right.”  And we fixed it.  There are 12,000 faulty addresses that we know of.  It’s getting worse.  And there’s no end in sight as long as Jim Doyle is governor.  The Democrats, some Democrats realize they need this in order to win elections.  And the constitutional amendment to me, I think it’s a reasonable thing to go to people and say at the core of our government is the right to vote and the integrity of the ballot box.  And requiring people, in this day and age, who can show up and cheat, requiring them to show an ID is a basic fundamental right to protect the election process.  To me, it’s one of the avenues.  I believe it will pass overwhelmingly.  I believe people are frustrated, and don’t know where to turn.  I’ve never seen Democrats come up to me on an issue like this and say “We’ve got to do something.” I can guarantee this:  the next time we have a presidential race in Wisconsin, you’re going to have to have a photo ID.  Either by Constitution or by statute.

O:  Can you cover your stance on abortion, please?

JG:  I’ve been a pro-life legislator my whole life, I’ve been a pro-life person my whole life.  I have always been endorsed by Wisconsin Right to Life.  I believe strongly in the culture of life.  And I believe, and I said this to my Right to Life friends the other day—I don’t know if you can find another legislature in the country where all 60 members of the Republican caucus are pro-life.  We do not have any shrinking violets in our caucus.  And we have done a good job to build a pro-life team.  And we’ve made a lot of progress over the years.  So it’s a centerpiece of who I am, and I believe in it.  I also believe we’ve got to be pragmatic about it.  We’ve got to win a victory at a time.  When I started, we did parental notification.  We moved to all kinds of other things.  As long as Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, we’ve got to constantly find ways to reduce the number of abortions in Wisconsin. 

O:  What do you think is the most important issue facing Wisconsin right now?

JG:  Economic competitiveness.  And I think at the heart of that is taxation.  Because everybody’s family and everybody’s community is impacted by whether people are working or not.  If you care about schools, you care about hospitals, you care about seniors, you care about roads, everything is impacted by how many people are working.  And we are just not competitive enough in this state.  There are too many people who have lost their edge as far as I’m concerned.  Everything cannot be made in China in this world.  I believe that when you look at the pressure on businesses, whether you’re a larger business or a smaller business, the pressure on them to survive and to perform either for shareholders or to just stay afloat, they’ve got to go where it’s most competitive.  Our marginal tax rate in creating a job in Wisconsin is about 42%.  The marginal tax rate in creating a job in China is about 15%.  Now, we don’t have to go to 15, we’ve got great workers, we’ve got great natural resources.  But taxes, we’ve simply got to slay that dragon.  That is at the heart of everything else we do. 

O:  Today, Darling and [] have proposed a new smoking ban statewide in Wisconsin.  How do you feel about smoking bans either at the local or state level?

JG:  That’s a tough one.  I was in Ireland a year and a half ago when they were implementing their smoke-free pubs which is almost like alcohol free pubs in Ireland.  And I thought there was going to be a revolution in the streets.  Then I was back not too long ago and people said it was actually a blessing in disguise.  And a whole lot of businesses told me they had a whole lot more people there.  But, having said that, there are a lot of communities that care a lot about it and I’m sort of undecided on it.  I hate to step in.  Like Appleton just passed a smoke-free ordinance.  You hate to step in.  If we trust the people on taxes, on local referendums and other things, you hate to step in and say you’re not allowed to decide your referendums on smoking issues.  I also believe there needs to be some statewide model hopefully that people can follow.  So we’re looking at…there’s one that deals with taverns and this other one that I haven’t looked at that closely.  So I guess call me undecided.  It’s a work in progress.

O:  Who should pay for K-12? 

JG:  Well, everybody’s paying right now, and I don’t see that changing.  I supported taking 2/3 of the cost of schools off the property tax roll.  I have tried a variety of different things over the years, but ultimately, we spend a lot on schools and I think there is this great tension in the state because the teachers’ union has the ability to go out and hoodwink people into believing they’re not spending enough.  You can’t go raise taxes on businesses or a lot of them will continue to go elsewhere.  Property taxes helps a little bit because it maintains a little bit more state control.  We made a mistake when we did the 2/3 for buildings in the state, because everybody went building saying, “It’s free money!  It’s free money!”  I would like to be close to 2/3 on the operations cost.  I don’t think we should on construction cost.  I think you’ve just got to have a balance of your taxes helping pay for schools.  It’s the highest priority in the state, as far as government spending, and I think that’s a reasonably good priority to have.

O:  Speaking of hoodwinking, the Senate just passed a bill regarding when the local districts can schedule school referendum votes.  When do you see that coming up in the Assembly?

JG:  I would say fairly soon.  Before we go home after the budget.  We passed it a couple times in the Assembly before, so that was a good sign yesterday. 

O:  What do you think the biggest problem with health care is in Wisconsin?

JG:  Well, it costs too much.  When we took over the majority in January of ’95, one of the first things we did was pass the caps on non-economic damages.  And really now are one of the 6 bests states in the country to practice medicine in, which means the best doctors in the country are moving to Wisconsin to practice medicine.  So if you have a child, you have a parent, you have a family, friend, whomever, you have somebody you care a lot about, who needs serious medical care, there is no better place to go in the country than here.  That is a great thing.  It comes with a price.  My pitch to people is that it is a combination of things.  Shifting costs in Medicaid and medicare, to practicing defensive medicine, to the price of pharmaceuticals, and you’ve just got to try having an approach to each one of those things because there’s no one silver bullet.  You’ve got to have about a ten pronged approach to try and hold the line on healthcare, drive down the cost, but still make sure it’s accessible.  I go to Canada every summer fishing.  I’ve been in Canadian hospitals with my kids.  And I say the one thing you’ve got to do is not let the government take it over.  Because if you think it costs a lot now, just wait until it’s free. 

O:  One of the biggest problems with Doyle’s budget, one of the many problems with Doyle’s budget, is the raids of the segregated funds, because it comes across has a hidden tax increase.  Do you support that, do you think it will happen, do you think you can stop it?

JG:  I think we’re going to stop as many of them as possible. What I try to do is under-promise and over-deliver.  I focus on leading the team from all over the state, from different walks of life, to try and get a state budget that fundamentally changes Wisconsin government.  We have a good Senate now, and a good Assembly trying to do the right thing.  We don’t agree on all the ways to do this, but the reality is all the spending is going into schools.  It’s over $5 billion a year.  The next closest program is a little over a billion in medical assistance.  So if you’re going to fix Wisconsin government, you’ve got to fix the way you pay for schools and the way you deal with the ever-increasing costs.  The governor makes it look like he can freeze taxes and give the schools 800 million new dollars.  That just simply cannot happen.  So if we can get our arms around the way you deal with the school issue you can eliminate all or virtually all of those fund shifts.  But if you go through the past couple years, state spending and state programs has not increased.  Most of our money going back is going into schools is where the money’s going.  You can make this budget a lot better when we get done with it than the one the governor sent us. 

O:  Obviously, you’re getting very serious about running for the 8th Congressional District.  Are you going to run for sure?

JG:  Heh.  Boy, well, that would be a good place to announce, right?  We’re putting a great team together as you saw today we released our first 400.  Brandon’s here on the campaign full time.  We’re raising money, we’re organizing, we’re doing what we need to do, and we’ll make that formal decision very, very soon.  But I’m certainly doing everything, preparing to run.

O:  Here’s a nice softball for you then.  What would make you a great Congressman for Wisconsin?

JG:  I know how to get things done.  I have worked with Democratic majorities, Republican majorities, a Democratic governor and two Republican governors.  From a part of the state that a lot of people felt when I started I was too young, and you guys from the north aren’t as smart as everybody else.  And what I have done over time is been a part of a great group of people who really get things done.  In my part of the state, I have proven to folks that I know how to get things done.  And I will be as conservative as anybody, but you’ve also got to be able to turn that into results, because giving speeches wears out after awhile.  You’ve got to show results.  And I believe Wisconsin, I can build on the success of Mark Green, and you’ve got Paul Ryan, Congressman Petri, and Sensenbrenner there.  Wisconsin can have a much bigger presence in Washington. 

O:  Now, I would agree with that.  Your ability to get things done, especially in the Assembly, has been very noticeable and I think that’s great.  It’s one of the things that people from my side of the aisle kind of lament the fact that you may be leaving.  Do you think there is anybody in the Assembly who can step up and take on the leadership role that you’ve been able to bring to the Assembly? 

JG:  Well, it’s very flattering, I’ve had people give me very nice compliments, but I don’t do any of this alone.  I can be a fire brand speaker and bring out the brass knuckles every once in awhile, but we’ve got such a group of people, honest to God.  I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and I don’t think they’d miss a beat.  And that’s what we’ve done.  I mean, we’ve focused on the future here because I’m one person here, part of a really big movement.  If you’d have told people that this kid who grew up on a farm in Lena, Wisconsin, got elected to the Assembly at age 24, was going to have as big an impact as I’ve had, they’d have sort of laughed at you fifteen years ago.  But what you see is also folks from Port Washington and Green Bay, and Eagle River, and Eau Claire, and La Crosse, have all gotten elected at the same time.  And you put that group of people together, that is what has really made the difference.  We believed 10 years ago that we could change things, and we did.  From welfare reform, to some of the school choice things we’ve done, and tax cuts, you may have seen the Sentinel this week about the lower tax collections, the tax cuts are working.  I’m happy to be a part of it, I’m happy to lead this group, but there is a lot of talent on that bench. 

O:  Speaking of getting things done, at the national level, what do you think should be done about Social Security?

JG:  I think we’ve got to save it, whatever it takes.  It’s just like welfare reform, to a degree. You’ve got to bring the public with you at the same time.  You can’t go too far out in front, you’ve got to continue to make a case.  Congressman Ryan, who I talk to all the time, he’s done dozens and dozens of town hall meetings because he wants people to believe in what he believes in.  I think the feedback I’ve gotten is that when you sit down and work with people, they’ll listen.  What I say to folks, I met with a retiree in Peshtigo last week and he was about it.  And I said, “Don’t you deserve more return on your money?  Don’t you work hard?  Look at what you’re paying in Social Security taxes.  Don’t you deserve a better return?” And you know the government is taking that money right now.  It’s only going to work if we can demonstrate and if the president can demonstrate to people that the fund will remain secure.  If you do that, it’s just going to take a little time.  I think you can bring people along. 

O:  What’s the greatest threat, internal or external, facing America?

JG:  I think the greatest threat, well, I think there’s two of them.  I think terrorist attacks and then the realization that we need to be more competitive economically.  I think way too many people are thinking about today and not tomorrow.  America’s the most blessed country on the face of the earth.  We’re the melting pot of the world.  Everybody wants a piece of the American dream.  But we’ve got to realize that we are competing in the world where you can make stuff in Southeast Asia cheaper than you can here and we’re competing with a more small percentage of the world’s population.  So if America wants to remain the shining light in the world and the economic force it is, you’ve got to stay economically competitive.  I go back to my Irish example.  For years, everybody said Ireland is just sort of a failure economically, they whacked their tax rates a number of years ago and have seen an unbelievable economic resurgence.  It can happen in the United States, too.  The other thing is the terrorist situation in the world.  I give the President a lot of credit.  You have another serious terrorist attack near a serious economic spot in America, you could devastate the American psyche, and certainly the mindset of the American investor.  I think we’ve got to do whatever it takes to root out evil where it is and protect this country.  Those folks hit the World Trade Center, I believe, for a reason, obviously, and we’ve got a whole series of things we’ve got to protect and that’s what the Congress and President need to do.

O:  If elected to the 8th, what’s the first piece of legislation you would like to work on?

JG:  That’s a really good question.  To be honest, we’re so in the early stages of this, I haven’t thought what the actual first one would be, but I will say this:  it’s all about taxes.  We have got to do something about the American economic competitiveness.  It starts with taxes, it impacts everything else you do, and you can look at the variety of tax problems we’ve got in the country from alternative minimum tax, estate tax, to tax on working folks.  There’s a variety of those that if you put a real good tax plan together, you can continue to create new jobs.  I just think Northeast Wisconsin and all of America have got to focus on remaining competitive. 

O:  What do you think about campaign finance reform?

JG:  I told everyone last fall the should have just gone around everywhere Russ Feingold went and said, “Hey, how’s that McCain-Feingold thing working out for you?”  It was a disaster.  A disaster from the standpoint that there’s more spending, it all went into these 527s, and everybody’s flying below the radar screen.  And I think it has not worked as it was promised.  Most of the time that stuff is over-hyped, and under-delivers, and I think McCain-Feingold needs reform.

O:  What do you think about blogs?

JG:  You know, they’re really interesting.  Here’s what I like about them:  it’s very hard a lot of times to get your traditional newspaper to focus on what’s really going on under the dome and in the political world. And I think there is a tremendous base of interest out there.  You see the Sentinel doing it during the day.  You guys are changing the way the Sentinel does their work.  I think it’s the wave of the future here, from what I can tell. And the other thing is that it makes elected officials a lot more alert to what’s going on. 

O:  If Boots and Sabers readers needed to know one thing about you, what would it be?

JG:  I know how to build a team and get things done. 

O:  Fair enough.  Thank you so much for your time. 

JG:  I appreciate it very much. 

Posted by Wendy at 2155 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

Commenting is not available in this channel entry.