(The Center Square) – The main question during the Wisconsin Senate’s debate over whether to override Gov. Tony Evers’ tax cut veto was who is in the middle class.
Senators spent an hour Thursday debating who deserves a tax cut in Wisconsin.
“A family who [jointly] file at $36,000 a-year is viewed as the 1% in our governor’s eyes,” Sen. Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point, said on the Senate floor.
The Republican-controlled Senate voted to override most of Evers’ veto of the $3.5 billion tax cut plan that was included in the new state budget.
Testin said the overrides would help families making between $36,000 a-year and just over $400,000 a-year.
“When we talk about helping the working class, this veto override does just that,” Testin said.
Democrats said people making $400,000 a-year are not working class.
Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, said tax cuts should be “not just for those driving around with drivers asking for Grey Poupon.”
“[Tax cuts] should be for people who are actually hiking to work, who are taking the bus to work because they don’t have another option. Those are the people we need to be investing in,” Larson said. “This is your time to decide which side you want to take. Do you want to take the side of the working man and woman? Or do you want to take the side of the Monopoly man?”
Evers called the Republicans’ tax cut plan a “tax cut for millionaires,” and said that’s why he vetoed it.
Testin said unless and until Wisconsin lowers taxes on middle class families and small businesses, the state will continue to face both a worker shortage and a population shortage.
“Wisconsin needs to grow,” Testin said. “But when you take a look at our tax climate, we are ranked roughly 27th in the U.S. Wisconsin cannot lead from the middle. We have a moral obligation to send money out of Madison and back to the hardworking taxpayers of this state.”
The Senate’s vote overrode Evers’ tax cut veto, including the line-item veto that extended a per-pupil funding increase for 400 years.
“So, 400 years ago, in 1623, in the Plymouth Colony they were celebrating the second Thanksgiving. It was still 40 years before Newton discovered gravity,” Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, said. “The governor is proposing increasing property taxes for the next 400 years. That’s how ridiculous his veto is.”
Assembly Republicans cannot follow suit, however. The Senate has the two-third majority required to override the governor. Assembly Republicans are likely a few votes short.
