Contact: Tom Evenson, (608) 266-2839

Madison – Governor Scott Walker released his Weekly Radio Address today titled “Now is Not the Time to Raise Taxes.”

Hi, Scott Walker here.

Let me be clear – now is not the time to raise taxes.

Wisconsin ended the 2016 fiscal year with a positive General Fund balance of $331 million. That surplus is expected to grow to nearly half a billion dollars by the end of fiscal year 2017.

More jobs, higher wages, and historically high employment are spurring increased revenues. That, along with our positive fiscal reforms, created a Reform Dividend. Now, we’re investing that Dividend into our priorities, which are student success, a stronger workforce, and good roads and infrastructure.

Our budget invests more into K-12 education than ever before. Plus, we put even more into our rural schools because of their high costs for things like transportation.

We invest more into our technical college system than ever before. And we add more than $100 million to our University of Wisconsin system.

We also put more money into rehab of our state highways than ever before and more into fixing local roads, bridges, and potholes than ever before.

In fact, with this budget, we will invest more than $24 billion into our transportation system over eight years. That’s $3 billion more than former Governor Jim Doyle did over his eight years in office.

With our Reform Dividend, there is more than enough dollars to cover our priorities. We can improve our schools, build our workforce, and fix our roads with the Reform Dividend.

We should not raise taxes on income. We should not raise taxes on farmers and manufacturers. We should not raise taxes on gasoline.

Now is not the time to raise taxes on the hard-working people of Wisconsin. Instead, we should invest our Reform Dividend into our priorities.

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