MADISON, Wis. – Today, Rebecca Kleefisch supported Republican efforts to kill Governor Evers’ plan to invest $1.7 billion into the pocketbooks of Wisconsin taxpayers without even a moment of deliberation.
Kleefisch rejected the governor’s plan, with no plan of her own, effectively allowing Republicans to hold taxpayer dollars hostage in the hopes that their own political party will be in charge a year from now. This is a shift from 2014 when Kleefisch wholeheartedly endorsed returning surplus dollars to Wisconsinites through a tax credit when she was lieutenant governor.
At the time, she said of the Walker-Kleefisch plan, “We want taxpayers, you all, to keep more of your own money,” [04:51] and she posted a tweet promoting Scott Walker’s comments saying you send a surplus “back to the people that earned it.”
Kleefisch hasn’t explained why she opposed Gov. Evers’ common sense plan to return money to working families. Kleefisch supported a tax rebate in both 2014 and in 2018, when Wisconsin’s finances and economy were in a much weaker position. At the end of the 2014 fiscal year, Wisconsin’s budget surplus was only $517 million, and at the end of 2018, Wisconsin’s budget surplus was only $588 million and the state’s rainy day fund only had enough to keep state government running for nearly seven days.
“Rebecca Kleefisch will only help Wisconsinites with rising costs when she can take credit for it,” said Democratic Party of Wisconsin Rapid Response Director Hannah Menchhoff. “While we have a strong economy in Wisconsin, we cannot ignore the fact that people need relief now to pay their bills. The only difference between now and 2014 is that now we have more than enough money to pay for this plan to give the surplus money back to the people. Wisconsinites should not have to wait until Kleefisch and Republican legislators have the political will to support them.”
