Vos on ‘UpFront’: Evers team lying that Republicans refused meaningful investment in education, childcare

GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos accused the Evers administration of lying when Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement that Republicans refused to agree to meaningful investments in education, childcare and the UW System as budget negotiations broke down.

“That’s a lie,” Vos said on WISN 12’s UpFront,” which is produced in partnership with WisPolitics. “We did that. We’re willing to do it, just not as much as he wanted. I mean, that’s the difference. When you read that statement, it makes it sound like we were at zero. We were not at zero on any of those topics. We tried to find a way to invest in childcare that actually went to the parents, and to make sure that we weren’t just having to go to a business. We tried to find a way to look at education so that money would actually go back to school districts across the state. It just wasn’t enough for what he wanted.

“We found a way to get money into the UW for the first time in almost a dozen years,” Vos added. “But because it wasn’t as much as he wanted, he wasn’t willing to take a smaller win.”

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Vos wouldn’t specifically reveal how much the GOP was willing to give the UW System, but acknowledged it was less than the governor and system’s roughly $800 million request.

“We have given basically zero increases at the UW because most of us believe that the UW needs serious reforms,” Vos said. “We asked for reforms. They were OK with a couple; they weren’t OK with others, but they wanted $100 million plus of spending for basically no real reforms. One of the things that we wanted was a guarantee that you would have every professor teaching at least 12 credits, so 12 hours in the classroom for a full-time job, and they just couldn’t get there.”

Vos also wouldn’t reveal specifics of the tax cut plan the governor agreed to accept.

“We’re going to still work on this,” Vos said. “It’s going to hopefully be in the budget that goes to Gov. Evers. We believe the tax relief should be in the middle class, and we also believe that it should be something that’s focused on retirees, keeping more people here in Wisconsin by having a lower tax burden and hopefully not having people move to a warmer climate for six months a year.”

Vos also said he wasn’t overly concerned with the massive tax and spending plan moving through Congress, despite projections it will impact Medicaid and FoodShare benefits in the state.

“I’m not all that worried,” Vos said. “I think there is so much hyperbole, an exaggeration from my friends on the left. There are not cuts for anybody who’s watching. There are not cuts in Medicaid. When they tell you there are cuts, it is untrue.”

When pressed, Vos said, “Yeah, only if you consider people who are here illegally that aren’t supposed to be getting insurance anyways for Medicaid are some of the uninsured.

“There are work requirements, which if you’re able-bodied, you shouldn’t be on Medicaid anyways,” Vos added. “You should be out looking for a job and getting insurance through your employer or, worst case scenario, buying it through the exchange like millions of people do around the country.”

Vos also weighed in on the latest feud between President Trump and Elon Musk. Musk spent millions on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race when conservative candidate Brad Schimel lost by roughly 10 points.

“Elon helped us in Wisconsin,” Vos said. “He helped us to make the spending basically even. Don’t forget Democrats have this huge advantage because out-of-state billionaires dumped tons of money into Wisconsin elections. It’s how they have won so many statewide elections. Having somebody who is willing to step up and help us, I think that’s fantastic to try to even the playing field.”

On the feud, Vos said, “I think when two people who have been friends have a disagreement, they should probably call each other and talk about it. I don’t think it looks very good doing it online, on X, on all those things. I think they should talk about it, and hopefully there’s a bromance.”

Wisconsin’s Medicaid Director Bill Hanna says he’s actively talking with lawmakers and state officials about the potential impact of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” in Wisconsin.

“We’ve been having lots of conversations in Madison, especially with our colleagues in the fiscal bureau who collectively work on finalizing numbers for both the Legislature and the governor to come to some agreement on how much we need to set aside to run, to continue to run our well-run program here,” Hanna told “UpFront.”

Hanna estimates the bill as it’s currently written will impact roughly 63,000 Medicaid recipients in Wisconsin with new work requirements and cost the state $8 million to implement the changes in the first year.

“I think the read is that the department’s estimates are on par with the same way the Fiscal Bureau would read and interpret the implications on the House bill as it currently stands,” Hanna said. “It’s about 63,000 individuals that currently would not be meeting the work requirements with the data we have today

“We’re not predicting on how people would change their behavior because of the bill, but they are currently not meeting that 80-hour minimum requirement that’s included in the bill,” Hanna added. “They either need to meet the work requirements, send in additional paperwork to meet one of the long list of exemptions that are in the bill, or ultimately, if they do not meet the work requirements or do not meet the exemption requirements, they would become uninsured.”

Hanna said those individuals would also not be eligible to purchase insurance on the federal marketplace.

“The technical rule is that they had access to Medicaid,” Hanna said. “And if you have access to Medicaid but for the work requirements, you are not eligible for subsidies on the marketplace.”

Hanna said the state is also closely tracking the impact on FoodShare benefits in the state, which he said could place the burden on state taxpayers by hundreds of millions of dollars.

“That’s a much bigger cost shift,” he said.

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