Frederica Freyberg:
But first, in addition to angry hunters, it was a busy week at the state Capitol. The legislative budget writing committee learned about how many more jobs federal stimulus money has created, grappled with cost overruns in the Badger Care program and the full Legislature passed a bill that toughens up Wisconsin's drunk driving law. The governor is expected to sign that bill, which makes first offense a crime if a child under 16 is in the car and makes drunk driving a felony for the fourth offense as opposed to the fifth. The law would also afford treatment, even inpatient, for people convicted of second or third operating while intoxicated offenses. And it requires ignition locks for repeat offenders. Many believe stiffer penalties are long overdue, but the increased costs for prisons and courts are not fully funded in this bill. Here to talk about money and policies, Joint Finance Committee members Reps. Mark Pocan and Robin Vos. Thanks to both of you for being here. First to you Rep. Pocan, more on the OWI in just a moment, but on Medicaid spending, how much is that ballooning in Wisconsin because of demand?

Mark Pocan:
Well, there's no question, the federal economy has had a lot of effects on our state budget and one of those is the more people you have unemployed, and fortunately we've got a lower percentage than the rest of the country, but the more people unemployed, the more taking advantage of the benefits, and we've had a need in the state budget to trim some dollars from the program without trimming the services offered, so I think the department has done a strong job in addressing most of the money. I'm not real happy, as I think most members aren't, with a push-off into the future of some of the expenses, but I think we can still figure that out between now and the end of the budget cycle. But if people are unemployed, we're going to do what we can to make sure health care is affordable. That's a priority.

Frederica Freyberg:
Robin Vos, how are we expected to manage this?

Robin Vos:
Medicaid is really a program that is ballooning out of control, and my hope is that as we move forward, we actually try to work and reform the system, not just keep the same broken system moving forward. We saw in the report from the department, that not only are they attempting to find $600 million in savings, which was requested by the Legislature in the budget that we passed, but they are taking about $200 million of the requested savings to balance this year's budget and just pushing those expenses off to the next biennium, making the next budget even more difficult to solve, and on top of that, we've seen that our increase in Medicaid rates, the increase in the number of people who are actually utilizing it is significantly higher than those states around us. And Michigan, which has the highest unemployment rate in the country, has had a much slower growth than Medicaid, so we have actually created a system that is really unsustainable in the long run and is projected to have a deficit of $125 million to $150 million in this biennium, in addition to all the cuts, so it's really a fiscal train wreck in a whole lot of ways.

Frederica Freyberg:
Mark Pocan, could we be bailed out by the feds on this?

Mark Pocan:
That's one of the things that's a possibility. I just got back from a national conference of state legislators meeting, it's been talked about in a number of areas and this area, unemployment compensation, extending Cobra benefit and some other areas, helping to keep teachers, police and firefighters, we might see some additional federal revenues, because every state, except for maybe two states, is in the same spot that we are, so we're hoping that that's a possibility, but in the meantime, I think the department did a good job in a lot of creative reforms, not only to save money, but really get a lot smarter about how to provide the health care, and I think we should be proud of the state that so many people have access to health care.

Frederica Freyberg:
Joint Finance this week was also briefed on stimulus funding and how many jobs that has resulted in. I gather there was kind of a divergence of views on this in the committee, but what's your sense of whether or not, Mark Pocan, those dollars have worked to bring and keep Wisconsin jobs?

Mark Pocan:
Well, they've definitely been successful. The problem is, there was a report that the state submitted, a 1512 report that was a partial representation of the jobs that were created through the recovery dollars, and everyone grabbed on to that number and thought that's what it was, and Robin Vos and others will tell you it's all public sector jobs, there's no private sector, but in the same finance meeting we had this week, we had reports from the vertical and horizontal construction industry, horizontal being roads and vertical being buildings, and they said that if it wasn’t for the recovery dollars, 54,000 jobs were either saved or created because of our actions, so clearly there's a lot of jobs that were created.

Frederica Freyberg:
Robin Vos, what about that?

Robin Vos:
It's just part of the continued Madison spin that's happening and sometimes it makes me so dizzy, I have to follow along, but what he's basically saying is we got $700 million from the federal government, and I, like some other Republicans, believe that it was a good thing that we accepted the money. Now, if I was in Congress, I would have voted differently, but when the money was offered, it was a lifeline to help us balance a very difficult state budget. The problem was, we got all that money and it created almost no jobs. The report from the very Doyle administration that he is citing shows that about 8,200 jobs were created of which only 2,000 were private sector, and they really weren't even created, they were just saved. So $700 million to save about 8,000 jobs. That's better than nothing, but it certainly isn't doing anything to grow our economy or make the situation better.

Frederica Freyberg:
I want to move along to OWI that was passed in the Legislature, a new toughening up of that law, including making fourth offense a felony, but the costs of this don't appear to add up to the revenue that's in the bill. I think the Fiscal Bureau said the costs would be up, once it got going, between $50 million and $80 million, yet the revenue is like $12 million, so Mark Pocan, what about the passage of this legislation and this divergence in cost versus revenue.

Mark Pocan:
I think part of it, they've had a hard time coming up with an exact fiscal estimate. We don't know all the things they're doing, the ignition interlock device, the probation for second time offenders, and what that will do to reduce recidivism. Because they can't predict that, the price tag is higher than it is and that's why we made sure we funded important things like some of the up-front costs, like probation officers and I think the figure is going to be higher, $30 million. Some of the others was worst-case scenario, but every state that has done these measures has had savings.

Frederica Freyberg:
Robin Vos, what do you have to say about the passage of this new law?

Robin Vos:
Obviously passing the bill was a good idea and that's why it had unanimous bipartisan support. If anything, I wish it would have been tougher, but I'm happy that we got something passed and that's a victory for everybody who cares about safe roads. But what Mark brought up about the fiscal note is really the thing that I worry most about. We just heard there's the potential for $200 million being pushed into the next budget, you know, overruns and all kind of programs throughout the Doyle administration, and here's yet another example where we do not have enough funding, and we have a source that really isn't real, pushing into the future, hoping and wishing that we're not going to spend money, when in reality, we all know there's going to be unfunded costs that go down to the very counties that have to administer a lot of these programs through the jails and all those different sources.

Frederica Freyberg:
Well, what kind of revenue source, Robin Vos, would you like to have seen?

Robin Vos:
Number one, when we look at what's happening, we have to figure out a way to get tough on crime, but you do it in a way that utilizes our current resources. I think that if you have to go after something, that is a reasonable way to say if you're a drunk driver, you should pay for it, but what most of us didn't realize until the memo came out because a lot the negotiations were done behind closed doors is tickets that are being written for every crime in Wisconsin will now go from $20 to $163 in court costs, and we know that the vast majority of people who are convicted won't necessarily pay those.

Frederica Freyberg:
I need to leave it there. Robin Vos and Mark Pocan, thanks very much.

Mark Pocan:
Thank you.

Robin Vos:
Thank you, Merry Christmas.

Frederica Freyberg:
You too.

Frederica Freyberg:
State Rep. Jeff Wood voted in favor of toughening Wisconsin's drunk driving laws. The legislature is currently deciding whether to remove Wood from his assembly seat over his own repeat OWI arrests.