Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from around the world, our headlines, protests in El Salvador after new assembly dismisses top magistrates. Libya's interim government urges Turkey to withdraw its forces. Montreal Port workers vow to continue struggle after being forced to end strike, and in our video section, we take a look at the landmark electoral victory of the left in the Indian state of Kerala. In our first story, protests broke out in El Salvador following the dismissal of top judges by the right-wing government. Five magistrates of the constitutional chamber in the Supreme Court were dismissed following a vote in the newly convened legislative assembly on May 1st. The measure passed with 64 votes in favor, led by the ruling New Ideas Party of President Naib Boukele. The party accused the judiciary of placing particular interests over the health and life of the entire population. The judiciary had blocked some of the COVID-19 related decrees issued by the president. The constitutional chamber declared the decision null and void and a violation of the constitution. However, shortly after the vote passed on Saturday, the national civil police took over the Supreme Court building. The new de facto magistrates selected by the legislative assembly were then escorted by the police. Attorney General Rao Melara was also dismissed on allegations of political bias. As reported by El Faro, Melara has been investigating the health and treasury ministries and the government's secret negotiations with the MS-13 gang. Local media reported that the heavy police presence outside the prosecutor's office on Saturday night, the newly appointed Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado arrived at the office in the early hours of May 2nd. The government's decision has been condemned as a technical coup d'etat by judicial officials and the opposition. They have argued that the constitutional chamber had served as a crucial barrier to the abuser governmental powers. President Boukele has repeatedly been accused of authoritarianism. Protests against the government began on Sunday as they gathered in the monument to the constitution in San Salvador. Protesters raised slogans denouncing dictatorship and what they called the Boukele coup. In our next story, Libya's interim government has asked Turkey to withdraw all foreign fighters from the country. Foreign Minister of Libya, Najr al-Mangush, made the appeal on May 3rd following a meeting with Turkish officials in the capital Tripoli. This follows months after top UN officials called for the withdrawal of all foreign soldiers. Special representative Stephanie Williams had stated in January that the warring factions in Libya were honoring the ceasefire agreement. The Libyan parliament also approved a 35 member unity government in March. The government will remain in power till the national elections scheduled for December. The ongoing peace process has revived hopes for ending the decade-long war in the country. In the meantime, here is Abdul Rahman of People's Dispatch to talk more about Turkey's presence in Libya. The interim government in Libya has asked Turkey to withdraw its forces from the country. The demand should be seen in the context that the interim government in Libya has the responsibility to prepare the country for a national elections in the summer of this year. And presence of foreign troops are seen as threat to the peace process in the country. United Nations has raised similar concerns in the past. The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution in September last year, a resolution 2 by 4-2, in which it asked the member countries to withdraw their forces from Libya and refrain from any kind of military intervention there. The Turkish troops were deployed in Libya after the then government of National Accord signed an agreement with Erdogan following the threats posed by Khalifa Abdar forces. According to the UN estimates, there are around 20,000 foreign troops. Till in Libya, out of these 20,000, more than 13,000 are deployed by Turkey. Most of the forces deployed by Turkey are Syrian mercenaries belonging to the Syrian National Army, the so-called opposition force in Syria, which is fighting against Bashar al-Assad. And Turkey claims that the deployment of its forces in Libya is legitimate as for the agreement signed by the between the governments and therefore it should not be seen as a threat and that's why it has not given any assurance about the withdrawal of the forces yet. However, the interim government quotes that there is a frozen peace process in the country which requires that all foreign troops withdraw and there is no government of National Accord anymore in the country. All the several governments which were there before the formation of interim government had been dissolved following the formation of interim government. Hence, Turkey should withdraw its forces from Libya. We now go to Canada where port workers in the Quebec province have been forced to end their strike. 1,150 workers at the port of Montreal had gone on strike on April 26th. They were protesting the pressure tactics used by the management during negotiations for a contract. This included extending work shifts from 5 hours 20 minutes to 7 hours. Workers have been without a formal contract since 2018. Organized by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, they issued a 72-hour strike notice on April 23rd. However, the federal government announced it would introduce a back-to-work legislation which would forcibly end the strike. The workers protest action had effectively shut down operations at Canada's second largest port. The Canadian Senate passed Bill C-29 of the Port of Montreal Operations Act on April 30th. The law mandates that the mediator arbitrator should be selecting for negotiations. The most recent collective agreement will also be extended until a new deal is reached. The government actions were widely condemned by workers' union in certain opposition groups. A statement by the union argued that forcing a back-to-work legislation essentially removes all incentives for employers to negotiate in good faith. Before the walk-out on April 26th, workers had already been on overtime and weakened strikes. This was in response to the suspension of minimum-pay guarantees by the Maritime Employers Association. The CUP has announced that they will challenge the legislation in court and file a complaint with the international labour organization. The union has denounced the law as an attack on the constitutional right to protest. Workers also did a march against the law as part of mobilizations on Mali. And our final story, we go to the Indian state of Kerala, which has witnessed a major left victory in the legislative elections. The left Democratic front led by the Communist Party of India, Marxist, has won 99 out of the 140 seats in the state assembly. The elections also saw a decisive defeat for the far-right agenda of the Bharati Janata Party, which is in power in the centre and is handed by Narendra Modi. This is the first time in over 40 years that a government will come back to power for a consecutive term in Kerala. Here is Subin Dennis, a researcher with triconsensus to talk about the reasons behind the LDF's victory. Putting it in simple terms, we could talk about six reasons for the victory of the left Democratic front in Kerala. One, its policies have been popular. The LDF government expanded public education and public health care in a big way. It increased pensions and greatly improved their coverage to benefit a total of almost 6 million people. It built 250,000 houses for the poor. Apart from these, it made major investments in economic infrastructures such as new roads and bridges. Finance Minister Thomas Isaac led the effort to raise resources necessary for these. The right wing in Kerala has traditionally claimed that the left is not good enough when it comes to building economic infrastructure. But this time they lost that blank. Two, leadership. Chief Minister Pinarai Vijayan emerged as an extremely popular leader with the leadership he showed in steering the state during several periods of crisis. Kerala was hit by severe floods in 2018 and 19 and then by the COVID pandemic. The LDF government handled these crisis efficiently and ensured relief to the people. The important role that Health Minister KK Shailaja played in the battle against the COVID pandemic made her immensely popular too. Importantly, it became clear to the people that it was the LDF which was the best suited to handle the challenges that lie ahead. Three, commitment to secularism. When the BJP government at the center brought in the Citizenship Amendment Act and the national register of citizens that threatened to turn Muslims into second class citizens, the LDF government stood firmly against the CAA and NRC and declared that they will not be implemented in Kerala. Kerala was the first state in which the state assembly passed a resolution against the CAA. This gave religious minorities and other democratic minded people even more confidence in the left. Four, communication. Pinarai Vijayan's daily press conferences during the floods and the pandemic which people watched live became a very effective method of communicating directly to the people. Apart from that, the left built a large social media presence by mobilizing its activists and sympathizers. This meant that the falsehoods that right-wing media propagate and which used to have a shelf life of months or even years were being demolished in the matter of days or even hours. Five, reaching out to more sections of people. The LDF is a coalition of parties led by the Communist Party of India Marxist. Recent times, the LDF has expanded to include a few more parties which have their own mass base. This has allowed the LDF to reach out to more sections of people, which turned out to be very important in the elections. Six, organization. Over the years, the left has worked to expand the reach of its class organizations and mass organizations. The work of organizations such as the Democratic Youth Federation of India or BYFI and that of the trade unions has been crucial in making the community centered response of the LDF government to the COVID pandemic possible. Organizations like BYFI and the Students' Federation of India, SFI, have helped in taking the message of the left to more and more sections of the youth. This organizational deepening when combined with the LDF government's development and welfare programs, defense of secularism and its handling of crisis has made such an impact that even among sections of people who have been opposed to the left for generations, the younger generation is closer That's all the time for today. We'll be back tomorrow with more news from around the world. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.


We welcome you here to the Alps. I hope you all have a lovely meal. We are, well, we are lucky to have all our legislators here today to talk to you. So we're not going to keep your attention on anything else at this moment. We're just going to invite the gentleman up to talk. Just so you know that there are question and comment cards on your tables. As the conversation is unfolding up here, if you have something you'd like to ask or to be brought to attention, you can do it yourself. You can raise your hand and ask your question.  So at this time, I would like to invite Congressman Glenn Groepen, Senator Devin Levenu, Senator Dewey Strobel, Representative Terry Councilman, Representative Tyler Borpagel, and Representative Jesse Cramer to come up on the table. Thank you so much. Specifically on the state budget from the chamber to cover, and they asked me to sort of moderate before we get into the topics. I just, since we're all new faces here, I just thought I'd give each person up here a chance to introduce themselves and then we'll move on to topics. And they're all state-related, so at some point we're just going to hand the mic over to Glenn for a while to talk about federal issues he's working on. But I'll start off. My name is Devin Levenu. I live in Usberg. I'm a small business owner on the Lake Shore Weekly. I served on the Sheboygan County Board for the last nine years. And the committees I'm on in Madison, I chair the elections and local government, I'm on Health and Human Services, Agriculture Small Business and Tourism, the Administrative Rules Committee, and then a couple other committees that don't really make policy. And two laws that have passed already in the first five months. The Raffle Reform Bill, which my predecessor, Joe, worked on last session, it was actually vetoed by the governor, but we fixed it to the governor's liking. But that helps nonprofits such as Rotaries, sports news clubs, gives them a clear way to raise money that's all brought back into the community. And I was the Senate author of the speed limit bill, the speed limit to 70 miles an hour. So, now we just need to make a way between Sheboygan and Madison where I contract 70 straight down there. But anyways, I will pass the mic down and let everybody introduce themselves. I actually took the place of Senator Levenu's dad's spot, Representative Levenu. A couple of 59's in Selby District, which is part of the County of Madison, Pond, Oleg, and Washington Counties. I am on, I do a variety of jobs. I actually have never been in any elected position until this. My main background is in transportation as a full-time pilot, also a small business owner and landlord. I'm on the part of the Department of QOSCO, EFT there. So I do a variety of things. I keep busy. I am on five committees. I am Vice Chair of Public Safety and Criminal Justice. I'm on the Health Committee, Public Benefit Reform, Constitution and Ethics and Mining and Rural Development. A couple of bills that I've worked on already this year. A 40-hour handgun hold. We got photo ID and food share cards. Actually Senator Levenu, you and I in the budget, we got something that would allow us to charge for replacement food stamp cards. We'll lose the cards, like if you always have a card, you lose it, and you have to replace it. Well, with the number of cards that we lost just last year alone, it would save us $450,000. That's $3.50 a piece. So it's a lot of money. So we did get that in the budget. Predictability for DOR audits, just had a hearing on that. I don't think it's going to go anywhere. There's a lot of good things in there, but it had something to do with interest rates, which costs us money. It costs us state money. It's a revenue generator for them. As much as I don't like it, that's the way it is. So quite a few things we're working on, but I'll hand it on to Congressional Drill. Thank you. Well, I'll talk in a second, but you know me, I've been a state legislator in the Southern Shebaik for quite a while. Now I'm going to be a congressman and we'll give you an update on what's going on in a federal level. Bring ourselves up here. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Tyler Borepogal. I'm a state representative for the 27th Assembly District. So the new Steve Castell, I guess, you hear the word new, quite frequently today. But my district covers Plymouth, Kohler, northern side of the city of Shebaik, up to Cleveland in Manitowoc County, southern half the town of Mimi, and then Kiel in the town of Schleswig in western Manitowoc County, and then kind of all points in between Belcher Lake, Howards Grove, and so on. A couple of the committees I serve on. I am the vice chair of campaigns, the campaign and election committee in the assembly, and also on children and family transportation, state affairs and government operations, and I'm on public benefit reform with Jesse, which is a brand new committee this year, and I'm really interested in it. It's one of the things that I'm kind of researching and looking on is dealing with total comprehensive public benefit reform, how the programs that the federal government has interact with the state, and kind of where the incentives are for people to go from hard time to full time, or is there a disincentive? Where's that breaking point? So kind of do an overall study of our public benefit system. But a couple of the other things that I hope to get my first two bills passed in that corner on the floor next Tuesday, it's my ever exciting comprehensive stoplight reform package, which just makes some technical changes to crosswalk signs and the yellow arrows that we see going on with bringing them in compliance with the laws. But other than that, I guess one of the things that Senator Lemeky and I and Representative Katzma were excited to do and get into the state budget was dealing with K-12 education and actually higher education too. It repealed the program called course options. And I guess to make a long story short, the cap classes that we were all used to were sort of the payment for those who were being shifted away from kind of a share between the student and taking the class and being shifted all on to the school district. A number of school districts told us that they just wouldn't offer the courses because there wasn't within the priorities. So we thought, well, if they're going above and beyond and the folks want to pay for an extra option, they should be allowed to do that and we shouldn't be disincentivizing those courses. So we're happy to work with the school districts in the area and Lakeland College and a few other folks to hopefully get that thing. It simply reverts back to the good old way that it used to be. All right, enough of me talking. I'll hand it off to Senator Strobel. Thank you, Tyler. I'm Dewey Strobel and I am the 20th district senate representative and I have the honor of following and going into both of the footsteps in this job. I was just elected in April and it is truly an honor to be doing this job and my background is, well, I'm from Cedarburg. That's where I'm born and raised. I've lived my entire life there and I married my wife, Laura. We've got eight wonderful kids. They're ages nine to 25 now and really to me that's what this job is all about. It's all about the future and all about the next generation and really what kind of country, what kind of state, what kind of place we're going to lead for this next generation. I started a business in 1987. That was a year that I was married, probably more importantly and really never expected to get into politics or be doing this type of thing. But just over that period of time I saw more and more things changing and it really made me concerned about in what direction are we headed? What is our government doing and what is our culture doing? In 2011 and early 2011, Mark Gottlieb was my state representative. He got appointed to the transportation secretary. So this spot was open. It was right through all the hub up in Madison and early 2011 and I thought, you know, I'd like to be part of that. I mean, I'm a small business man. I think I have something that I can offer and I'm certainly willing to work hard and I've never been one to back away from a challenge and I've always been involved and super busy and I'm like, you know, this is something that I think I'd like to try to pitch in. I look at it as public service in terms of what I do and why I'm there. And it's been truly an honor to have these opportunities in the assembly and now in the Senate. Like I said, I just really came in in April here and my focus has been on prevailing wage. That is something that I think we need to repeal in the state of Wisconsin and I've been really working hard in that vein. You know, we need to be good stewards of the taxpayer dollar and I don't think the institution of prevailing wage is something that is conducive to us being able to say that. I'm a conservative Republican and I believe in smaller government and lower taxes and everything that I do in my legislative process is always through that prism and that's my focus and that's where I want us to be because I think that's what made this country great and the direction that we're going in is something we need to try to push back on and push back hard. So I appreciate the opportunity to be here and look forward to answering some questions. Thank you. Thank you, Senator. I realize with six politicians up here and with me on the end it's going to be really tough to get some words in here. I'm, again, in Terry Cosworth, the 26th assembly district which covers the town of Sherman, the town of Holland, the town of Lima, the town of Wilson and the southern three-quarters of the city of Sheboygan and the city of Sheboygan Falls. The five committees that I'm serving on and vice chairman of the Thanks for Institutions Committee that's logical since I've spent 33 years at Usberg State Bank. So this is a career change for me. We all talk about being new. Yeah, we've been in this now for, I've been in this now for five months. So, and Mike Ensley was the previous legislator from the 26th district. So the committees, again, are the financial institutions, consumer safety, ways and means, workforce development and housing and real estate. A couple of bills that I've been working on are a simplification bill for variable rate loans so that levels the playing field between large banks and small banks. And another bill that I was working on with Senator Lemieux was to give opportunity for small cemeteries who are struggling to have an investment yield so that they can pay for their maintenance and such to give them some flexibility in their investment options. So, again, I look forward to visiting with you. I would like to remind my colleagues we have ten topics, so please stay brief on each topic. I know that's tough for some of you. It's good that I'm moderated because I'm probably the most-to-the-point guy up here. But I do appreciate that three of you reference bills you're working on with me. It's a good way to butter up to the moderator today. So, anyways, I read the issues by sort of the level of interest that we're getting in the office and timeliness of it. So we're going to start off first with Block Serena, which I'm sure you all saw the press release yesterday.  The proposal is a $500 million arena with half of it being paid for by the owners and former owner and the other half coming from public funding. The state share right now, as announced yesterday, is $80 million, not to exceed $80 million, $4 million a year for the next 20 years. Right now we're taking in $6 million just in state income taxes from the players. So if we do nothing and the bucks are going to leave if we don't build a new arena, we lose $2 million just right there. Plus we're still on the hook for the Bradley Center and if the bucks leave, the Bradley Center is going to cost us all kinds of money in the future. So that's sort of the basics of it. The city of Milwaukee is putting in a $39 million parking structure and a $12 million tiff. And the Milwaukee County is giving over some debt that we have to collect for them to cover their $80 million portion. So my concerns with the deal right now I want to make sure that the county will be on the hook if we cannot collect that $80 million. So I haven't had a chance to look into that yet very much. And my other concern is with the $93 million coming from the Wisconsin Center District just to make sure that that's workable. I haven't had a chance to look through the details of that yet. But personally I'm trying to take it out of the budget. That's what a lot of us in the Senate are trying to do to vote on it as a standalone, something that's that important to the state. I think everybody should take a stand on it. So that's what I'm fighting for. And I think until I get a chance to look over all the deals it seems like the problem with negotiating this deal is the bucks had all the power and the state has everything to lose. So we are sort of in a tough negotiating position. So I think the deal that was reached seems like a good one at present time. I'll turn it over for comments on the bucks arena. Well I think that the important thing to understand is that we the state taxpayers are still on the hook for the Bradley Center. I mean I didn't know that before I came into the legislature and the projected cost is over $100 million over the next 10 years of deferred maintenance. And of course if the bucks move, the bucks walk there goes our major tenant. And there's certainly many others. Milwaukee is the smallest TV market I believe in the NBA. There are Las Vegas or Seattle. There's a number of cities that would just love to have the bucks. And people that say well these are billionaire owners. Let's get them to kick in some more. Well yeah that sounds good. But if Milwaukee doesn't cooperate they can just easily walk someplace else. So that's the problem with the negotiating that we're under right now. I know we're going to spill some water here sometime. A lot was said here that was pretty good so far. But I'm a small business man and I look at the numbers. I represent the state. So I look at the states aspect of these numbers. And you know I'm not happy about it. But unfortunately it's the realities of the marketplace. We have two scenarios. The bucks state and the bucks leave. If the bucks state we're going to continue to get that $6.5 million in tax revenue from the basketball players which is projected within 10 years to go up to $14 million. We're going to keep that. And again we're going to get out of the arena business which we are in right now with the Bradley Center with the $20 million in debt that's on that right now as well as the $100 million in future deferred maintenance. So really it gives us an end game out. Yes it's going to cost us $4 million a year from the state perspective. But again we're going to keep that $6.5 million and that amount is going to grow. So I think at this point in time we'll see what other details pop up. But I was very happy to see that that is our cap. There's no more overruns are on the bucks. And again it's something from a financial standpoint to look at the two options. I think this is the better of the two. Again as much as it galls me but it's the realities of the marketplace to keep this team. I'll try not to be overly redundant because a lot was covered. You know I think the best thing this is definitely a better deal that was negotiated in my opinion than what we had started with that the governor had in the budget. I would be all supportive of pulling it out of the budget and making it something that everyone Milwaukee and Madison outstate has to take a vote on individually. But I do think too the most important thing is as a state we are on the hook for the maintenance of the Bradley Center and this as a state gets us out of the arena business it gives us a ceiling on spending and as Senator Strobel had said once it goes over it's on the bucks to make up that share of the cost. So in general I just think it's a much better deal than originally was proposed and it does make economic sense the numbers were covered. We're better off with the bucks here for so many reasons. Well I guess I'm on the same page. I do want to pull it from the budget and I haven't watched a better place than I was a few months ago. There's no way I could have ever justified what Governor Walker wanted to my constituents. I absolutely despise the Billow Park tax. I live in Washington County. I pay it. I hate it. And I'm glad that there's nothing like this in here but that is it is a fixed years how much you're getting every year for the next 20 years and that is it. And as a state I think we're going to actually wind up recouping more than we are paying. So that's where I stand. Thanks for your brevity Jesse Representative Cramer. Alright next topic is I'm going to roll three into one transportation budget pre-billing wage which do already touchdown and Highway 23 I'll first start with the Highway 23 update. I was very disappointed as we all are that a judge four days before construction put a hold on it on the lawsuit that's been going on for 10 years and we thought it was settled. So we were very upset about that especially since all the cones were up or barrels were up and equipment was moved into the area then they moved them all out of the area. But anyways on Monday the DOT judge with a status update and the next one is scheduled for September but at the DOT gets their numbers. They need to update some numbers, compile some population numbers like that they can schedule that meeting earlier but we're still going to move on with the planning and land acquisition going forward because we're going to do the project just whenever judges let us do the project. The transportation budget the governor proposed borrowing $1.3 billion in the transportation budget I find that to be unacceptable so I'm working with members in my caucus to try to lower that number the governor said we can't have any revenue increases, tax increases in transportation which is making things very tough on us because it's going to veto any tax increases and that brings us to prevailing wage. I'm very supportive of the repeal of prevailing wage. It adds costs for transportation projects for local levels of government. It would help us as someone who's served as a local level of government I'll give you one example. Our highway transportation guys who drive the paper operators when they're working on a non-privileged wage job they're paying $39 an hour with wages and benefits. When they work a prevailing wage job we have to pay them $53 an hour with wages and benefits so that's how messed up the budget is. If there isn't full repeal we better make some substantial changes to prevailing wage to make exempt some local levels of government and make sure tax money is used as wisely as possible so that's sort of the whole transportation budget that's a lot of what's holding up the budget right now is trying to figure out how to get everybody on board with the transportation budget but I will pass it on we'll start with Dewey this time we'll move it over, the mic over one person Highway 23 it's just an example of what an activist judge can do to screw things up with a political agenda because that's really what we're dealing with here and how it adds to the cost of projects like these which is just the shame of the bureaucracy that it creates and continues to perpetuate as far as the overall transportation budget I'm not in favor of more bonding right now that debt service is just eating up more and more of our transportation I think it's 17 cents out of every dollar if we bond at the 1.3 billion it would be about, I think, 27 cents of every dollar so I can't get that I'm happy as heck that the governor is stuck in the mud about no revenue increases because again I think government's too big we collect too many taxes I think we need to live within our means and not ask more of our citizens so I'm happy with that and we need to make critical decisions in terms of what we do with our Department of Transportation I think we have needs and we have wants and I think we need to focus on our needs and not so much on our wants and I also then think prevailing wage is a huge component of this whole process if we don't repeal prevailing wage I think we are just leaving the elephant in the room there so let's take care of that and then we can move on to some of these other things and take a look at them but to me I've staked my claim on the budget I'm a no on this budget if we don't make substantial reforms I've been very public about it it's something I believe in and I sleep very well at night with that so we'll see how that plays out things seem to be moving in that direction but time will tell so on 23 I was coming back from Madison Wednesday before Memorial Day and saw the signs up saying construction starting soon next Tuesday and then drove and saw the equipment sitting there and was all excited because it's kind of like ok we've been on this since 1999 and now it's finally going to happen the houses have been torn down the whole build up and then Judge Edelman comes along and on Friday I get a phone call that he issued the injunction that no federal money could be spent on the project and that stopped the project so I was very unhappy all throughout Memorial Day weekend when I came back I actually looked like Dewey was saying this is the one of the reasons why these projects continued to increase in costs when I looked at the numbers of what the project was the first slated to cost in 1999 when it was first enumerated the current DOT projections have it would be a 345% increase from the original cost and that's going back delays when the project was delayed in the 2000s when early 2000s when Jim Doyle raided the transportation fund now one judicial court decision after the next were trying I am and I know everyone else here is trying to work with DOT to make sure that that they rearrange or do what they need to do to keep the project moving forward we'll definitely be keeping everybody in the loop on that prevailing wage I think is an absolute must-significant reforms at the very least forward appeal would be the best but at the very least I think we need to have significant reforms to that program and I guess I'm getting the high sign I'll just make two quick comments first of all you can hear a lot about the surge of money in transportation both on a state level and a federal level I think on this court ruling you can see part of the problem is a lot of money is spent not directly related to putting together roads this project is going to cost more than it has to cost because of the start-stop caused by a federal judge who on the face of it wouldn't guess something of federal interest anyway because of the bills of government from a federal level I will do what I can to try to tinker with the laws to make it a little bit cheaper to build our highways because even if this thing gets up and going a year or two years from now we know it will cost a lot more than necessary because of all that's gone on just even the almost beginning doing something a few days ago and then stopping the second thing is wage law on a national level too there was an unpublicized vote taken to have permanent wage not apply to certain federal projects I voted to have it not apply but nevertheless we lost that vote despite having the largest Republican majority and also representatives for a long time to a large extent that was because we have a lot of Republicans from the northeastern states California Florida and who still wanted to keep it so that's kind of where the status of prevailing rate is on federal as far as transportation we've talked about the 23 so I'm not going to say that again but I think there's two major problems a lot of our projects Senator Stroll will talk about the wants and the needs we've got to get rid of the rules we need to pay the rules we have just get rid of the rules for now the governor has something called trans 75 the budget and I actually support that I talked to my representative I want them gone you hear these commercials for complete streets well it's something that they would mandate bike lanes going in and things like that that communities would have the option to do what they want there and I've got a problem with camel sport right now they could lose half their downtown parking because they need to put a bike lane in on one side of the road I also have a motion to get with the budget yet transportation stays in the budget to get rid of the beautification money put toward beautification these entrance ramp arms to get on the highway police officer has to crank down anyway cost 15,000 a piece to put in both circuit cameras that the DOT is putting up on all these highways and these overhead message boards that tell you how many people died last year that's all I ever see on there so take the rules out of the budget and just pave the road to what we need and the other problem is keeping up with inflation the cost of products and materials and things like that our municipalities obviously aren't keeping up right now and they can't because they're not getting the money from the state I have a full repeal agreement on wages in the state so that's where I stand I just want to comment on the highway 23 I read the decision are there any lawyers in the room here a couple and the question that Judge Edelman was concerned about was standing and those of you who are insurance agents in here the same concept is insurable interest does somebody have are they really really engaged in that in that area there and Judge Edelman found the lawsuit from a thousand friends that there were three people that were had standing and in fact one of them even lived along highway 23 so I'm all for separation of just later branch judicial branch, executive branch but it seems to me when the judicial branch has the power to put a stop to this project that has been studied and been approved by the state DOT the federal DOT by elected officials who make the decisions to spend and then you have one judge who makes this decision based on those small little population something just doesn't seem right we're going to move over since we have a couple educators in the room we're going to skip education we'll move to education a couple of things that I'll just highlight in the education part of the budget the finance committee restored the $150 first year cuts we're talking K through 12 first and maybe if we have time we'll move on to higher education for Jackie the finance committee restored the $150 for people cuts from the first year and added $100 additional dollars a second year school choice expanded by 1% for each year for the next 10 years statewide there was representative or popular I already mentioned the course options which Terry and Tyler and I worked on to help the local schools and I didn't bring both pages of my education I'm trying to remember what else I was going to say about education but the budget also expanded the ability for people who don't go through the traditional model of getting a teaching degree to get teacher licensed as a teacher so I'll let these guys decide what they want to talk about under the education budget and I believe it's Tyler's turn to start I'm going to take them out I'll start just by maybe talking specifically about the teacher teacher licensing portion because I know there's been a lot of rhetoric out there about what it doesn't do so what the proposal was actually submitted by representative from northern Wisconsin who compared with where we are have a lot districts have a lot smaller population are much larger in size and they were concerned they were having trouble they had a few students that wanted to take an automotive class or a welding class and it didn't make financial sense for them to hire a full time shop teacher just for one or two classes so they were interested in going and getting someone with industry experience to come in and teach those narrowly defined one or two classes there was added an alternative teacher license program which requires someone to have a bachelor's degree the district has to find them proficient it's allowed in subjects by the superintendent school board identifying core classes math, english, social science the permit, the license is valid for three years and it's only in the district that grants the approval so you can't go from climate to shaboying in for an example then the permit which is the one where they said now we're going to end up with a bunch of teachers without bachelors degrees no bachelors degree required based on industry experience and learning skill must be found proficient by the schools applies grades 6 through 12 not valid for core subjects social studies and science valid for three years then the district must reapply to DPI for individuals to be repermitted and valid only if the district grants approval and again it's not transferable and then one additional important component that was left out is under this the DPI is required to make online teacher training programs consisting of at least 40 hours of instruction available for individuals who either get this alternative licensure or alternative permit so just I know there's been a lot of rhetoric but just kind of wanted to clear up and I talked to the bill author and it's something that they're even working to further narrow that I do support it for those same reasons I have no problem with that a lot of these people that have been in these industries bankers, accountants you name it they have already been training people in the field at the top of their field anyway and now they're retiring and they want to go on and educate kids these aren't going to be kids in lower elementary school grades it's up to the school district whether they want to hire them in the first place whether they want to have someone there for an hour a week just to teach one class hire a full-time person then and they can still get rid of them if they're no good they can get rid of them I don't have a problem with that and the K-12 obviously I'm whole and then I guess to be honest personally I'm a little disappointed that we went over and above because my super tenants would have been fine if we'd made it home the first year but now we're sucking money from other places in the budget where we we probably could have used it elsewhere so that's why we use it I think in this morning's press you maybe saw the article that the Schwoingen school district received some national recognition being 48th tree as far as being an attractive place to be a teacher and that is because of the level of pay the high level of pay strong educational values cost of living is relatively reasonable here in Schwoingen and there's a lot of amenities here in Schwoingen so we we've heard some discussion on some of the hazards and such to education but I've got points that there's a lot of good things going on here in the city of Schwoingen for education I probably and with Jesse I also wouldn't necessarily have been in favor of that additional money that went I think that we needed to make a better use of the Act 10 tools that are out there I think we need to look at our teacher salaries more in a market based situation I'm a big believer in public education my kids go to public schools and I was on a school board but I think that we need to take a look at the educators that are in demand chemistry, physics those types of vocations or types of teachers they're going to be the all-stars they may need to be paid more we have other ones where I know in Cedarburg we have a job opening up we have 400 applications for that job so I think we need to settle in more at market rates on some of these salaries Act 10 to a greater degree I think we all have seen that more money doesn't necessarily make for a better product and I think we need to continue to get better at what we do in education and this far as school choice I'm a big backer of school choice the average voucher is $7,500 the average place to educate a child in the city of Wisconsin is over $12,000 and when you're talking about Milwaukee which is really where this is focused on is $15,000 the number of fantastic public schools I think you have nothing to fear but when there are schools that aren't doing their job I want to give options to parents and that's why I think school choice does we're going to do one more topic and then turn it over to Glenn so he can give an update I think we should probably discuss health care since there was a lot of talk about health care early on with the governor's proposed changes so the finance committee changes to what the governor proposed took a lot of his proposals out of the budget but just to let you know just to fund the increases in the cost of Medicare Medicaid in the state it cost $650 million over the next so that's heating up a lot of our increases in tax revenue so what the finance committee did was it put senior care back in the budget we're the only state that has senior care programs so the governor proposed eliminating it but finance committee put it back in the budget they left the 80 RC's in the county's control but there will be some changes made to long-term care going forward but they're going to take the stakeholders in the room and get their input before they make sweeping changes so the IRS program there was a lot of talk about the proposed changes to IRS there still will be a self-directed program under the family care model and going forward it's going to remain the same until the changes are met so that's important to a lot of people who use that program but I'll turn it over to Jesse first thank you senator I actually wrote an article on this I think it was in this voice it showed up too the IRS senior care the family care in my understanding in being new in this position I really had never seen the governor's budget before I'd never gone through a budget when the governor has always done his budgets whether it be in the county level or the state level he has always kind of thrown things in there that are very controversial to get them pulled out and have people start talking about them and I think that's that's what happened here with some of these programs people are not going to talk about these programs IRS has some problems IRS is a great program and for those of you that don't know what IRS is IRS is for people to self-direct funding for their disabled child and decide where that funding goes instead of going through a MCO like family care type program so what's going to happen now and I was in full support of pulling it out of the budget now people are going to all be invited to the table all these people that have worked with the program we can find what the efficiencies are these people know that for this program to continue we need to keep it sustainable and they know where we can make changes and where we can make adjustments making everyone at the table on these programs and actually figuring out how we can keep these programs going again being new to the budget what I'm really impressed but what surprised me I guess is how the joint finance committee is making changes to what the governor has proposed that was kind of a surprise to me one other interesting statistic that I learned is that there's about 5.5 million people in the state of Wisconsin one out of five is on Medicaid so you can imagine what that does to our budget as we try to fund education and all of the other demands past couple budget periods that our big driver of increases in the budget have been MA spending the medical assistance and that's why I was very happy with the governor that he declined additional federal money because in the end we see what this did it's $650 million in increases for our Medicaid to our budget and I don't think we can count on the federal government to continue to fund that additional Medicaid that we were being urged to take at 100% when the Medicaid that we're getting today is at 60% so I mean that would have been a bait and switch by the federal government explosive taxpayers of Wisconsin to more obligations that really we can't afford so just real quick I agree with Assemblyman Kramer what he stated I think some of these things in the budget are there so we can elicit a response get the conversation going I think there need to be some changes made to the iris and to the manager caring to things like that but now we can have a very serious discussion about that and my hope is in the next budget that we can find out ways to be more efficient and better at managing those programs when you really look at the numbers over the past couple of years it's really frightening the amount of increases that Medicaid costs us on an annual basis in our budget and anything we can do to rein those in is definitely a help to our overall financial health and abilities that gives us the ability to spend more in other areas where we think we're lacking I was pleased to see I got a number of calls from constituents and emails about the chief of governors proposed changes to the family care and iris program so I was glad to see that the joint finance committee changed, rolled that back a little bit my concerns initially with the program were it was just maybe taking off a little bigger bite than we could chew and there wasn't as much information available but I think the solution that we've come to really helps kind of drive the conversation on how we can provide efficient services to people who need them but continuing to realize that we can't just keep going on increased cost trajectory and that's what's killing us nationally but the other thing I just wanted to mention too is I also was able someone, a constituent brought to my attention something that's really interesting and started looking into and representative Mako from the Green Bay Bay area introduced a bill called the it's a 529 bill and recently the federal government allowed children with disabilities to create accounts that kind of go beyond what they're able to have in assets and monthly income so that they can sort of have a little bit more financially stable future as well so I'm happy to sign on to that it's just kind of a nutshell of what the program is I'll get my 5 or 7 minutes or whatever thank you. One follow up for the state legislators you understand why this is a tough budget and all these guys alluded to it it'd be interesting to go back and look 15 years ago on all the lines of the state budget the reason this is difficult for everybody around here there are difficult lines in the state budget is because health care for the poor and not so poor is just swelling I mean if you go back and look at the amount of money saved for shared rather which used to be a big chunk of the budget for cities and counties is probably flat. I think they're adjusting for inflation flat or even dropped over the last 15 years through the amount of money we're putting in the university and I'm supportive of the governor 100% but you look at the last 15 years that's probably not far from flat all of the increasing your income and sales taxes is going to health care for for the poor. Okay and one of you guys can answer that memo because it'll be real eye-opening for you as you see something all these other things just flat health care for the poor skyrocketing talked a little bit about what's going on in in Washington maybe I'll deal with that by committee basis I am on four committees first of all on the budget committee it's not as important as it sounds but it sets the overall parameters for the amount of money we're going to be spending in the next year the federal budget goes on a year that ends on September 30th so we have to wrap it up by then state level the federal budget what you do is you pass 12 separate appropriation bills okay and we're about four or five into them there's an element of partisanship there President Obama proposed a budget together with tax increases and with the tax increases he will be able to say he will spend more on virtually every line compared to what Congress has we've passed about four separate appropriation bills so far I in each appropriation bill try to vote for amendments or propose amendments that will shape something off of there the Republicans are proud they've proposed a budget that's going to result in a balanced budget in nine years we're supposed to brag about that I can't brag about that announcing a budget in nine years so we do what we can to vote for some amendments in each appropriation bill to break things down a little bit in the Senate it is not clearly able to pass these appropriation bills appropriation bills are not a lot of you in this room are going to be disappointed because appropriation bills as virtually every other bill in the Senate requires 60 votes to pass which means in addition to the 54 Republicans you have to get six Democrat Senators on board which means to a degree Harry Reid a local Senator from Nevada is going to have to have a stamp of approval on the Senate budget at the time if the Senate ever does get around to passing them we'll have a committee and come out with something joint in these budgets we have an opportunity not to have pure policy but to change some laws by saying federal agencies cannot enforce certain rules in advance you guys want me to talk a little bit about the new ozone rules which will make things much more difficult for businesses not even in southeastern Wisconsin but really halfway across the middle of the state a major goal that I have is to help people climb we need to try to keep the ozone rules where they are right now so you folks are aware there is a standard the amount of ozone that you can have in the air for each county and when you don't meet that standard the federal government weighs in with more onerous regulations for the businesses in that county the federal government is again talking about lowering the standards for ozone almost to the point where we could naturally have that ozone in the air together with natural ozone together whichever is blowing up from the Illinois area it would just be devastating for American business if that goes into effect and I will make a priority and I am trying to get together coalitions to try to put amendments in the interior appropriation bill banning the environmental protection agency to enforcing those regulations then of course you eventually have to get those rules through the senate and hand Barack Obama sign the whole budget bill our rumors right now he is going to be to any budget bill and say he is holding on for more spending which will be an unfortunately partisan thing that would go on I am on the education and workforce committee we are dealing with two or really three major bills right now we are dealing with the reauthorization of what amounts to the no-channel left behind act I am doing what I can to give all the local authority I can to local school districts we have in the bill so far we can move the ability for the federal government to prescribe any test to local school districts I would like that bill to go further Barack Obama is also said to be to that bill whatever it is so I think before we have a final change we are going to have to interview the new president the second bill that we are dealing with is the bill dealing with secondary education both Pell grants and student loans the goal I have is to have not as many student loans out there and a lot of kids getting student loans for degrees in which they aren't getting jobs anyway and not to mention the total amount of debt out there is a scandal too many Pell grants are going to kids who are not going very far in school in the first place which first of all is a waste of money in their time and a waste of your money as a taxpayer so those are the things I will be looking at there the third bill going through there which I will be a little more aggressive on because maybe we can get something done they are looking at the pre and reduced lunch program again which is absolutely bizarre I have people coming to my office lobbying what we can put in the lunches for the shaboy kids and you can figure there are some things the federal government would realize we don't need their expertise on I will introduce the bill and try to add it to an amendment saying we will cut the check to the local school districts but we have the federal government out of prescribing what type of food your kid should eat are we all going over 7 years old or are you telling us to do that I have talked repeatedly to this group about the huge disincentives we have with regard to welfare laws in this country I don't think out of the current present even minor changes there nevertheless I have myself on informal committee called the Republican study committee subcommittee on welfare reform which I am dealing with my chairman Todd Young of Indiana trying to get to establish things that publicize the marriage companies that are out there so the republicans do take over they realize this is a crisis that has been solved like yesterday I have told you guys before the number of people on food shares 17 million in the year 2047 today 17 to 47 million in 14 years obviously if you talk to so many employers around the area you hear a complaint about people working and even if sometimes they have people working part-time they don't want to work more because it digs into their benefits they don't want to raise because it digs into their benefits it's just destroying our country also on government oversight oh I'm sorry is this a sign oh it's okay well that's okay you can cut me out about it government oversight I don't know how much related to that deals with I guess what you call scandals IRS scandal environmental protection agency scandal secret service scandal and finally the joint economic committee which doesn't mean as much but it's an important committee for me to be on because I meet senators I don't know how these guys feel about it but at least in the capital whether you want to or not right the assemblymen and senators run into each other all the time the lines of the federal capital is the senators are on the north side of the capital and we're all on the south side and our office buildings are further south their office buildings and committee hearings are further out in the north and I could spend all week and not see a senator which really isn't healthy so I'm glad to be on the joint committee so I have a chance to meet the senators because networking and I don't know how those people is important for me to accomplish things so thanks for having me and I won't dash out of here I think too quick so if you have any other questions I'll answer them do you want me to keep going? It is 115 okay I have five or six questions here first question civics exam yes or no I think it's foolish but it's not going to hold up my vote on the budget I like the idea four or against I'm going to vote yes but I get it the civics exam in general I talked to Kerry yesterday the phone I'm not a big fan of standardized testing any more testing and anything like that it's unfortunate we had it in our committee it's a separate bill and I was prepared to vote against it but it's just such a small piece and a larger piece of budget I can't vote against the budget yes yes assuming I can test all right next question funding voucher schools how do you sustain both voucher and public schools I guess I'll start I think it's our responsibility to fund and pay for education and give options to all parents especially if they can't afford those options I campaign on that everybody up here campaign on that I think it makes public schools more responsive to competition one size doesn't fit all for all kids so we see that in higher education where we have great public colleges and I think that goes down especially for parents who can't afford other options if the public option is not for them so I don't think it's choosing one or the other and Dewey mentioned earlier that it's actually less expensive for the state to send for a voucher and the voucher expansion is for kids not currently in private schools so that's important to know last week that came out that estimated the cost of voucher students was 800 million dollars with the argument that we're running two different systems with that amount of money there was another study that was done that didn't get the publicity and that was an estimate of total K-12 education over the next 10 years to be 94 billion dollars so in other words 800 was less than 1% and total estimate was I like the way that the school choice proposal was put into the budget it sort of mirrors what we have now we actually have a public school choice program it's called open enrollment so if you live in Plymouth and you want to go to Schwoingen Falls I don't know why you want to do that but you can currently have that option to go from one public school to another the home district that keeps about 20% of the cost to educate the students and then the 80% goes to the neighboring school district you open enroll to and then this would be the same sort of setup for school choice the public school district would keep about 20% and then the choice school would get about 80% is how I understand alright next question as voucher schools expand what type of accountability would be required of these schools there's all kinds of accountability if you want to touch on that but the ability lies in parents choosing the right school but they do get registered with the state the state oversees all kinds of accountability financial audits all that's included Kevin answered that with my question now we're talking more about the tax day for the students and how will we know that the students are going to be accountable for them or that the students in public schools are accountable for them I believe they're already required to take the current test the smart balance if they have students I'll look into that but like I said I think accountability is ultimately the responsibility of parents while lots of Medicaid increase while lots of Medicaid increase is in the cost of health care will there be any reduction of more costs any reduction of costs as more are employed I would think so the more people that are employed the less people that are going to be in Medicare it makes sense to me right now we have 80,000 job openings on the Wisconsin Job Center so that's exciting news well I will have a comment on that when I talk about the welfare stuff you right now it is not hard at all to find employers who have employees who say they will not work more hours because they'll lose their badger care okay so there is no question in my mind we have people today who are underemployed because of the perversion centers in that program and I can understand why because health insurance is expensive and saying I'm going to forego a $6,000 or $10,000 raise to hold my catalytic health insurance sometimes makes purely financial sense next question what is your position on reducing prison recidivism enhancing reentry to productive life and ending mass incarceration in Wisconsin that's kind of the topic of the day to me it's not all that complicated if you break the law you should go to jail you need to pay a price to society for breaking the law now I do have some thoughts about people who are in our jails who deals with recidivism I'd like to really see a better mechanism so when people are in detention that they're actually doing something productive so that they'll be a better citizen when they get out and you know more emphasis on getting GEDs or acquiring skills or what have you while they're in incarceration and possibly if they show that they have obtained a GED or obtained a skill maybe one could look at as incentivizing that type of behavior maybe you could get out a little sooner if you've shown that you've proved something to make yourself a better citizen once you get out but I am not in the camp of saying these people that we're arresting we're doing the wrong thing we're putting them in no I do believe that we need to disincentivize that type of behavior we do that through incarceration but some of those people just have to come out of society because they're a problem in society so that's how I feel but as far as once they're in being incarcerated I do think we need to do a better job at reforming those people so when they get out they can contribute to society in a better way Grover, Norquist a nationally known conservative commentator was in Madison a while back and advocating for simplifying the sentences to be diminished and smaller so it could be some bipartisan effort that would accomplish that just to piggyback off of what Terry said I went to the Grover, Norquist thing it was a great presentation, bipartisan group people there but one of the things you learn really quick is when you first get in you're on five committees there's about 30 different committees all with their unique different specialties so you kind of look towards your fellow representatives and senators who can become experts over time in issues and representative Rob Hutton from the Brookfield area has kind of been working on this sort of thing so I guess that if nothing else the question prompts me to go back and talk to him and kind of educate myself a little bit more on what he's working on and the last question what are your thoughts on restoring the funding for the HAAP program the Harbor Assistance Program I actually have two harbors in my district both in Shiboe and Manitowoc and so I've actually done a little research on this it's a $10 million budget item and I decided not to make a budget of motion to put it back in because I think putting a set amount without having the need there we need to make sure that we are helping these when you have to do a harbor restoration but I think we need to look at each project on a case by case scenario and decide to put it in the budget sort of like what we do with the transportation we don't just set transportation at this amount all the items we look at one at a time to see if there well we don't but transportation really does any thoughts on the Harbor Assistance Program by anybody else up here no thoughts on the Harbor Assistance Program well that's all the questions we have thank you all for your time and we'll probably stand up here if you have any more questions