In Democrats’ mad rush to blame Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany for the collapse of the budget surplus deal, they are desperately hoping that the public ignores the fact that they were nearly unanimous in their opposition to it.
Not a single Democrat in the Senate voted for the measure after Senate Minority Leader Diane Hesselbein signaled the caucus’ opposition almost immediately after it was introduced.
“From my perspective, there is no deal: Three men who will not be in elected office next year have come up with this proposal which Senate Dems will be reviewing,” she said in a statement after the surplus package was announced on Monday.
The following day, Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer blasted the deal as a potential budget-buster, signaling to her caucus that they should oppose it.
“The spending proposal in front of the legislature could put the state in a very difficult financial position in future years,” she said in a Facebook post. The Trump administration is already causing chaos that is causing prices to go up, and we don’t know what he’ll do next. With working families already struggling to make ends meet, we cannot afford to overspend now and be forced to make cuts to essential services like schools and healthcare in the future.”
As a result, the only 10 Democrats in the Assembly who voted for the deal were ones who face tough re-election battles this November and needed to oppose leadership and tell voters they at least tried to get them some of their money back.
The final whip count in the Legislature was 53 Republican yes votes in the Assembly (every member of the GOP caucus save for Scott Allen, who did not vote) and 15 in the Senate (every member except Steve Nass, Chris Kapenga, and Rob Hutton). That totals 96% of all Republicans who voted on the measure voting in favor of it.
Democrats, meanwhile, were unanimously opposed in the Senate and all but 10 in the Assembly voted against it. With a total of 15 Dems in the voting on the bill in the Senate and 42 in the Assembly (three did not vote), that is a rate of just 18% who voted for it.
82% of Democrats voted against the measure in the Legislature—including all members of Democrat leadership—and nearly every Democrat candidate for governor came out immediately against the deal…but somehow Tom Tiffany is to blame for its defeat?
Because a grand total of three Republicans out of 72 voted against it? When 47 out of 59 Democrats voted against it? As the kids say, “the math ain’t mathing.”
But for the Democrat spin machine, it doesn’t have to. Nor does it have to make any sense. The Evers Administration knows that this deal was badly needed to avoid blame for the massive property tax increases caused by his devastating 400-year veto, and its failure ensures that property taxes will continue to be a major (if not THE major) state issue this fall.
Tiffany’s opposition gave it the ammunition it needed to shift blame away from the legislative leaders in the Democrat caucus who ultimately killed the deal, but voters aren’t going to be nearly as concerned with assigning blame for the failure of a one-time $300 check; they’re going to be furious at the people who spiked their property taxes in the first place.
Democrats know that’s them, and they know that they desperately need to lie, obfuscate, and create a scapegoat for their abject failure lest they reap the consequences of their tax hikes this November.
