We took office with one clear mission: To build our economy. And this has remained our No. 1 priority – even in the good times.
We recognized that without strong businesses and good jobs, we can't provide a high quality of life for our families. We can't afford the social programs that help those in need or great public schools for our children.
Let's take a look at the strong economy we built: 800,000 new jobs; 95,000 new manufacturing jobs; a record 3 million people working – the highest percentage in America; unemployment cut by more than half to 3.3 percent; a jobless rate below the national average a record 156 straight months; and a median household income of nearly $46,000, well above the national average.
What a turnaround! No Company mirrors our comeback better than Wisconsin's very own Harley Davidson. Since 1986, Harley grew its earnings from $4 million to $348 million; increased employment from 1,200 to 3,700; opened four new facilities; and saw its stock price grow from 33 cents a share to $40. Please welcome Ken Sutton and Wayne Curtain from Harley.
Wisconsin is once again the place where eagles soar and Harleys roar!
We're enjoying the longest period of sustained economic growth in our history.
To those who try to downplay our economic success by giving the credit to good times nationally, let us be clear about one thing: Wisconsin built its economy first, and the nation followed.
Look at these charts, particularly the period from 1987 to 1992.
When the country fell into recession in the early 90s, Wisconsin was one of only a few states not to feel the sting. Our job creation grew while the nation's fell, and our unemployment rate dropped while the nation's rose.
We did not benefit from an economic boom – we helped create the economic boom.
How did we build this economic engine? By what I call the Four Ts of the Great Turnaround: Our 'Tude, the slang for Attitude, Tax Cuts, Transportation and Teaching.
We set a new tone, where success was the only option. We began believing we could achieve anything, then worked together to make it happen.
Don't for a second discount the importance of our attitude change, for it transformed how companies looked at Wisconsin. We made it clear Wisconsin was open for business and companies responded by building and growing here.
As we were adjusting our attitude, we began making investments in the right places to trigger economic growth.
We cut taxes in the very first budget and haven't stopped since.
With your help, we cut taxes 91 times totaling $16.7 billion. These cuts saved the average
Wisconsin family $8,400. And they infused new money into the economy to help stimulate growth and prosperity.
And tonight, we have good news to report. The state's national tax ranking has fallen to ninth in the nation, according to the latest Census Bureau figures which reflect tax year 1999.
And when the cuts we enacted for years 2000 and 2001 are factored into the equation, we can say with confidence that Wisconsin is finally out of the top 10 states.
As for state spending, our per capita rate is the 14th lowest in the nation and our state government is the third smallest. Could it be better? Absolutely. Is it bad? Absolutely not.
But let's be fair about what has driven spending – the desire to cut local property taxes.
In 1995, the state picked up two-thirds the cost of local schools and we've maintained that percentage ever since. That costs money. But we made this commitment to cut property taxes $1.2 billion initially and keep them under control in future years.
And without the cost controls we placed on local school spending, property taxes would be $2 billion higher right now.
So let's put this in the proper perspective: Spending went up at the state level so taxes could go down at the local level.
What's most impressive is the state took on the extra burden of local school spending and still made substantial cuts in state taxes.
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That's quite a feat. And it's a testament to our fiscal discipline.
But if some partisans are still intent on playing games with the spending issue, let me remind them of this fact: Every budget I submitted to the Legislature has come back with more spending -- $1.6 billion to be exact. And my 1,900 vetoes pared $287 million. Also, I set aside more money for a rainy day in every budget, but the Legislature spent it.
So, perhaps it is time for a cap on state spending.
But back to the four Ts. Along with adjusting our attitude and cutting taxes, we stimulated our economy by investing in our roads.
When we came in, Wisconsin was largely a network of inefficient and dangerous two lane highways. So we built strategic corridors of four-lane roads that are delivering remarkable economic benefits for communities. From 1990 to 1996, more than 87 percent of the 1,900 manufacturing developments in Wisconsin occurred within five miles of a Corridors 2020 highway. And these plants created 90 percent of the new manufacturing jobs in our state.
We built the roads and the jobs followed. The correlation couldn't be clearer, nor could the payoff on the investment.
We also increased spending on mass transportation by 140 percent, helping our workers get to and from their jobs. And we are leading the nation into an exciting new era of high-speed passenger rail with the help of Amtrak.
We've taken a balanced approach to moving our products and people in Wisconsin.
The fourth T, and perhaps the most important, is teaching. Educating our children and workers.
As the nation's Education State, we have long recognized that education must be the foundation for individual success. If we were going to create more jobs, we needed to develop the skilled workers to fill them.
So we invested in our schools like no other time in our history – and that's saying a lot.
We now spend $7.8 billion dollars each year on public schools – an increase of 141 percent. And the state contribution to schools has grown from $1 billion to nearly $5 billion. In addition, we increased other state aids and credits by 230 percent; raised per pupil spending to $9,000 annually; spent $47.2 million more in the SAGE program to reduce class sizes; made our teachers among the best paid in the Midwest and America; invested in teacher development and created a salary bonus for national certification.
No state is making a greater, more consistent investment in its public schools than Wisconsin.
We've learned, however, that just spending more money doesn't buy you more success in the classroom. Nowhere was this more evident than in Milwaukee Public Schools, which were lagging behind. This despite the state increasing its aid to MPS by 55 percent and funding 82 percent of its costs.
So we targeted our efforts to building up Milwaukee. We started with the principles that every student can learn and parents must be empowered with more choices.
This philosophy spawned some of the nation's most innovative education reforms.
Charter schools. Public school choice. Private school choice for Milwaukee. Charter schools operated by the city of Milwaukee, UW-Milwaukee, and the Medical College of Wisconsin and MPS.
Nowhere in America does a parent have more choices than in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
And it's making all the difference.
Parents are now more involved in their children's lives. The public schools are rising to the challenge of competition. And the entire city of Milwaukee is more dedicated to improving the quality of its schools.
There is no doubt in my mind that Milwaukee will become the national model for renewing urban education in America within a few years. I have often used this podium to challenge MPS, but tonight I want to applaud its leaders and educators. Please recognize Superintendent Spence Korte and board vice president Ken Johnson. They are working together to make sure all schools measure up and no child is left behind.
And I urge this Legislature to extend the same array of choices to the state's other urban communities. Have the courage to give these parents the same opportunity as Milwaukee.
The Milwaukee challenge also prompted a statewide debate about the need for higher standards and greater accountability in our schools.
Thus, we came together to create the first set of education standards and the first graduation test. And I applaud the UW System for making passage of the test a requirement for admission.
To help our students achieve; we invested wisely in technology programs like TEACH -- a great equalizer that gives rural and urban schools the same access to courses and teachers.
We also provided better job training for our students with the nation's first School-to-Work and Youth Apprenticeship programs.
Our Youth Options program began our quest for a seamless system of schools, where a student can move easily from high school to technical college to the university system – all while getting real work experience. This must be the model for education in the 21st century.
We're also building the Schoolhouse of Tomorrow by pumping unprecedented money into our facilities, from our kindergartens to university research labs. We made sure our two-thirds commitment covered construction costs so small communities could afford new schools and building improvements.
As a result, the state has helped pay for 363 school projects and increased its construction funding by 650 percent.
And we've built our UW System campuses into cutting-edge institutions by helping to finance 4,025 building projects totaling nearly $2 billion in capital investment.
The payoff is the nation's best-educated, skilled workforce. Our students graduate in high demand.
What makes Wisconsin so special, though, is that in our fine progressive tradition, we have made wise use of our economic success. Yes, we aggressively cut taxes for our families, but we also invested in our future by helping those in need.
Nowhere is our state's social contract more evident than in health care, where we consistently have one of the highest percentages of people with health coverage.
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But when our workers can't get or afford health insurance, the state provides a helping hand in the form of BadgerCare. This program allows hard-working families like Todd and Catherine Dobbratz to buy into the state health plan in a way that doesn't tax others or bankrupt government. Now the Dobbratzes have health coverage for themselves and their four children. And I applaud the Legislature for taking swift, bipartisan action to make this program whole. It's a great way to start off the new session.
During my senate confirmation process, there was no program senators in both parties were more interested in than BadgerCare. They wanted to know how we did it and could it be replicated nationally. I don't know the answer but something tells me I'm going to find out. Once again the nation is looking to Wisconsin to solve a problem once deemed unsolvable.
And thanks to your help, we're giving seniors the choice of getting long-term care in their homes through Family Care. And Pathways to Independence is freeing the disabled to pursue careers without the fear of losing life-sustaining health benefits.
But I would be remiss – and in big trouble at home – if I didn't mention the tremendous strides we are making in women's health in Wisconsin. We created an Office of
Women's Health, expanded access to health care, and invested more in research. And I'm pleased to announce I was able to bring GE Medical Systems and UW Hospital together to install two digital mammography machines at UW Health Centers this spring. These machines detect breast cancer at such an early stage it will save hundreds of lives.
Another example of making the latest in medical technology available to Wisconsin women.
Now we also have before us the challenge of making prescriptions drugs affordable to low-income seniors. With both parties and houses publicly committed to addressing this problem, I am confident a solution can be reached. The existing budget constraints, however, clearly place the first priority on helping those seniors in greatest need. Let's make it happen.
Our most recognizable and successful social reform, however, is welfare.
They said you couldn't end AFDC. It was impossible to develop a more compassionate and effective way of helping the poor.
Well, we proved the cynics wrong and showed that every person has value. We rejected a system that discriminated against women and cast them off into a corner of society.
Instead, we took them by the hand and showed them a better way. And an entire nation followed.
W-2 is far and away our most compassionate accomplishment – the greatest change in social policy in 60 years.
We made welfare reform work because we did it right. We brought welfare mothers to the table and asked them what prevented them from working.
With their counsel, we invested up front in the programs needed to move them from dependency to self-sufficiency: child care, health care, transportation, training, food stamps, tax credits and individualized counseling.
Just look at childcare. We increased spending from $12 million to more than $200 million, and there are no waiting lists as a result.
Now we're taking childcare to the next step with our Early Childhood Excellence Centers that provide high quality learning for low-income children. These centers will set a new standard in early childhood development – putting at-risk children on more solid footing as they enter school. A model for this concept is SC Johnson and its Next Generation Now center in Racine. I'd like to thank Helen Johnson-Leipold for SC Johnson's leadership.
Welfare reform is succeeding beyond our grandest expectations.
Yes, our caseloads are down a remarkable 94 percent. Only 6,496 families remain on cash assistance.
But more important is the fact these families are better off. No their lives aren't perfect yet. But they are better off as a whole.
Just look at the data.
• Our first leaver's study showed that 70 percent left the rolls for a job.
• The average wage is $7.42 – more than two dollars above the minimum wage.
• The average family on AFDC was 30 percent below the poverty level. Through W-2, they're 30 percent above poverty.
• The child poverty rate has dropped by 20 percent.
• Wisconsin ranks as the fourth best state in the country for children.
• Our overall poverty rate is the fifth lowest; our gap between rich and poor is the fourth smallest.
Clearly, welfare reform is lifting families up. Helping them to succeed. And giving them a higher quality of life. Leilani Duarte, who was part of those first luncheons at the Residence, is proof.
Our challenge is not over, however.
The genius of W-2 is its flexibility and its ability to evolve. And evolve it must.
W-2 helped thousands of families get jobs. Now it must focus on helping them climb the ladder of opportunity to greater self-sufficiency. It must put resources toward helping families stay in the workforce and not slip backwards.
The Division of Economic Support is already in the process of making this transformation and I urge you to support their efforts.
