Last year, Governor Evers campaigned on Republican tax cuts; now that he’s been re-elected, he’s showing us his true colors. The legislature sent him a budget that cut income taxes by a record $3.5 billion and made our tax system flatter and fairer by streamlining Wisconsin’s four current brackets down to three. Unfortunately, Ninety-five percent of the tax cut fell victim to the Governor’s veto pen.

This politically motivated action will have real-life consequences for our future. The income tax cut was meant to ensure that all taxpayers in Wisconsin could keep more of their money, but it was important in other ways too. When it comes to talent attraction, Wisconsin is in a competition with forty-nine other states, and it’s one that we can’t afford to lose. Data from multiple surveys indicate that higher tax states are losing population to states with low or no income tax. Our state’s tax climate is ranked 27th in the country. Wisconsin can’t lead from the middle, and thanks to Evers’ veto, that’s where we’ll stay.

We also worked to push property taxes down. When Republicans decided to provide a historic investment in K-12 schools, we didn’t want local property taxpayers to bear the burden. That’s why we allocated $600 million for reducing the property tax burden here in our state. However, Governor Evers used his veto pen deviously to raise levy limits for the next 400 years. This translates to centuries of property tax increases.

Fortunately, some tax relief did survive the Governor’s pen. In the budget, we were finally able to eliminate the personal property tax, which took nearly $200 million annually from Wisconsin small businesses. This outdated tax forced businesses to pay annually on physical items, such as furniture. Some spent as much trying to comply with the tax as they paid in the tax itself. After being whittled away for decades, this tax is finally gone.

As my colleagues and I began crafting the budget, our goal was to continue to make forward-looking funding decisions while providing further tax relief. We delivered. Unfortunately, the Governor did not.