By Brian E. Clark
WisBusiness.com
Gov. Jim Doyle’s 2006 State of the State address is receiving decidedly mixed reviews from the business community.
Many didn’t like Doyle’s criticism of Wal-Mart, which the governor accused of dumping health care responsibilities on the state.
Doyle’s speech fell mostly flat with Jim Pugh, a spokesman for Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce – the state’s largest business group.
“The governor acknowledged that cutting business taxes and reforming regulations has helped a rebounding Wisconsin economy,” Pugh said.
“And in the first two years of his term, he was interested in those issues,” he said.
“But now it seems he has taken a turn and is attacking businesses. He wants to create new government programs and expand the welfare state.”
Pugh said business leaders are puzzled by Doyle’s change in rhetoric.
“We are looking forward to sitting down and visiting with him to see what is going on,” he said.
Among Doyle’s new proposals: a state-run catastrophic insurance pool, expanded access to health insurance for Wisconsin’s children.
One big health group — the Wisconsin Hospital Association — praised those two parts of Doyle’s health care agenda. WHA President Steve Brenton called the governor’s BadgerCarePlus program, which woulld merge the Medicaid, BadgerCare and Healthy Start programs, “a creative approach to providing important coverage to vulnerable ‘working poor’ adults and kids.”
Brenton cautiously praised the idea of a catastrophic insurance pool, though he said “there are many details to discuss before this initiative is ready for implementation.”
In the speech, Doyle also offered up a ban on “health care dumping” by Wal-Mart and other big employers.
“Wal-Mart is one of the most profitable companies in the world, yet it has more than 1,200 employees and dependents on BadgerCare — far more than any other company in the state. And Wisconsin’s taxpayers are picking up the tab,” Doyle told a joint gathering of the Republican-run Legislature in the Assembly chamber Tuesday night. “I want to make this very clear to Wal-Mart and any other company that might be thinking of shifting its health care responsibility to taxpayers: BadgerCare is intended to help working families, not multi-billion dollar corporations.”
Pugh also said the Doyle swipe at Wal-Mart was unfair and pandered to the left.
“That is a falsehood. Wal-Mart is not dumping,” said Pugh, who ascribed political motives to Doyle’s comments.
“This is very anti-business and it won’t stop with Wal-Mart because government has an insatiable ability to spend others’ money. Besides, it’s not good for the governor to bash the state’s largest employer.”
Pugh said he wished Doyle would have talked more about cutting taxes and reducing the liability of the state’s businesses.
“Those are only the biggest issues in the state,” he said.
Doyle did say he has signed into law tax cuts worth more than $660 million, and said “the property tax burden for existing homes and businesses went down by $51 million” thanks to property tax limits.
On the positive side, Pugh praised Doyle for promising to help small manufacturers.
Doyle proposed an initiative to assist the Wisconsin suppliers to large manufacturers. Technical assistance will be provided to 100 suppliers through the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the Northwest Manufacturing Outreach Center. Doyle is directing the Department of Commerce to fund 50 percent of the cost for 100 companies.
“But it was very troubling that he did not address the broader issues of taxes and liabilities,” he said.
Sen. Ted Kanavas, R-Brookfield, said Doyle’s speech seemed designed to appeal to his union constituency.
“Still, I found his Wal-Mart comments very odd,” he said. “This whole discussion of Wal-Mart is going into the ‘pitch fork’ economics mode.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Everything is great with the world for corporations like Harley Davidson and John Deere, but Wal-Mart is the devil.
“I don’t understand that,” he said. “I just guess he’s doing it to appeal to his liberal and union base
Kanavas, who has worked with Doyle on tax and regulatory reforms, said he did not think Wisconsin can pay for the governor’s “Affordability Agenda.”
“Whenever I start adding up the numbers, I get concerned,” he said. “His version of affordability is very different than mine. His plan makes me think of all the taxes that will have to be raised.”
Kanavas said he believes Doyle wants to be viewed as a liberal Democrat because he is up for re-election this fall.
“He thinks more government spending will help him win a second term. But I think that would be a mistake for our state.”
Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, praised Doyle for pushing the commercialization of stem cell technology.
He also said he liked Doyle’s plan to brand Wisconsin as the country’s leading stem-cell-research state.
