Walker: In 2009, Democratic Wisconsin state senators “rammed through a billion-dollar tax hike in 24 hours with no public input.”

25Feb/110

Walker: In 2009, Democratic Wisconsin state senators “rammed through a billion-dollar tax hike in 24 hours with no public input.”

Walker’s statement has three major points:

Who was involved

Walker is correct in saying "many of the same senators" who retreated to Illinois voted for Doyle’s 2009 budget-repair bill. Indeed, 12 of the 14 did; the only two who didn’t, Tim Cullen of Janesville and Chris Larson of Milwaukee, weren’t elected until November 2010.

What the bill involved

Was the Doyle bill "a billion-dollar tax hike"?

We found in a previous PolitiFact Wisconsin item that assessed the bill and how it was adopted that taxes, per se, would only be raised by an estimated $290 million.

However, if a new fee on hospital revenue was included -- and news reports often referred to the fee as a tax -- the take would be an estimated $1.2 billion over three years. Doyle and Democrats argued the change was welcomed by hospitals and allowed the hospitals to bring in a greater amount in federal money. But it was real money filling a real hole.

So, Walker’s claim of a billion-dollar tax hike is essentially accurate.

How it was adopted

Was Doyle’s bill "rammed through" in "24 hours with no public input"?

Again, Walker is essentially correct. No public hearing was held on Doyle’s bill, which was approved by the Legislature the day after it was introduced.

As Walker suggested, the Senate vote was strictly along party lines, with all Democrats voting for the bill and all Republicans voting against it.

(In the Assembly, all but two Democrats voted yes and all Republicans voted no.)

This is one budget-repair bill debate we can bring swiftly to a close.

Accused by Senate Democrats of rushing a vote on his repair bill, Walker fired back with his own charge. He said that two years earlier, many of those senators had rammed through a billion-dollar tax hike contained in a Democratic repair bill -- in 24 hours and without public input. The record is clear.

We rate Walker’s statement True.