August 10, 2018 at 3:51 p.m.
Vinehout seeks to disrupt the narrative
Putting people first is a priority for rural senator
Vinehout seeks to disrupt the narrative
But that narrative is a false one, according to state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout (D-Alma), who is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Walker. In fact, she says, the state's priorities are in the wrong order, and she is vowing to turn over the tables in the temple to set them right.
"I am running for governor to turn the state's priorities upside down, to put people first, at the center of state policy and the top priority when it comes to spending the state's dollars," Vinehout says on her campaign website. "My vision is very different from where the state is today."
Vinehout has only been in politics since 2006, when she won a state Senate race in Buffalo County. Before entering politics, Vinehout taught in and directed the Health Service Administration program at the University of Illinois at Springfield; she also served in the education department at the Visiting Nurses Association in St. Louis. She has graduate degrees in health services research and public health and an associate degree in agriculture.
She also started a dairy farm, which has grown through two-and-a-half decades to become a certified organic farm that produces hay and grain.
In the Senate, Vinehout says she has worked to make health care affordable, bring more equity to school funding, and find alternatives to incarceration. She says she has overseen the evaluation of state programs and has sought to make the state run more efficiently.
In each of the last four budget cycles, Vinehout has written alternative budgets that reflect the different choices she would have made with the money available.
For instance, Vinehout would make all technical colleges and two-year UW campuses free for Wisconsin residents. She would expand Badgercare to cover 79,000 more people, and she says she would use $100 million to fund broadband across the state, her website states.
Vinehout still lives on her farm with her husband, Doug, and son Nathan.
About that priority
On her website, Vinehout says she believes putting people first is the surest way to building vibrant communities where people want to live, work, play, raise a family, and start a business.
How to put people first?
Vinehout says there are several ways: Reward workers for their contributions as partners with investors and shareholders; ensure that the wages of workers go up as fast as CEOs' salaries; make sure those who are sick or injured don't have to worry about paying for health care; ensure air and water and natural resources are preserved and enhanced for everyone's use and enjoyment; and preserve local control.
Education is also about putting people first, Vinehout says.
"We have to rethink how we go about educating our children and what we want to accomplish," she says. "The creativity, excitement and challenge of teaching have been stifled by rules, regulations and testing requirements. We spend so much time and money on testing and evaluating that teachers don't have the time to teach or the resources and energy to try innovative approaches. We need a different plan."
Vinehout says public schools educate most Wisconsin children, and they represent our future and are at the heart of community life.
"The fallout from Act 10 and the criticizing of public school teachers had profound effect on schools," she says. "Teachers left and retired. Fewer college students are going into education. School districts have trouble filling vacancies. Standards for teachers were lowered. Morale is low. Student opportunities were diminished. Cuts in state aid have forced taxpayers to pass referenda and raise property taxes just to keep their schools running."
Vinehout says schools haven't recovered from the massive cuts in state aid in 2011, despite increases in the governor's election-year budget. In real dollars, she says, schools will be getting less in the next two years than a decade ago.
Likewise, she says, the University of Wisconsin has been underfunded and demoralized.
Vinehout says she would take dollars from, among other sources, corporate tax breaks and cash payments. In her alternative budgets, Vinehout says she rearranged existing dollars to show how to pay for schools and not harm any district in the state. With existing dollars, she says her budget showed how the state could replace the dollars taken from the university in past budgets and invest $100 million in UW needs-based financial aid.
"We need to reduce our reliance on the property tax to fund schools," she says. "The cornerstone of school funding should be state aid. Since the formula was first enacted, our demographics have changed, our economy has changed. It is time we rethink the way we fund schools. Tinkering around the edges is not enough."
Health care
Vinehout says it is society's responsility to make sure nobody goes without health care.
"People who are sick shouldn't have to worry about how to pay the bills," she says. "They should focus on becoming healthy. Fixing health care is my passion. Health care is more than a right. It is a moral obligation of civilized society to all of its members."
Vinehout believes the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is here to stay, and so Wisconsin needs to accept Medicaid expansion and cover 79,000 more people, and she says the state would still have about $286 million in cash to spend on other needs such as mental health and substance abuse programs.
Vinehout says Wisconsin must create a Wisconsin-based marketplace.
"The Badger Health Benefits plan that I have authored in four different legislative sessions would, under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, give Wisconsin the ability to assure patients and providers that our health care system will be stable despite changes at the federal level," she says. "In addition, our own marketplace could use the state's regulatory authority to review, justify, and, if necessary, stop rate increases, keeping plans affordable for small businesses and those who buy insurance on their own."
In addition, Vinehout says, creating the state's own marketplace would give the state a vehicle to offer BadgerCare as a public option.
"Solving Wisconsin's health care crisis has been at the top of my list since I first ran in 2006," she says. "In 2007, before the ACA, I was one of three Senate authors of Healthy Wisconsin, a plan that covered everyone in our state. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called the changes to health insurance I was able to pass 'the most extensive in a decade.' Fixing health care is my passion. I won't rest till it's done."
Jobs and the economy
The key to creating jobs and a growing economy is to have an effective public sector, Vinehout says.
"Study after study demonstrates people want to live and businesses want to locate where there are great schools, good transportation, safe streets, recreation opportunities, clean air and water, and amenities - all things that are the traditional jobs of the public sector," she says. "If the public sector does these things well, does its own job well, our communities will thrive, businesses will locate, jobs will come."
The governor doesn't create jobs, Vinehout says, nor does the state, nor does giving tax breaks and cash payments to corporations.
"This administration has tried that and it doesn't work," she says. "The Republican theory is that the private sector will grow when taxes are low and there are no regulations - trickle-down economics. That hasn't worked."
Wisconsin has spent hundreds of millions of dollars luring corporations, Vinehout says.
"Environmental and other regulations were gutted," she says. "What are the results? We still don't have the 250,000 new jobs promised eight years ago. Wisconsin is behind: we recovered from the recession one full year after the nation did, and two years after Minnesota."
What the state can do is create an environment in which the private sector thrives, Vinehout says. Over the last 3.5 years, Vinehout says Eau Claire has added 3,000 jobs - the same number promised by Foxconn, but it didn't cost the state $3 billion.
"The companies that started in Eau Claire said they came because of good schools, a quality university, efficient transportation, recreation, arts - just a good place to live," she says. "The public sector should be focused on enriching the economic soil so that all plants can start and grow, not just the few selected by our political leaders."
On the environment, Vinehout says her vision is simple: Don't put pollutants into the air for others to breathe; don't put contaminants into water for those downstream to drink; have a DNR run by an independent secretary appointed by the Natural Resources Board rather than a secretary appointed by the governor.
Vinehout says she would restore authority to the Conservation Congress and rehire all the scientists who have been fired and she would put them to work addressing problems like climate change and chronic wasting disease.
Local control,
other issues
Another critical area is local control, Vinehout says.
"Putting people first cannot be accomplished unless the decisions that affect people and our local communities are made by the people who live in the local community," she says. "I trust local elected officials. I trust local voters."
Vinehout says the state can do a better job making sure all women and babies are safe and healthy, including expanding pre-natal care, child care, and support services for mothers with young children.
She says she has voted throughout her career to make abortion legal, safe, and accessible.
Vinehout says poverty and inequality must to be alleviated, and that means a living wage of $15 an hour, among other things. She also wants to change criminal laws so that the state is not jailing twice as many of citizens as Minnesota does.
"Truth in Sentencing standards need to be changed," she says. "Bail procedures must be changed. We need more effective probation and parole. Supports are essential in helping those released from prison to reintegrate into our communities. We need treatment alternatives to prison for those with substance abuse and mental health problems."
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