Kleefisch pledges a focus on Northwoods, rural needs if elected
State could glide its way to zero-percent income tax, candidate says
“Income tax, first 100 days. … I’m going to get carpal tunnel syndrome from signing so many bills in the first several weeks. So, we have to do election reform. We have to do universal school choice. We have to do income tax reform. And we have to get crime under control with 1,000 new cops minimum.” — Rebecca Kleefisch
If elected, GOP gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Kleefisch says she will aim for a zero-percent state income tax — but not overnight and a flat tax might be an intermediary step — and she pledged not to ignore the Northwoods and rural areas as she says incumbent Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has done.
The lieutenant governor while Scott Walker was governor, Kleefisch is running in the August 9 GOP gubernatorial primary against businessman Tim Michels, management consultant Kevin Nicholson, and state lawmaker Tim Ramthun.
In an exclusive interview with The Lakeland Times, Kleefisch said the health and growth of small businesses was a central concern for her while she was lieutenant governor, and so it will be if she is elected governor.
“I started Small Business Academy [a seminar that provides entrepreneurs an opportunity to connect with technical and financial resource providers and identify the tools needed to start and grow a business] to encourage female and minority and veteran potential entrepreneurs to jump into the small business market and become their own bosses,” she said. “And I also started the governor’s Small Business Summit.”
Supporting entrepreneurs in those and other ways is especially important for northern Wisconsin’s tourism industry, Kleefisch said.
“Big businesses are grown from small businesses, and the nice thing about the Northwoods is that you have an incredibly entrepreneurial population,” she said. “Obviously we wouldn’t even be talking about tourism if we didn’t have entrepreneurs who are willing to take a risk, and I would argue that it is a considerable risk because tourism in a state like Wisconsin is incredibly weather dependent.”
But it’s not just tourism businesses that benefit, Kleefisch said.
“So you have very entrepreneurial people, but, over my time as lieutenant governor, I also celebrated and we gave out a considerable amount of entrepreneurial grants to small businesses that had nothing to do with tourism,” she said. “Tech businesses [with] fantastic inventions that solved problems.”
And Kleefisch says the Walker-Kleefisch administration also provided support for those who teach future generations those skills and instill within them that entrepreneurial spirit.
“One of the reasons we could [support small businesses] is because we had very entrepreneurial educators, and so I was also proud to have distributed grants for Fabrication Laboratories throughout the Northwoods and all over the state because when you encourage and teach young people entrepreneurial skills but also how to problem solve, I think it makes a magnificent difference.”
Gov. Tony Evers turned his backs on northern and rural schools, Kleefisch said, particularly when he vetoed a $750,000 grant the Legislature included in the state budget for Lakeland STAR School/Academy, a school for children with autism and other special needs in Minocqua.
“One of the saddest things that I have seen in this administration is a disregard for the potential for Northwoods schools with a $750,000 grant that was basically just completely bounced by Tony Evers, and the STAR Academy could have done spectacular things, and I would argue also be a draw to the Northwoods economy because one of the reasons people like to move back to or to Wisconsin in the first place is K-12 education,” she said. “We are not Florida. That’s a good thing here. There are a lot of great things that Ron DeSantis [the governor of Florida] is doing, but at the same time our schools have the potential to be the very best in the nation, and one of the ways we can do that is making sure there is a great fit for everybody.”
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