MADISON, Wis. — Gov. Tony Evers will deliver his sixth State of the State address to Wisconsinites on Tuesday evening from the Assembly Chambers.
During the primetime speech, Wisconsinites can expect to hear some familiar talking points, as the governor plans to focus 2024 on building from the success he said he feels his party has already had.
Child care won’t go unmentioned on Tuesday night. During an interview last month, the governor said the issue didn’t get taken care of in the budget to his liking.
As a result, he directed $170 million in emergency stopgap funds toward the industry to help keep it afloat through June of next year.
Now, Gov. Evers said he hopes lawmakers will rethink that and even hinted that a compromise with Republicans on tax cuts could be reached if legislative leaders were open to increasing child care subsidies.
Those are the kinds of priorities new Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton, said she wants to hear about.
“Gov. Evers has done a great job moving our state forward, and I’m looking forward to seeing what his priorities are going forward, but also being able to kind of take a victory lap on the things he was able to get done that I know he was extremely proud of, and he should be,” Hesselbein said.
The governor described the state’s fiscal situation as “good as it’s ever been,” so odds are, Wisconsinites will also hear talk of spending surplus dollars, especially on priorities axed from the budget.
Expect Republicans across the aisle to listen carefully during that part.
“What I would love to hear the governor talk about is how do we send the money back to people to help with inflation? How do we make sure that we have much more availability of housing all across the state? And then finally, what are we going to do to try to ensure that we continue the demographic trends heading in the right direction, not the wrong one?” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, explained.
With a little more than a month of floor session left, the speech will also be an opportunity for the governor to call on lawmakers to get things done, including the release of $125 million in already-approved funds to help Wisconsinites deal with PFAS contamination across the state.
You can watch the State of the State address live on Spectrum News 1 at 7 p.m. Tuesday and on the Spectrum News app.