Wisconsin Forward

Statement

Today Governor Walker delivered the weekly radio address that is titled "Wisconsin Forward."

Transcript below:

Hi I'm Scott Walker.

This week we are focused on moving Wisconsin forward together.

In the past year and a half we have made tremendous progress that will serve as our foundation for the future. We closed a $3.6 billion deficit without raising taxes. In fact, we are now projected to finish our fiscal year with a surplus, allowing us to actually set money aside in the state's rainy day fund. What's more we've seen property taxes for the median value property taxpayer go down for the first time in over a decade.

We were able to balance our budget and protect taxpayers because of the structural reforms we put in place over a year ago. Now we have seen those reforms pay off in a big way; all told, our reforms have saved taxpayers over one billion dollars.

Most importantly, after years of job lost our state has added thousands of jobs over the last year and a half and our unemployment rate is the lowest it has been since 2008.

Now we are moving forward and building off the foundation of the past 18 months. This week we announced another 175 jobs in Racine, I met with my Cabinet and charged them to continue to look for ways to protect taxpayers and encourage job creation. Finally, I visited with workers around the state and talked to them about how we can move forward together.

We have accomplished great things in the last year, now we are getting back to work; focused on encouraging job creation while protecting the taxpayers.

The state has partnered with the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association to produce and distribute brief radio address once a week. Audio files and a written transcript of this radio address can be accessed on http://www.wi-broadcasters.org and http://walker.wi.gov/Weekly-Radio-Addresses. To download an mp3 file you can visit, right click the radio address link and click "save link as."

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