Wisconsin Democrats have the right idea. They just have the wrong plans.
Last week Legislative Democrats announced a series of more than a dozen initiatives designed to lower the cost of living for average Wisconsin families. Their ideas covered things as diverse as school lunches, the homestead tax credit, and a bunch of ideas aimed at controlling health care costs, especially the costs of prescription drugs.
The broad theme is great: aim at the middle and address the biggest concern for most voters, which is the cost of living. But a dozen ideas is too many and a lot of them get into the weeds of Swamp Wonky. For example, they would require anyone who markets or promotes pharmaceuticals to health care professionals be licensed by the insurance commissioner. Well, gosh, that’s just a bolt of policy lightning, isn’t it?
Moreover, none of these proposals has much of a chance in the Legislature, which is still controlled by Republicans in both houses, albeit by smaller margins. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos isn’t going to hand Democrats any victories they can run on in 2026, when they have some realistic chance of taking back a majority in one or both houses.
What Democrats need is strong simplicity, not a plethora of policy papers. Here’s my suggestion: they should propose a significant reduction in the state’s gas tax. The exact amount isn’t important as long as it is big enough. It doesn’t have a chance of passage anyway. When you’re in the minority the idea is not to govern, it’s to make a point about how you would govern if you got the majority back.
And the gas tax is dynamite. Virtually every voter drives and everybody is hyper-aware of the cost of a gallon of gasoline. What other product’s price is displayed on big, back lit boards all over the place? You want to impact the cost of living for average families — and, what’s most important, make sure they know you did it? Lower the gas tax. (And while they’re at it, they should propose repealing the state’s minimum mark up law. That keeps the cost of gas artificially high to protect mom and pop operators. Mom and pop retired a long time ago. When was the last time you bought gas from an independent retailer?)
There will be an odd coalition in opposition to this. Environmentalists will argue that it will encourage more driving and use of fossil fuels while their natural opponents, the road building lobby, will say that this will reduce revenues that pay for fixing streets and highways.
They’re both only a little bit right. Look, people like to drive and it’s the easiest way to get around in a largely rural state. Environmentalists are wrong when they think everybody is just itching to get on a bus and would if only they ran more frequently and to more places. Maybe some Madisonians and Milwaukeeans are like that, but they vote for Democrats anyway. Average voters like their cars and trucks. So, lowering the cost of gas by a few cents just isn’t going to make much difference.
The same goes for building roads. There’s still a lot of money floating around from Joe Biden’s massive infrastructure act — for which, by the way, he and the Democrats got no credit. Moreover, the old rule that we would pay for roads out of the gas tax was broken several years ago at both the state and federal levels. Now we pay for roads out of the general fund in addition to transportation-related taxes and fees, so the relationship between the size of the gas tax and road building has been weakened.
Still, this would be a difficult position to take because the environmental lobby is an important Democratic constituency and the road builders spread a lot of money around to candidates in both parties.
But the point isn’t to placate narrow interest groups. The point is to take back the majority in at least one house in two years. To do that Democrats need to reconnect to the middle class, especially in districts outside of cities, where driving is the only way to get around. Enviros might not like it, but they’ll vote for Democrats anyway. Road builders won’t like it, but they’ll cover their bases with campaign cash in any event.
What’s important is that hundreds of thousands of average voters will love it. And it will change their image of the Democratic Party in a positive way. Do you just want to win? Nothing would work better than proposing a gas tax cut.
A version of this piece originally appeared in Isthmus.
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“Environmentalists are wrong when they think everybody is just itching to get on a bus and would if only they ran more frequently and to more places. Maybe some Madisonians and Milwaukeeans are like that, but they vote for Democrats anyway.”
Maybe Democrats wouldn’t have seen such devastating red shifts in urban areas –– driven largely by Dem voters staying home –– if they actually delivered quality of life improvements to urban voters, including strong public transit?
Yeah, I get that Eau Claire and Appleton will always be car-centric, but it’s a tragedy to abandon aspirations of robust public transit in Milwaukee, which like many great American cities saw so much of its vibrancy and culture was destroyed by car-centric planning. Offering people an alternative to car dependency is one of the best ways to deliver cost savings to the poor and working class.
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Sorry Dave, but this doesn’t make sense on multiple levels and fails the centrist test. First, while I agree that the Dems “affordability ” agenda is typical more spending, wonkish,and poor message transmission, this idea is many times worse.
Eliminating the gas tax without a workable alternative way to fund roads is EXACTLY the gimmicky pandering that gets Democrats in trouble.
Compared to Michigan, Illinois, and Minnesota…Wisconsin has the lowest gas tax and sits just below the national average. And Wisconsin just raised taxes on electric vehicles.
The average motorist pays less than $200 a year in gas taxes, with most of us averaging about 50 cents per day.
Knock, knock. “Hi, I’m Dave Democratic running for the Assembly. I’ll fight everyday to return 15-20 dollars a month, and make certain you hit more potholes wherever you drive ” (add to this lunacy, the inevitable backlash from the enviros,dried up campaign cash from road builders and their unions and everyone on social media laughing at liberals)
Wisconsin has the lowest tax burden in its history and my experience as a Democrat legislator is that trying to outdo the GOP on lowering taxes is a failed strategy.
Why the GOP seizes power all while the far Left undermines the larger goal of winning the majority is due to the Democrats being addicted to overpromising and under-delivering.
Take, for example, the 40 + year battle for universal health insurance. With Republican opposition unified, the 2020 Presidential primary debate clearly illustrated the Dems hypocrisy. Union contract/private sector employer/broken ACA/Biden arguing about how Single payer Sanders was going to Harry Louise us all into expensive USPS style health care.
I’m sorry but if you’re gonna be the Party of good government and against greedy wasteful for profit insurance and big Pharma and for profit hospitals, then ACT LIKE IT.
Guess what? Having a system with private sector employer plans, government employee plans, Medicaid, Medicare, ACA, VA, all scrambling to pay medical bills does not work. It harms ordinary people and wastes money. Yet, this is what Joe Biden stood for and he won the Primary election and became President.
This is not some normal intraparty difference of opinion amongst family members. This is a pattern of governing divergence from how Democrats organize themselves and run for office.
You can find similar examples with taxes, immigration, infrastructure spending, and most prominently the vast web of taxpayer funded education programs and services.
Saying one thing and doing another is not a recipe for success. Don’t promise hope and deliver headaches. Democrats don’t need more ideas, they need BETTER ideas and need to show that while effective government is extremely important, it’s not the only thing that matters, or the only place with answers.
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All good policy arguments, Josh. My point was less about policy than politics. I think Democrats need to change their image and they can only do that with clear, simple ideas that everyone can grasp. My gas tax idea is just one suggestion in that category, perhaps not the best one we could come up with. But what I think won’t work is a dozen wonky ideas that no voter will be aware of, much less remember at election time.
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Thanks Dave, yeah there’s a lot of policy arguments in my long winded comments. I totally agree with you on the Dems approach, when I served as a Legislator, I used to get our staff developed “talking points” or “budget response if we were in charge”, and it was never a coherent plan or message, just a shopping list of government programs that, drum roll, required more taxpayer dollars. My overall point was actually more simple: like you, I say keep it simple and relevant. That’s why I brought up the whole Biden vs. Sanders debate. The mumbo jumbo that Biden expelled defending the ACA and existing employer based plan was both bad policy and bad politics and the guy was rewarded by the DNC, who kept collecting cash from the for profit health industry. Sad if you ask me. With the gas tax, I just think it’s a long and tortured political walk in the woods with little to get in return. For now, Dems have a tool that is likely useful and that is to simply obstruct all things Trump.
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What a populist suggestion…also, it’s a great idea.
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