Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) appeared Thursday night on Fox News, in an interview with Wisconsin native Greta Van Susteren, and stood by his contention from Thursday’s Congressional hearing that his anti-public employee union law is “truly progressive” — though he admitted to having “fun” with the word.
Van Susteren asked: “In your testimony today, you referred to your budget as ‘truly progressive.’ Were you–” said Van Susteren.
Walker immediately replied: “In the best sense of the word.”
“I was gonna ask, were you tweaking the progressives, and were you tweaking Wisconsin history?” asked Van Susteren.
“But it is progressive. I mean, you look at Tommy Thompson–” Walker begin, referring to the former long-time Republican governor of the state, and former Secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush.
“But why use that word?” Van Susteren asked.
“Well, I had fun with that,” said Walker.
“All right, so I figured,” said Van Susteren.
Walker, however, continued.
“But Tommy Thompson, you know, had welfare reform and education reform that led the country,” said Walker. “I mean, you think about Bill Clinton adopting welfare reform, that came because of Tommy Thompson and [Republican former Michigan governor] John Engler leading way back in the 90s. We’re pushing budgetary reform, ultimately that is gonna put more people to work in our state.”
“Because all this talk about the middle class from the labor unions — the reality is middle class taxpayers are the ones that get stuck with paying for more and more and more governments. Finally, it’s time someone stood up and said, you know what, we have to draw the line on that. The middle class can’t pay for it anymore. And so we’re the ones protecting middle class workers and middle-class taxpayers.
Here’s the video. The key moment comes at the 5:05 mark:
