Milwaukee, Wis. — At an event hosted by the Milwaukee Rotary on the third floor of the Milwaukee War Memorial, Mandela Barnes was asked by a panel of local journalists if cuts would be necessary to clamp down on the rapid advance of deficit spending that has seen the nation’s debt total move past $31 trillion.
Barnes countered that we had been operating at a surplus through the Clinton years and up to 2001, and it was the “never-ending wars” not to mention the “countless lives. . . . It’s the people that we lost because of the never-ending wars.” He continued, “But beyond that, we have spent a lot of money. Ron Johnson had no problem putting an additional $2 trillion hole in the deficit to deliver tax breaks for the most wealthy. . . . We need to change our tax structure and make sure the wealthy are paying their fair share.”
The panelist clarified Barnes’s comments, asking if he believed raising taxes would be enough, or whether cuts would need to be made in addition. Barnes rejoined, “It’s not about raising taxes it’s about making sure the wealthy pay their fair share.” But later, he stressed, returning to the deficit question, that, “Going back to the question about the deficit, what I have proposed for making the wealthy pay their fair share, no famil — no person, no person making under $400,000 a year would see any rise, any additional taxes.”
Interestingly, when discussing what he was most proud to have accomplished as lieutenant of governor Wisconsin, Barnes offered a super-constitutional boast:
The [lieutenant governorship] is not one that comes with a whole lot of responsibilities. I decided that that was something I wanted to see change, regardless of if the [Wisconsin] constitution said it or not, or what responsibilities or not. I want to be as active as possible. I can guarantee there has not been a lieutenant governor that has been as active as I have been in any administration in recent memory.