By Press Times Staff
The race for the 88th Assembly District features incumbent John Macco versus challenger Tom Sieber.
Macco has held the seat since 2014. He is the founder and former president of of two local businesses.
Sieber serves on the Brown County Board of Supervisors, where he recently was elected to his fourth term. He is also a small business owner.
The 88th Assembly District includes Ledgeview, Bellevue, Glenmore, much of eastern Green Bay and part of northeast De Pere.
Name: John Macco
Party: Republican
Hometown: Green Bay, now resides in Ledgeview
Immediate family: Married for 40 years to Suzan, two sons, two daughters-in-law, five grandchildren
Occupation: Full-time legislator, current Chairman of the Assembly Committee on Ways and Means, former President and Founder of Macco’s Floorcovering Centers, former President and Founder of Macco Financial Group.
Why should people vote for you?
Because this isn’t a career for me. If you’re going to talk about creating jobs, I think you ought to have created a whole bunch. If you are going to talk about taxes, I think you ought to have paid some. This election is not so much about Republican versus Democrat, rather, up versus down, forward versus back. Back to the Gov. Jim Doyle days of debt and deficits or forward to 21st century jobs, education that isn’t determined by your zip code and healthcare options that aren’t limited to your PPO.
What is the single biggest issue facing Wisconsin?
When I talk to voters there isn’t a single issue they are concerned about. Instead, they don’t feel the tax code is fair, they want good roads, and they want to keep pre-existing conditions covered. Our Ways and Means team is working to present a fair, low and simple Wisconsin tax code. The transportation fix is halfway there, with my role on the transportation committee we will finish the rest. Additionally, Wisconsin already covers pre-existing conditions. The Republican Assembly passed a companion bill on it last session and with my personal experience with my wife, you can be assured it will be included again this session.
What are your views on what’s known as the dark store loophole? If it’s not a problem, why? If it is, what will you do to close it?
This session, my colleague (Rep. Brooks) and I were the two leading the fight to close the dark store loophole. I even held an 11th hour public hearing on the bill. But the loophole is part of a bigger question: local funding. I believe if we have a tax policy that looks like we designed it on purpose we could close all loopholes and special interests. I believe we need to fix local shared revenue, general transportation aids, personal property tax and 911 fees. If we did all that, we would significantly improve property tax rates and how local government is funded. Please refer to WiWaysAndMeans.com to see our progress on all that.
What should Wisconsin do to ensure funding on the state level is available to repair roads?
Prescription without diagnosis is malpractice; as such, our committee conducted a comprehensive audit of the entire transportation department. The Secretary and 12 senior positions were replaced. New laws to keep all transportation funds from being raided were enacted, and operational savings of $157 million annually have been realized that now go back into roads. Additional gas taxes, wheel tax, sales tax or tolling don’t resolve funding long-term. The only fair, low and sustainable funding solution will be to figure out a per-mile driven system, and we don’t have one yet.
How would you like to see K-12 education funded in Wisconsin?
Contrary to what you may have heard, state spending on K-12 has been increased substantially over the last eight years, with nearly a $640 million increase in the last budget plus another $100 million for school safety. Additionally, Act 10 was a good first step in returning local control and options to teachers and each district’s school board. Madison is no longer telling local boards what they can and can’t do. Most all districts have taken advantage of the new tools and autonomy. School districts have saved over $3.1 billion in costs that can now go into the classroom. Districts can even compete with the private sector for high demand positions. Locally, Green Bay’s own Fort Howard Elementary School received around $720,000 from the state and is now allowed the flexibility they require to service the needs of their ever-changing student body.
Name: Tom Sieber
Party: Democratic
Hometown: Green Bay
Immediate family: Wife Amy (public school teacher), three daughters 14, 11 and 9.
Occupation: Small Business Owner
Why should people vote for you?
I am a second generation small business owner. The community has been very good to us over the years. I felt it necessary to give back to the community so I ran for Brown County Board in 2012. Since then we have been able to lower the overall tax rate (from $4.57 to $4.45) of Brown County while investing in our county. We passed a plan that finally addressed the crumbling infrastructure in the county. Over the next six years, we will have a new Brown County Arena, an additional $60 million invested in our county highways, a new permanent exhibit at the Neville Museum, $15 million into our library system and many other projects.
At the same time we have seen a lack of support from the state. Since 2011, the state has taken away local control 162 times. Madison has continued to dictate to communities how to run their county or municipality. This has also led to special interests in Madison having more control over the entire state.
I firmly believe the best decisions are made locally. We need to stop giving in to the special interest groups and reverse the trend of consolidating power in Madison. The local governments are closest to the people and should be given more power and responsibility.
What is the single biggest issue facing Wisconsin?
As I’m talking to voters at the doors, it is clear that there are three top issues.
The first is healthcare. We need to do more to lower premiums and increase care for Wisconsinites. The first thing we should do is accept the federal Medicaid expansion. Thirty three states have accepted the expansion including all states surrounding Wisconsin. This will immediately cover more Wisconsinites and result in lower premiums. The next thing we should do is open BadgerCare to everyone. This will allow everyone more than one option for their health insurance.
The second item is education. Our children need a great start in life and that is through education. The 2011-12 Wisconsin budget cut over $1 billion from education. The party in power is touting increased funding towards education this year but the funding levels are still not where they should be and still short of the $1 billion they cut in 2011. We had a strong bipartisan tradition in our state of providing 2/3 state funding for public schools. I believe we need to get back to that level of support.
Finally, I’m hearing a lot about our infrastructure. We need a southern bridge in De Pere. We also need to invest more into our roads and bridges. Most of the approvals and red tape have been cleared for the southern bridge. We need a delegation in Madison that can work together and has the will to fund the bridge.
What are your views on what’s known as the dark store loophole? If it’s not a problem, why? If it is, what will you do to close it?
We need to close the dark store loophole. This unfair practice allows big box stores to challenge their property tax assessment and base their thriving store’s value on that of stores that are not operating. This practice shifts the property tax burden even more onto homeowners rather than businesses that are profiting from the services government is providing.
I own two commercial properties. I haven’t challenged the assessment on either property for two reasons. The first is as a county supervisor, I know how much that revenue means to local government. The second is that it is a rather time consuming and fairly expensive processes. Small businesses wouldn’t be able to use this loophole even if we wanted to. That makes this a tool for large and very profitable corporations to dodge paying their fair share of taxes. The Ways and Means Committee in the state assembly held hearings to close this loophole. Unfortunately, the committee never voted on moving the bill for a vote in the State Assembly. The Assembly members then tried pulling the bill to the floor of the Assembly and my opponent voted “no.” He also chairs the Ways and Means Committee but refused to have the committee vote on this issue.
What should Wisconsin do to ensure funding on the state level is available to repair roads?
There are several easy things we should be doing at the state level to fund our road repairs. The first thing we need to do in ensure the Wisconsin Department of Transportation is as efficient as possible. I supported a plan at the county level that brought more road engineering in-house that allowed us to save money and put the savings back into our roads.
We also need to index our gas tax to inflation. The gas tax has not been increased since 2006. You can see the results of this inaction when you are driving down our roads. We need to ensure that our funding sources are keeping up with inflation. The other down side of this practice has been relying on borrowing to fund the little infrastructure improvements the state has made.
I don’t believe tolling, selling our roads to investors or government monitoring of your mileage is the answer. I will oppose these measures in Madison.
How would you like to see K-12 education funded in Wisconsin?
As mentioned above, I believe the state should be funding our schools at 2/3. This had been a bipartisan tradition in Wisconsin. Our public schools mean a lot to our communities. We take great pride in our students, in both the education they receive as well as the recognition they get whether it be sports or academic success. We need to make sure they are fully funded.
We also need to make sure that we are respecting the job our teachers are doing. Over the last several years, we have seen a teacher shortage in Wisconsin. This is mostly due to changes we have seen in laws that govern how we treat our teachers. If we are serious about ensuring our children have a chance at a great education, we need to change more than just funding. We need to ensure that the next generation sees the value in teaching and is encouraged to enter the field.
I look forward to working on these issues in the next two years and I ask for your vote.