Gov. Pillen on Wins, Losses in Leg. Session

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Governor Jim Pillow, Nebraska Governor, after the legislature wraps it
up for another session. God, welcome back, good to have
you on.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hey, thanks for having me. Good morning everybody.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You bet you had. You put a pretty positive spin
on it in your farewell or signing I addressed to
the senators, which is I think laudable. You're you tend
to be a positive guy, but there were disappointments along
the way. Let's can you summarize the good and the
bad from your perspective?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, no question. Well, certainly the good is we are
getting we have a legislative legislature that is becoming very
physically conservative, and we are saying no to almost everything.
We were focusing on what Nebraskans need from government, nothing else,
nothing more, and so we're making we're making progress. Or

(00:49):
I mean, we had a four hundred and fifty million
dollar hole to fill in because of the Medicaid reimbursement
being cut. So you know, we we've cleaned out some
pillowcase money that's been sitting around. We have like two
point seven billion of that. We used several hundred million
of that. We balance the budget most important piece and

(01:10):
it's the most fiscally responsible budget in historic times for Nebraska.
So that's a step. You know, we created. We got
some bills to protect our kids. We had four bills
of a year ago about schools and phones and schools
and social media and so forth that a year ago
the gurus said there's no way we get them through.

(01:33):
By partnering with Senator Sanders and Store and Harden, we
were able in Boston. We were able to get those
four all the way through to protect our kids. You know,
we had a big one in terms of stopping the
funding more funding of school overfund school retirement for teachers,

(01:54):
which actually saved teachers a thousand dollars. We gave them
a raise. It's a big deal. We eliminated forty boards
and commissioned shrinking Goudgement shrinking government. Believe it or not,
it was a bipartisan vote, so that's really important. For agriculture.
We were able to get a fake meat bill with opposition.
Believe it or not, we were able to get fake

(02:16):
meat so we can protect Nebraskas and protect our beef industry.
We merged protect water besides people, right, Nebraska's the people.
The next is our water, and we merged Department and
Natural Resources with Energy Environment to be called the Department
of Water, Energy and Environment to be focused on water
quality and water quality. So those are things, and then

(02:37):
of course stand up for our values. You know, we
are not going to have boys playing women's sports. That's
really really important. And you know, we're taking more measures
to make sure that we're not going to be doing
business with China communists, China, that's in other foreign adversaries.
Obviously we didn't get Winter. Take all very very disappointed

(02:58):
about that. You know, we can take that one back
to Thomas. Is not about politics, Thomas Jefferson, and quite honestly,
all of us would like to do We would like
all fifty states to do what we're doing in Nebraska,
because when you study what goes on in every precinct
across this great nation, there would be there would be

(03:20):
way more conservatives elected as President of the United States,
if you want to make it political. But if we
did it all, Thomas Jefferson was an advocate of that,
but when he couldn't get others to see it that way,
he said, we have to do it one way, and
that's the purpose for getting rid of the Blue dot.
So those were high points, I would say, and you know,

(03:40):
I think let's just say that the legislature overall, there
were some moments that probably I'm not real proud of
as Nebraskan, but we were making headway.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
All of that's awesome and that's a good record, but
promises about property taxes have been made and they're not
being kept. And it was you and other Republicans who said,
I'm going to get this done for you. You can
count on it. And we're talking not nibbling, We're talking systemic, fundamental,
formulaic change and how property is valued and taxed in

(04:17):
our state. How come it didn't happen and is it
going to happen?

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Well, yeah, so obviously, Jim I filed for reelection very
very disappointed. Our plan is so simple, it's sinful, and
we are not going to give up on it. We
were very very disappointed in our budget. We have one
hundred and fifty million dollars for property tax relief. We
wanted to be able to get one hundred million dollars

(04:44):
of quote syntaxes and we were a couple of votes
short of it. And we just have to have more
communication and get the idea of the past sixty years.
I just say it simple me. All of us, for
the last sixty years have been duped. All elected officials
have been duped in Nebraska for the last sixty years.

(05:06):
When listening to the tax policy gurus and the ideologists
we have. You know, our income tax cut of two
sessions ago, I got duped. I call it an income
tax cut. Well, we need to come together and understand
what the heck of tax cut really is. And for
the last sixty years, from my view, we haven't had one.

(05:27):
When we were in twenty twenty seven, Nebraskans will write
a billion dollars less checks to Nebraska. A billion dollars. Now,
the only way you call that a tax cut is
if the government has quit spending a billion dollars. Now,
we're going to decrease five hundred million in the next
two years from our budget. We are going to decrease

(05:50):
spending five hundred million dollars. Mark that one down and
hold me accountable. We that our team and our cabinet
members are going to make that happen by by improving
service and decreasing spend.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
And that's been what time frame, governor twenty tax cut.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, but this year Jim. This year, Nebraskans are going
to pay two hundred and thirty million more in property taxes.
Your one fifty million is nice, but we're going to
pay two hundred and fifty million more. Some people in
Douglas County are going up at triple digits in their valuation.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
The one no, exactly. The other issue is the valuation.
So the state law says valuations, okay. Evaluate when valuations
go up, the levees are supposed to go down correspondingly,
and everybody's overriding that. Now we got caps in to
cap local spending. But just to clarify, property taxes will

(06:47):
go up two hundred and thirty. We have one hundred
and fifty million in our budget to offset that. We
wanted to get a hundred so we would we would
be at two fifty and we would have one hundred
percent of property taxes stay flat. We lost a hundred
of it. We are not going to give up. We
have to continue. We have to get all conservatives like minded.

(07:08):
We have some people that say, because we've been dealing
with tax shifts, when we've taken all the state sales
tax exemptions off, that's not been tax cuts. That's tax shifts.
Same thing with our change with decreasing the income taxes.
It's not a tax cut unless you decrease the spend accordingly.
And we're going to keep working on it because the

(07:30):
property tax is a crisis. We will get there. We
have to get more votes and we have to keep
working and get people together, and we have to win
more elections in twenty six. It's it's that simple, Governor.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
Thanks always, good to Aby. I wish we had more time,
but onward to a reelection bid and the next session,
and who knows what happened, maybe a special session, you know,
and then you never know.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
He's right about that. It doesn't if you don't cut spending.
That tax cut the same at the federal level, right,