our panelists this evening include bob dore, news director for the radio stations of the dore county daily news in sturgeon bay. erin davison reporter, anchor for wfrb tv green bay. and a reporter anchor for wtjt tv milwaukee. we'll begin with a 1:30 minute opening statement. first, from governor walker. >> thanks, john. thanks to the panel and most of all thanks to all of you for tuning in all across the state of wisconsin. two years ago i ran for governor because wisconsin faced both an economic and a fiscal crisis. at the time we had lost more than 100,000 jobs and the state faced more than a $3 billion budget deficit. we knew we had to take action. we balanced that budget without raising taxes, without massive layoffs and without cuts in medicare. we added money to medicare. the program that fund badger care and family care we put more money in the medicare than any governor in wisconsin history. instead we chose to balance our bug through long-term structural reforms to help to balance not just our state budget, but our local government budgets as well. what we did was thinking

our first question will be from bob dore for mayor barrett. >> good evening, gentlemen. >> good evening. >> the first question is why are we here? 20 months ago on this same stage the two of you debated before the 2010 election to see who would be elected to a four-year term. what's your view of why we're back here less than halfway through that first term? >> i think i answered that question in part in my opening statement. we're really here because governor walker made a decision. he made a decision that he would try to divide this state. and he used phrases when he was talking to his key donors like he was going to drop the bomb and he was going to divide and conquer this state. and he has. he has divided the state unlike anything we've ever seen. and as a result of that, what we've seen in this state is we saw hundreds of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people in this democracy who decided that they wanted a change. they wanted an opportunity to get a governor who would put this state first. a governor who would focus on creating jobs in this state and not traveling ar

our panelists this evening include bob dore. aaron davidson, and paul from wdjttv milwaukee. we will begin with a statement first from gov. walker. >> thank you to all of the for tuning in from all across the state of wisconsin. he said years ago i ran for governor because wisconsin's faced an economic and fiscal crisis. we have lost more the 100,000 jobs. we knew we had to take action. we balance the budget without raising taxes, without massive lay off said without cuts to programs like medicare. we actually added money to medicaid. we put more money into medicaid than any governor in wisconsin history. we chose to balance our budget for structural reforms to help balance not just the state budget but our local budgets as well. we were thinking more about the next generation that the next election. is that not what you i liked us to do? the good news is our reforms are working. we have documented more than $1 billion worth of savings that has led to property taxes going down for the first time in 12 years. that is why the state of wisconsin has a budget surplus and is why b