Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker didn't want to raise taxes because he was running for president, and ended up cutting back on education and several programs as a result, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump told an Illinois radio station on Tuesday, attacking Walker on the same day he endorsed Trump's rival, Ted Cruz.
"You had a $2.2 billion budget deficit and the schools were going begging and everything and everything was going begging because he didn't want to raise taxes because he was going to run for president," the front-runner told
WROK-AM in Rockford.
"So instead of raising taxes he cut back on schools, he cut back on highways, cut back on a lot of things. And that's why Wisconsin has a problem and you're losing jobs all over the place."
There are questions about the use of the $2.2 billion figure, however,
The Washington Post reports, with a fact-checker saying the amount concerned a budgetary shortfall, not a deficit, and last summer, Gov. Walker signed a balanced budget into law that will cover the next two years.
Earlier this week, though, Trump told radio show host Charlie Sykes that he got the information from Time Magazine, and if the magazine was wrong, "then they should apologize."
Trump in the interview further attacked Walker by saying that his campaign "sent him packing like a little boy," and that he didn't ask the one-time presidential candidate for his endorsement because he assumed Walker wouldn't, reports
BuzzFeed.
But, Trump told WROK that Walker could not explain "the real budget deficit" during the presidential debates.
"When I used to say you have a $2.2 billion deficit, he'd say, 'Oh, well that's a Democrat soundbite,'" said Trump. "But he wouldn't explain why he didn't have it. He never explained it. And he was favored to win and by the time I got finished with him, he was dropping out of the race. He was one of the first ones to drop out of the race."
Trump has not been supportive of Walker's efforts for years, though.
Back in March 2011, he told Fox News' Bill O'Reilly that he thought the governor may have been "too unyielding" while battling
public sector unions.
Trump then added that Walker "is unyielding and maybe sometimes too unyielding, and maybe not too unyielding," while pointing out that as a businessman, he himself had "a great relationship over the years" while dealing with labor unions, and that he has "great friends that are in unions and heads of unions."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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