Discover video-sourced quotes by politicians

Robin Vos: “Tariffs are a tax.”

Featuring: Robin Vos, Republican | Speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly

WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos

Published May 15, 2026 | Video Starts at 46:25

Well, so I'm going to remind people I'm a Republican. Okay. I think taxes are a bad, necessary evil. Tariffs are another tax. Anybody who says they're not is not following basic economics. Tariffs are a tax. So I am glad that tariffs were struck down by the U.S. supreme Court. I think that was good for us to be able to say they should be targeted toward bad actors, not across an entire sector. (46:25–46:27)

CLAIM

Asserts that tariffs function as a tax.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

Discover more from

Robin Vos

“California has fewer school districts than we do and they have 10 times the population.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 43:23-43:29
“We're the leading manufacturing state in the country.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 45:52-45:55
“I am the longest serving speaker in the country right now.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 05:44-05:47
“There is only one legislative leader who has served longer than me elected currently.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 05:47-05:52
“Recall number two, only time in state history.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 06:58-07:01
“In the last two years, we had new maps forced on us by the liberal Supreme Court.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 07:41-07:47
“We were able to show that even under maps drawn by Democrats, we could win a good, strong majority and govern that way.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 07:46-07:52
“Ideologically, we are very disparate parties. There is very little middle ground anymore.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 09:15-09:22
“The political process, where we are, where especially in state government, I mean at the local level, people still run nominally as…”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 10:00-10:10
“They have ceded almost all their authority to the executive branch.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 12:14-12:19
“All these presidents have too much authority and it should be going through a deliberative body.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 12:27-12:33
“The courts end up making political decisions because we can't.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 12:44-12:48
“We had to pass a budget. I don't like the fact that Tony Evers is the governor. I didn't vote for him, never would. But he's the governor…”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 18:41-18:50
“Basically a one on one with new revenue, half for tax cuts, half for investments and things that were important to all of us.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 18:57-19:05
“We have the surplus. I hope we can do something similar. Right. Half for tax cuts, half for some investments.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 19:08-19:15
“EMS is a huge issue all across the state. We, we started to talk about it, but we didn't have a long term answer.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 19:47-19:54
“What are we going to do on roads? I have been talking about that for 10 years and we still have not been able to come up with a better…”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 19:53-20:03
“It is absolutely sad the state Senate is not voting on data center regulation.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 21:41-21:47
“Our electric rates are probably 10 to 15% higher than they were a year ago.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 22:48-22:53
“We have an aging infrastructure.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 22:55-22:58
“We have these stupid green mandates which are driving up the cost because you have to buy solar and wind that are super expensive.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 22:57-23:04
“The State Senate should vote on [the data center regulation] bill, especially if they want to get back in the majority.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 23:30-23:35
“Our current formula only gives aid to a number of districts, probably about 2/3.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 26:03-26:10
“The Assembly Democrats' proposal wasn't serious in my mind.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 26:13-26:22
“The DPI and the Fiscal Bureau gave us numbers when we passed the budget and said, this is what it will take to be at 42 and 45%.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 26:46-26:52
“I'm certainly open to increasing funding for special ed to try to get back to those numbers that were promised in the budget.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 27:14-27:22
“The Senate has told us they don't believe that there is any proposal that could pass their body without some kind of a rebate in it.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 28:06-28:14
“I can't remember as long as I've been around when we had a large surplus of at this level in the middle of the budget.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 28:46-28:55
“Most of the money that's coming into the state is from two sources, capital gains... or income tax increases, collections.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 29:13-29:26
“I would rather have an independent Wisconsin Eye than one controlled by any legislature or the governor.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 32:14-32:20
“I've actually asked the governor to say, look, maybe we could do something to the end of the year where they're going to cover the court…”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 32:58-33:08
“The president's style is super motivating to the 40 to 45% of the public who are with him no matter what he does.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 33:53-34:02
“Ron Johnson beating Mandela Barnes by about the same margin, Donald Trump beating Joe Biden and frankly by about the same margin, Tony Evers…”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 37:02-37:14
“Our entire school funding system for 50 years is focused on the more kids you have in a district, the more money the state gives you.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 42:21-42:29
“If you go back to 2009 and extrapolate out to today, we basically given an increase at the rate of inflation for those 15 years.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 43:03-43:11
“Manufacturing is still the largest driver of the economy in Wisconsin.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 45:48-45:53
“Tariffs have been very hard for manufacturing.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 46:39-46:42
“It's almost impossible to find workers.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 48:55-48:58
“We don't need more jobs right now. We need more employees to fill the jobs that are already here.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 49:02-49:08
“We have so little control over WEDC now, it's kind of a big bureaucracy that I don't think accomplishes very much.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 49:45-49:51
“We gave too much authority to this independent board who has zero oversight of the agency.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 49:56-50:02
“We should probably look and say how do we make manufacturers more efficient so they can operate? Which might mean fewer workers.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 50:05-50:12
“There was a very interesting article about humanoid robots that are being employed in manufacturing because they can't find enough workers.”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 50:16-50:24
“We might have to rethink our economic development strategy being simply how many people can we employ to? How do we make sure that they're…”
WisPolitics and State Affairs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos | Uploaded May 15, 2026 | 50:37-50:48