Gov. Scott Walker talks with a group of college Republicans at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student union on Tuesday. Credit: Gary Porter

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Madison — Gov. Scott Walker is laying out his vision for a second term, pledging to freeze technical college tuition in the state, cut income taxes and test working-age recipients of public benefits for drugs.

With less than two months to go in a tight re-election race, the Republican governor put forward a 62-page plan that sums up the actions of his first term, defends them against the critique of his Democratic rival, former Trek Bicycle executive Mary Burke, and offers several new proposals.

"It's our next wave of the Wisconsin comeback. It's our plan to make sure that everyone who wants a job can find a job," Walker said in a telephone interview.

Few details were included on the new proposals, but advocates for the needy said the drug testing proposal for jobless and food stamp benefits would violate federal law — a complication that killed a similar proposal promoted by Republican lawmakers in 2011. Walker himself acknowledged the potential for conflict but said the move was still right for the state.

"We believe that there will potentially be a fight with the federal government and in court. ... Our goal here is not to make it harder to get government assistance; it's to make it easier to get a job," Walker said.

Burke spokesman Joe Zepecki said Walker's plan was more about the Nov. 4 election that will decide who has the job of leading the state.

"Governor Walker's policies have left Wisconsin dead last in the Midwest in private sector job growth and facing a nearly $2 billion budget shortfall. He's had 44 months and that is the record he has to show for it — actions speak louder than words," Zepecki said.

Walker touts the more than 100,000 jobs created in the state since January 2011 and the more than $3 billion projected shortfall that he and GOP lawmakers solved in the 2011-'13 budget.

Burke points to the $396 million shortfall projected for the current two-year budget, the $1.8 billion gap projected for the next budget and the fact that Walker fell short of the 250,000 jobs he had pledged in 2010 to help create in his first term.

Gubernatorial candidates like Walker and Burke have long sought to position themselves as a kind of job creator in chief. Economists are usually skeptical of any governor's ability to strongly affect job creation, given the relatively small size of states like Wisconsin and the powerful, unpredictable forces of the global economy.

Governors, however, can have major impacts on the laws and lives in their state and in the process still affect the economy.

For his new proposals, Walker said he wants to:

■Lower the cost of government by cutting income taxes by an undisclosed amount so that by 2018 they're still below today's levels. That measure would come on top of more $750 million in income tax cuts made by Walker and GOP lawmakers over the past two years. Republicans since 2011 also have lowered property taxes by $536 million, with Walker pledging to keep property taxes in 2018 below their 2010 levels.

■Help state residents gain new skills by locking in tuition at state technical colleges at current rates, similar to the University of Wisconsin System freeze that Walker passed in the current budget and wants to keep in place through the 2015-'16 school year.

■Require drug testing at an undisclosed cost for able-bodied adults receiving unemployment insurance payments or benefits under FoodShare, the successor to the food stamps program. The plan would also lower from 60 months to 48 months the total period of time that able-bodied adults over their working lives could receive either type of benefit.

Jon Peacock, research director for the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, said drug testing carried with it costs but had turned up only a modest number of substance abusers in other states that have adopted it. He said that the practice has had setbacks in other states, pointing out that Florida's law was struck down by a federal judge late last year. That case is on appeal.

"We should be striving to find ways to help the people who have been left behind by the slow economic recovery, rather than stigmatizing people who receive public assistance by making them pee into a bottle," Peacock said. "Should (government officials) be allowed to do the same for Social Security and Medicare recipients?"

But Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said Walker had the right vision in trying to move people out of unemployment and into the workforce. He said that the federal government should take its cues from state officials and try to help them reach goals like that rather than hinder them.

"The system is upside down. It should be us pushing them," Vos said.

Burke released her own 40-page jobs plan in March with a five-point formula to: focus economic efforts around industry "clusters" such as heavy-equipment manufacturing, paper and printing, and clean-water technology; increase the number of college graduates by helping make student loans more manageable; pour $80 million more into venture capital programs; increase Wisconsin exports and foreign investment here; and better the state's business climate.

Burke has derided Walker's jobs plan when he ran for governor in 2010 as short and less polished than "eighth-grade term papers."

She has said the state should boost higher education efforts by providing more state money to universities, creating a new institution proposed by Democrats to help students refinance their college loans and raising the college tax deduction to $10,424 from $6,943. She also would allow student loan payments to be deducted from state income taxes.

To help business start-ups, the state should quadruple its venture capital program from $30 million to $120 million over four years, allow the fund to invest in biotech companies and boost another program to spur angel investments, the Burke plan says.

Finally, the state needs to boost exports and create a strong business climate by holding the line on taxes and regulations and providing for gay marriage here, according to Burke's plan.