Success Quote by Scott McCallum

The line is built like a humblebrag in bureaucratic clothing: “my goal” sets a personal, almost managerial tone, and “the best job I could” pre-emptively asks for grace. Then comes the real payload, delivered with the soft-focus language politicians love when they’re about to defend cuts: “very tough decisions.” It’s a phrase that frames conflict as inevitability, not ideology. If the outcome hurts someone, blame gravity, not policy.

McCallum’s key move is to translate governing into household math: “bring our spending in line with the resources we had.” That metaphor is culturally potent in American politics because it activates a moral story about responsibility and restraint. The subtext is clear: the state is not a tool for big ambitions; it’s a checkbook that needs balancing. Once you accept that framing, alternative choices (new revenue, different priorities, redistributive spending) get recast as childish or reckless.

Context matters because Wisconsin politics has long been a laboratory for fights over the public sector: taxes, unions, education funding, and the size of government. McCallum is speaking to an electorate trained to treat “spending” as a character flaw and “resources” as something fixed, not politically constructed through taxation decisions. The sentence is also a protective shield against backlash: by emphasizing constraint “at the state level,” he implies his hands were tied by forces beyond him, even as he asserts credit for being the adult in the room.