Partisans are actively hoping Janet Protasiewicz will have a role in casting a decisive vote on redistricting, school choice, voter ID and even rolling back Gov. Scott Walker’s Act 10, prohibiting collective bargaining for most state employees. 

Minimum markup laws hurt consumers by making goods more costly. Wisconsin should repeal its antiquated minimum markup law, as Badger Institute has advocated for decades.

Examine your monthly cash flow and discretionary spending to prepare for new monthly loan expense. According to a report by Wells Fargo, the typical student loan repayment will be between $210 and $314 per month. It’s time to determine where that money will come from.

Pushing back on a Gov. Tony Evers veto protecting the University of Wisconsin System’s extensive diversity, equity and inclusion infrastructure, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is asking for legislative committee approval to again remove $32 million from the system’s budget unless it dismantles its DEI programs.

The 2023-25 state biennial budget signed by Gov. Tony Evers did not include the most effective measure to address gaps in oral care access in Wisconsin — dental therapy.

Governor Evers signed a budget passed by the Legislature that includes a more than 30% starting pay raise for assistant district attorneys and assistant public defenders and more flexibility for merit-based pay raises for attorneys currently in those roles. This makes the compensation for these roles more competitive and should reduce the high rates of turnover currently existing in District Attorney and public defender offices. 

Using his partial veto power, Gov. Tony Evers removed the Legislature’s first steps on tax reform for Wisconsin, canceling a simplification of Wisconsin’s income tax rates and a reduction in the rates covering much of the middle class and most of the state’s businesses.

When and why did bringing internet access to every home and business in Wisconsin become the sole province of government, rather than the marketing mission of established private internet providers?

The Badger Institute supports a flat-rate individual income tax, a structure increasingly adopted by competing states. We have spent years researching options for reform that includes a single, low rate. But if that is out of the question as budget negotiations proceed, the priority should be Wisconsin’s top rate.

Among the bills Republicans are considering in the Legislature is one eliminating the last remnants of Wisconsin’s personal property tax. The bill, AB2, sponsored by Rep. Dan Knodl (R-Germantown), would end property taxes on everything but real estate.The move is one the Badger Institute long has advocated.

The bargain struck Thursday between legislative leaders and the governor ensures the financial sustainability of the school choice and charter school programs but that also increases the low revenue ceiling for public school districts that are on the bottom of the revenue spectrum.

“This is good day for Wisconsin, and for anyone who cares about our children – parents who want more power over their kids’ education, teachers who work so hard, and school administrators who have long worried about sustainability,” said Badger Institute President Mike Nichols.

A deal that allows both the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County to raise sales taxes also requires that 25 police officers be placed back in crime-ridden Milwaukee Public Schools.  

“This is a great victory for all the good kids in MPS schools who just want to learn, want to be safe, want a way up,” said Mike Nichols, president of the Badger Institute, which has been pushing for cops in schools for much of the last year.

Wisconsin and the other 49 states are positively swimming in broadband funding, all of it the result of the Biden administration spending bacchanal.

“Drowning” might be a better word.

At a time when the job market is begging for graduates with bachelor’s degrees, the opportunity for many Black students to earn a college degree is being squandered. The number of Black students entering UW-Milwaukee — the UW school with the largest Black population — has been steadily decreasing in recent years.