Browsing: Economy and Infastructure

Wisconsin is nearing the end of what Gov. Tony Evers proclaimed “Clean Energy Week,” and the Badger Institute offers ample reading on the subject.

A federal report this month is touting two Wisconsin nuclear power plant sites — one operating, one shut down — as attractive locations for installing new nuclear electric generating plants.

How do other states without an income tax fund essential services? Under what circumstances would this be feasible in Wisconsin?

America’s energy grids are strained, and Michigan is reconsidering nuclear’s role in meeting consumer demand. Wisconsin, too, should take note.

If everything works out as under-promised, Microsoft will make the biggest single technology investment ever in the state of Wisconsin — a transformative infusion of billions of dollars to develop more than 1,500 acres in Racine County.

Wisconsin will need to build 200,000 housing units by 2030 to accommodate all the people who want to live and work here. Sheboygan County is a microcosm of the problem — but on the forefront of a possible solution.

Data centers chug electricity like undergrads drink beer, and the advent of artificial intelligence — which uses, we’re told, about 10 times the electricity as conventional searches — makes power demand soar.

Wisconsin is handing out almost $79 million in federal funds to private businesses to build charging stations for electric vehicles at a make-or-break moment for both the EV and charging station industries.

Show your progressive friends the facts and ask this: If you’re not willing to pay to fight climate change, who do you think should?

What if Wisconsinites were told they couldn’t heat their houses by burning fossil fuels in a furnace, the way about 4 out of 5 Wisconsin homes do now? What would that cost us?

Free-market reforms are driving prosperity and fostering human flourishing in the Dairy State. This unmistakable trend is evident in state economic indicators from recent decades, a hopeful story that can instill pride in all Wisconsinites.

The population of Eau Claire County, now approximately 108,000, has grown almost 10% just since 2010. A little farther west, just across the St. Croix River from Minnesota, St. Croix County has grown 15%.

At the national level, recent studies show that small businesses are not contracting with the federal government as frequently as in the past. And those that do are becoming more concentrated in a handful of congressional districts around Washington, where rent seeking is the norm.

When Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s business chamber, last month put out the results of its semiannual survey of CEOs’ sentiments, the outlook was grim: 22% rated the Wisconsin economy as “strong.” Only 10% said the same of the national economy, with 28% calling it “weak.” That’s a gloomier number than the WMC found in summer 2020, amid lockdowns.

The Jones Act, protecting the American maritime industry and driving free trade champions crazy for more than 100 years, is both a boon and a bane to Wisconsin businesses, workers and consumers. 

Wisconsin has, in state Sen. Rob Hutton, a mad-eyed optimist, for the Brookfield Republican imagines that this is the time, after decades of trying, that Wisconsin could repeal its minimum markup law… He might be right.

After Gov. Tony Evers announced last week he was diverting $36.6 million in federal emergency pandemic funds for, among other things, a soccer stadium, a sports center and a railroad museum, state Sen. Duey Stroebel tweeted, “I struggle to see how any of these projects relate to pandemic relief.”

Legislative leaders say costly project not needed or wanted Wisconsin officials in the Evers administration, supported by politicians in many…

Congressman Bryan Steil is still waiting to hear back from U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg about his request to please make it clear Milwaukee does not have to run “The Hop” streetcar through a closed construction site on Sundays — and Sundays only — during the winter in order to meet the requirements of a federal grant.

Milwaukee city officials are going to run their streetcars, part of the $128 million Hop, through a closed construction site on Sundays, and Sundays only, throughout the winter in order to satisfy the requirements of a federal grant.