Browsing: Economy and Infastructure

The motor vehicle fuel tax, long the mainstay for highway funding in Wisconsin, is becoming unsustainable as a revenue source due to increased vehicle mileage and popularity of vehicles that use no fuel. Now is the time to consider a replacement.

On Dec. 14, the Badger Institute submitted the following comments to Gov. Tony Evers’ statewide listening session tour on the 2023-25 executive budget.

Scholars like Morris Kleiner at the University of Minnesota have found that licensing creates barriers to entry into the field, especially for low-income aspirants; reduces employment and competition; inflates prices and the wages of licensed workers; stifles innovation; and limits mobility.

Wisconsin’s per capita GDP in comparison to other Midwest states is troubling. Even more troubling: we’re trending in the wrong direction. In 2011, Wisconsin was the 4th most productive of seven Midwestern states per capita. We’re now second from the bottom.

Why would a citizenry want its government to require, by law, higher prices? At anytime, it’s a good question but, as veteran journalist Ken Wysocky points out, at a time of raging inflation, it takes on a new urgency.

What’s the big deal that Scott Walker didn’t campaign on curbing union power?

State and local governments in the United States have wide latitude in setting economic policy. In the first half of the 20th century, the progressives chose an economic model for Wisconsin that called for high levels of taxation and government expenditure coupled with extensive regulation of business and labor.

Of the convicted criminals Wisconsin imprisons, most will serve a sentence and be released. Then what?

Eight states, including neighboring Minnesota and Michigan, have authorized dental therapist programs statewide. Dental therapists are mid-level providers who perform preventive, restorative and intermediate restorative procedures.

As we move through 2022, the national economy is in what might best be described as a strange state.

Some people earn a lot of money. Some earn a little.

Wisconsin’s politicians prohibit over 1 million citizens from working unless they have government permission.

It’s campaign season, so the only numbers that seem to matter to the mainstream media are the ones in polls.

As a way for funding an important public good — highways — Wisconsin’s gas tax was pretty good

Recent and rigorous academic evaluations suggest that such policies aren’t effective at increasing employment among the formerly incarcerated.
August 11, 2022

Dave Obey isn’t bone-tired after all. When the former House Appropriations chairman stunned the Beltway — and his district back…

Even before the pandemic, U.S. entitlement spending was on an unsustainable path, the growth in means-tested safety net programs far outstripping inflation.

Turns out, as it always does when you look at where federal tax dollars end up in this country, Wisconsin is bringing up the tail end in the scramble for COVID cash.
January 13, 2022

The century-old progressive income tax is no longer a viable model

Tax reform options to improve Wisconsin’s Competitiveness