Browsing: Federalism

Gov. Tony Evers has asked that Wisconsin spend another $750 million to expand broadband in the state without knowing the current status of nearly $100 million in broadband projects paid for with federal pandemic funds.

For decades, the federal government has assumed a larger role in funding and running safety net programs, leaving states with little ability to address flaws such as employment and marriage disincentives and little power to make changes. State leaders must work to change this.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has added the $500 million to his 2023-25 budget to address a “burgeoning crisis” in mental and behavioral health, particularly among Wisconsin children, created by the impact of the pandemic. In his State of the State address, he declared 2023 the Year of Mental Health.

The Legislative Audit Bureau criticized the state Department of Administration for its lack of openness in how it is deploying $5.7 billion in federal health emergency funds granted to Wisconsin.

The audit report, released Wednesday, comes months after the Badger Institute first called for a comprehensive audit of all state spending of funds provided through the CARES Act, American Rescue Plan Act and the Investment and Jobs Act.

Using billions of emergency pandemic bill dollars to plug gaping holes in their budgets, local governments across Wisconsin and the country are setting themselves up to ask for tax increases or slash services as basic as police and fire protection when the federal funding runs out. 

Twenty months after Congress passed a bill that rained $2.53 billion down on Wisconsin, the governor’s office in sole charge of administering the funding, as well as  legislative audit and budget officials, have almost no idea of how all that money is being spent.

Flummoxed by a staggering amount of money and by guidelines for how to spend it, Wisconsin counties and cities are spending tens of millions of dollars of American Rescue Plan Act funds to try to administer American Rescue Plan Act funds.

Approximately 30% of the revenue in Wisconsin’s current two-year budget comes from the federal government — and that doesn’t include billions and billions of dollars sent to the Badger State to ostensibly get us through the pandemic.

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

Reforms would expand oversight of federal funds, school and health care options, increase workforce participation.

On February 1, 2022, Badger Institute President Mike Nichols testified in favor of AJR 112 before the members of the Assembly Committee on Constitution and Ethics.

Local governments, awash in federal cash, still trying to spend down millions from the CARES Act 

Progressives ignore past failures, and have no idea how to pay for a ‘greater society’ 

As stimulus rules supercharge costs, pressure grows to expand the unaccountable program in Wisconsin

Badger Institute Public Affairs Associate David Fladeboe submitted written testimony in favor of 2021 AB 149 before the Wisconsin Assembly Committee on Constitution and Ethics on March 10, 2021.

2021 AB 149 would increase the Legislature’s role in approving the expenditure of federal funds related to COVID-19.

The Hop, a $128 million streetcar that travels a 2.1-mile loop in downtown Milwaukee, is a classic boondoggle made possible by federal grants (i.e., taxpayer money). Meanwhile, the Joseph Project, a Milwaukee transportation enterprise that rejects government funding, is helping central city residents secure good-paying manufacturing jobs in neighboring counties. With a small fleet of church vans (most of them donated), the Joseph Project creates taxpayers instead of fleecing them.

Video shows how The Hop fleeces taxpayers while the Joseph Project creates them.

New Badger Institute book finds federal grants deprive us of our money, liberty and trust.

How federal grants are depriving us of our money, liberty and trust in government – and what we can do about it. This book by the Badger Institute urges states to push back.