Browsing: Government Transparency

The Federal government has sent billions of dollars in COVID relief funds to Wisconsin. These taxpayer dollars have been distributed with little oversight or accountability. Do you believe government at all levels should be transparent about who receives this money and how it is being spent?

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.

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.

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.

Raising children, as can be fully appreciated only after you’ve done it, takes place in real time. They eat, sleep and grow whether you’re ready or not. So as parents supply children with the most crucial material treasure they ever will receive — a stable, loving home — many rely on some outside help in caring for their children while earning a living.

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

Awash in federal bailout cash, some Wisconsin cities ask for a property tax hike 

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

As you fill up with gas that as of Thursday averages $4.84 a gallon in metro Milwaukee, remember that the progressive movement in Washington, D.C., long has wanted fuel to be priced as a luxury good. 

By now, the health emergency has little to do with it

At the time the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its first major assessment of federal COVID-19 spending in March, more than 400 people had pleaded guilty to defrauding the programs and another 550 had been charged with felony fraud.

With cost overruns on bridge, road and other infrastructure megaprojects in Wisconsin as certain as death, taxes and Packers’ title-run failures, budget hawks are on high alert with new federal money about to inundate the state.

Wisconsin voters could make 2023 a watershed year for oversight of currently unchecked spending of billions of dollars of federal funding flowing into the state.

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.

Four Badger Institute police reform recommendations have been signed into law

Inside a $1.2 trillion bill, state Republicans say, is a progressive spending dream list 

Gov. Evers wants to use $100 million in COVID funding to underwrite a ‘fund of funds’ 

Milwaukee, Madison and Wausau plan to pay certain low-income families monthly stipends with no strings attached

With $800 million at stake, it’s time to finally dismantle the School Board and give control to a reform-minded leader