Browsing: Reports

Budget Analysis

Financial Delusion

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In state capitols across the country governors and legislatures have been forced to put all of their energy into solving enormous fiscal shortfalls. Given their dependence on income tax and sales tax revenues, the 2001 recession hit state governments particularly hard. In 2003, no fewer than 39 states, including Wisconsin, experienced budget gaps. During the

Civil Society

The Wisconsin Citizen Survey November 2003

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The Objectives of the Research The objectives of this wave of WPRI’s ongoing research program continue to be measurement of residents’ attitudes on emerging and topical issues and to track change in attitudes on selected topics over time. As was found in earlier surveys, attitudes on some issues have changed very little since the last wave. On

Enviroment

Government Pollution

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The Metropolitan Milwaukee Sewerage District’s Impact on Lake Michigan Since 1977, taxpayers in the Milwaukee metropolitan area have paid nearly $3 billion for a state-of-the-art sewerage system. Its centerpiece is the Water Pollution Abatement Program (WPAP), completed in 1996. The WPAP, the largest public works project ever undertaken in Wisconsin, increases the capacity of metropolitan-area

Economic Development

Why Wisconsin Has High Taxes

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Early in the postwar era, Wisconsin was not among the nation’s highest-taxed states, as measured by state and local taxes.1 Relative to personal income, Wisconsin’s tax burden flirted with the “top ten” during those years, but did not reach it. That changed in 1963 when the full effect of sales and income tax increases enacted