Browsing: Spending and Accountability

There’s more evidence in recent days that the federal government spends money in two ways — too quickly and too slowly.

Among Wisconsin’s most populous counties, Dane County pays the highest interest on government debt on a per-resident basis.

Among Wisconsin’s large counties, Jefferson County’s government spent the most per resident — more than twice as much as the lowest-spending county government, Waukesha.

State agencies have begun their rush through a regulatory back door that will almost certainly cost owners of businesses large and small in Wisconsin tens of millions of dollars.

School choice is 41 percent more effective in Racine, and in the rest of Wisconsin, money going to choice is spent 33 percent more effectively than in district schools.

Wisconsin’s tourism resurgence has been built, at least in part, by more than $160 million in federal bailout money and a record doubling of the tourism department’s budget.

A state Supreme Court decision wresting rulemaking authority from elected state representatives has opened the door to a barrage of new regulations and fees in Wisconsin.

There are 541 days until the next Legislature’s sworn in, and there’s plenty of unfinished business

A federal judge’s injunction is blocking the closing down Job Corps centers — including two in Wisconsin — that have an expensive and dismal record ostensibly training the young and disadvantaged for work.

Federal taxpayers will save at least $2 million in grant money to Milwaukee PBS alone if the U.S. Senate approves a $1.1 billion defunding of public broadcasting.

Even if one isn’t moved by rising dependency, bigger government or the appalling waste of human potential, that immunity to fiscal disaster is enough to make Wisconsinites think: Thank God Wisconsin’s Republicans had a spine on Medicaid.

Public subsidies turn journalists into sycophants, undermine true scrutiny of government excess, distort the market for news and entertainment, create unfair competition for privately funded media, and are a waste of tax dollars.

President Trump’s executive order to halt federal funding for public broadcasting will save taxpayers nearly $8.5 million annually in reduced federal outlays to public television and radio networks in Wisconsin alone.

Gov. Evers’ 2025 budget proposal would reduce the General Fund balance to an amount equal to only 2 percent of annual General Fund state spending — well below the 16 percent that experts in state finance recommend.

With fewer passengers and mostly empty seats, it’s time to shut down the Hop, Milwaukee’s $128 million streetcar.

More than half of the employees in the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development and more than 40% in the Department of Administration still work remotely, five years after COVID sent them home.

Despite a much ballyhooed second line added last April, ridership on Milwaukee’s financially challenged streetcar, the Hop, last year was still nearly 30% below that of pre-COVID 2019.

Lawmakers are seeking support for legislation that would prohibit Wisconsin’s 700,000 FoodShare recipients from buying candy and soda with program benefits.

Providing free breakfast and lunch for all Wisconsin schoolchildren will burden taxpayers with the cost of assisting households that likely do not need the benefits.

By the best estimate, the Act 10 reforms saved Wisconsin taxpayers between $18 billion and $31 billion since 2012.