Browsing: State Budget

Overall spending by the federal and state governments on Medicaid has never once been reduced since Congress approved the program in 1965.

The choice Wisconsin leaders make about income tax policy will have important implications for the state’s future competitiveness and prosperity.

You might be paying higher school property taxes this year because of a referendum to exceed a school district’s revenue cap — one that you did not get a vote on in a district your kids do not attend.

Until last week, it appeared that legislators from both political parties were on a path to restoring WisconsinEye, an independent channel that has broadcast state government meetings and events since 2007.

Some lawmakers in Madison, however, led by members of the Assembly’s Socialist Caucus,  want to implement an estate tax with a top rate of 20 percent. Currently in draft form before being introduced, their legislation would propel Wisconsin to a tie with Hawaii for the second-highest state rate in the nation.

Policymakers are scrambling for solutions as Wisconsin property tax burdens continue to rise. As homeowners clamor for relief, Gov. Tony Evers (D) has proposed using $1.3 billion from the state’s surplus to buy down property tax bills. Unfortunately, the proposal does nothing to address the structural drivers of high (and rising) property taxes and, if anything, puts more pressure on them in the future. His proposal commits the state to subsidies that shift burdens rather than alleviate them.

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

Wisconsin’s expanded retirement income exclusion will undermine the tax code’s neutrality and shift burdens onto working families over time.

Progressives object because proposed Wisconsin tax relief goes to people they envy.

Legislative Republicans’ proposed tax measure “is a relatively well-structured way to provide relief for lower- and middle-income Wisconsinites,” said Katherine Loughead.

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.

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.

Wisconsin’s governor talks of new 9.8% top tax rate — one that would wallop businesses that don’t flee.

A single-rate tax reform would change Wisconsin’s tax picture from a grave liability to an advantage.

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.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has renewed his proposal that legislators allow themselves to be cut out of the process of making state law and permit bills to be passed or statutes to be repealed by petition and referendum, an idea that the Legislature’s leaders dismissed as dead on arrival.

In the 12 years leading up to Act 10, school levies across Wisconsin rose 72%, compared to 31% in the dozen years after that up to and including 2024.

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

In his new book, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch laments the vast expansion of the federal government into matters once left to the states, and he cites Badger Institute’s “Federal Grant$tanding” book, published in 2018.