At a time when the job market is begging for graduates with bachelor’s degrees, the opportunity for many Black students to earn a college degree is being squandered. The number of Black students entering UW-Milwaukee — the UW school with the largest Black population — has been steadily decreasing in recent years.
A new poll last month asked 700 likely voters, “Do you generally support or oppose school choice?” and 70% said “support.” That’s a landslide. Sure, the idea was big with Republicans, but 67% of independents favor choice. A majority of Democrats, 53%, did.
The biggest policy decisions in the Badger State are made during budget deliberations. Here is how your support has helped spur policy ideas into tangible action:
Thousands of Wisconsin renters caught a break when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention imposed a moratorium on evictions in September 2020, ostensibly to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. But Wisconsin landlords like Mike Cerns had already paid the price. Cerns estimates he lost between $60,000 and $80,000 in unpaid rental income and the cost of repairing property damage from bad tenants he could not evict. “The federal government essentially stole my property during the eviction moratorium and the courts were an accessory to the theft,” he says.
I suppose I’ll be accused of being unkind, uncouth or maybe even unhinged, but why…
Amid a sustained outcry from frustrated occupational license seekers and a statewide worker shortage, Wisconsin lawmakers are advancing a universal recognition licensure bill and nearly a dozen more narrowly targeted reforms that would finally help remedy longtime bureaucratic dysfunction and over-regulation.
When Jalisa Hawkins decided to transfer her daughter from one Beloit public school to another, the state cut the sum taxpayers spend on the child’s education by about 40% for no good reason.
Progressive city councils across the country are being forced by violence in and near their public schools to rethink their bans on stationing police officers on those campuses.
Healthcare remains the only sector of the economy where patients must pay for services without first knowing the cost. Patients aren’t empowered with the information needed to make smart financial decisions, taking into account both price and quality of care. “The Know Your Healthcare Costs Act” would work to change that.
The bare-knuckle, politicized State Supreme Court race that just shattered national spending records and obliterated traditional judicial norms has raised anew the question of whether justices should be elected the same way as partisan Republicans and Democrats. Alternatives in use in other states include appointments and independent commissions.
The Hop cost $15.03 per ride in operating expenses, never mind the cost of rails and wires — not a dime of it paid by passengers. It’s why the Legislature is doing Milwaukee a favor when it says, “enough.”
As the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee begins budget deliberations, Gov. Tony Evers is pushing for a $31.6 billion budget for Medicaid over the next two years, a $4.2 billion biennial increase. The $27.4 billion being spent on Medicaid in the current two-year cycle already represents nearly 30% of all state spending.
Is the left really coming for your gas stove? Wisconsin Republicans, who have introduced legislation ensuring you will be able to continue to run your appliances and your car and your home on fossil fuels, clearly think so. And there is considerable evidence they are correct.
Assembly Republicans have proposed a sales tax plan for the city of Milwaukee that would put police officers back in Milwaukee Public Schools for the first time since 2016. The plan would allow the financially hobbled city to levy a local 2% sales tax with the promise of state shared revenue to help pay down on its ballooning pension debt.