Using billions of emergency pandemic bill dollars to plug gaping holes in their budgets, local governments across Wisconsin and the country are setting themselves up to ask for tax increases or slash services as basic as police and fire protection when the federal funding runs out. 

Robin Vos, fresh off a victory that seals his role as Speaker of the Assembly and now coming on 30 years in local and state politics, threw out a couple olive branches at Gov. Tony Evers Thursday that cynics might say are just the post-election niceties that invariably morph into barbs and stiff-arms in the Capitol hallways.

A new report from the Tax Foundation and the Badger Institute offers five comprehensive tax reform options to enhance Wisconsin’s tax competitiveness by reducing harmful taxes on labor and investment.

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.

Wisconsin’s court system is plagued by massive delays and a growing backlog of criminal cases. It now takes more than a year for a court to resolve an armed robbery charge, 14 months to resolve a sexual assault case and more than 15 months to resolve an allegation that someone committed a murder.

There are numerous ways Wisconsin could move to a flat income tax while benefitting Wisconsinites across the income spectrum. The most obvious solution is to flatten the rate while increasing the standard deduction, as proposed by the Tax Foundation and the Badger Institute in the July 2022 report Tax Reform Options to Improve Wisconsin’s Competitiveness.

Right after scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, came out, Wisconsin’s chief public school regulator, state Superintendent Jill Underly, issued a press release headlined, “Wisconsin elementary school students buck national trends in ‘National Report Card’ release.”

This is not true: Wisconsin’s scores fell by every measure since the last time children took the test, in 2019, just as scores fell for every other state.

What made it possible for Jaime’s family and for 90% of St. Thomas’ students is Wisconsin’s parental choice program, which lets some families direct their children’s state education aid to a school they choose.

WEA Trust just announced it is terminating its health insurance business

As we move through 2022, the national economy is in what might best be described as a strange state.

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.

Do the state education bureaucrats, the schools of education, the consultants, the unions and the central offices know the one right way to teach math? That big test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, found that not once in the past two decades have Wisconsin’s public schools managed to make more than 41% of 8th-graders proficient in math.

As a way for funding an important public good — highways — Wisconsin’s gas tax was pretty good

For the people who need it most — poor residents of Milwaukee, families and victims of particularly violent crimes like homicide and aggravated assault throughout the state, children in schools where politicians won’t allow police, and almost anyone awaiting a verdict — Wisconsin’s criminal justice system is failing.

Even before the pandemic, U.S. entitlement spending was on an unsustainable path, the growth in means-tested safety net programs far outstripping inflation.

Who wins and who loses?
May 25, 2022aStudent debt forgiveness schemes are both inefficient and unfair policies for helping low-income families.

At the start of the pandemic in 2020, Wishkub Kinepoway faced two family crises with some crying, some praying and a lot of determination. A member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians and a Shawano County transplant, Kinepoway knew she needed to make a change for her children. She also knew that change wouldn’t come without school choice.

Wisconsin’s politicians prohibit over 1 million citizens from working unless they have government permission.

Scarlett Johnson sat down with Badger Institute Policy Director Patrick McIlheran this week to explain what drove her to act on behalf of her local schools, and why more parents should do so.

A Milwaukee mom’s take on why more parents need educational choice.

Policymakers should advance reforms that prioritize GSP, personal income growth

Kids are reaping the consequences of school shutdowns