Have you dined with us before?
Like servers at a trendy restaurant, we must remind you that we do things a little differently here at the Leader. Sadly, this week has given us an unholy ragout of news to feed you, whether you want it or not. Instead of our usual offerings, we’ve got a prix fixe menu. The theme is inspired by the pricks in that white-domed building in Madison who, at every turn, are aiming to transform Wisconsin into their own little feudal village. Bone apple tea!
Amuse Bouche: A Glass Cloche of Gasoline Vapor
We’re like, really into gastronomy. So before our meal, how about a little huff of gasoline with your wildfire-smoked air? Last week, Wisconsin Republicans introduced a bill to protect our poor endangered gasoline-powered cars. The legislation would essentially prevent state agencies from switching over their fleets to electric vehicles. Oh, they also passed a package of bills making it harder to get unemployment insurance. No charge! (WPR)
Hors D’Oeuvre: Trying to Ban Transgender Care
For starters, what kind of budget season would it be if Republicans didn’t try to include a (likely illegal) provision banning the use of Medicaid health care coverage to pay for procedures for transgender Wisconsinites? Ah yes, no budget season at all. (Journal Sentinel)
Talk Soup: Robin Vos on Medicaid Expansion
You’ve probably tried this one before. In another little hissy-fit moment, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos insisted that as long as he was Assembly speaker, Medicaid expansion “will never happen” and that “everybody” in the state (one of less than a dozen that hasn’t gone with expansion) already has access to high-quality healthcare. Which is of course why 17% of Wisconsinites report having no regular source of care, and why you probably love going to the pharmacy where your co-pays are totally affordable, right? Tim Stumm, proving his worthlessness as editor of Wisconsin Health News, could not manage to call Vos on his bullshit, even as Vos claimed in high dudgeon that he’d “rather resign” than pass Medicaid expansion. Please do – after all, the popcorn factory won’t run itself! (Heartland Signal)
Salad: Chopped Child Care
The dressing on this salad is Hidden Valley Ranch. In the middle of the night – really at 2:30 AM this morning – Republicans on the legislature’s powerful Joint Finance Committee voted to defund Child Care Counts, Wisconsin’s pandemic-era child care subsidy program which provided hundreds of millions of dollars in support to child care providers across the state to improve provider wages and keep costs low for the state’s already-overburdened parents. The reason for the lateness of the hour was obvious to nearly everyone. But the procedural maneuver was too cute by half. It couldn’t hide the ugliness of the decision. In fact, when the issue came up for a vote, Republicans on the committee had (you guessed it) nothing to say.
I guess Vos’s mistress in Burlington will be paying her own way for any out-of-wedlock Robincitos who may come along. Did we say that out loud? (WPR)
Fish: Filet of UW System
Before you tuck into your main course, may we recommend a taste of some mercury-addled fish? After decades of deliberately defunding one of Wisconsin’s most important assets – its state system of higher education – Wisconsin Republicans are at it again. This week, Gov. Evers suggested he would not sign a Republican authored $32 million cut to the UW system, aimed at gutting its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives (full-blown DeSantis Syndrome). In response, Robin Vos suggested he would be open to making the cuts even deeper, with all the energy of an extremely-divorced guy. (Journal Sentinel)
Main Course: Voucher School Veal Parmesan
We know you ordered a clean, fresh revenue-sharing bill which fixed the crisis Wisconsin created by underfunding county and municipal aid decades ago. But we just sold out (in more ways than one). How about, instead, a bill that gives Milwaukee less than half of the lowest increase to shared revenue promised to any municipality in the state, all while imposing all kinds of new restrictions on how the city and county spend their money. A mandate for more cops but caps on arts, culture, and nonprofit partnerships? Check. No more authority for the civilian Fire and Police Commission? Check. No more using local revenues to support the streetcar? We’ve got that too. Oh but wait, there’s more! The chef has made you a very special thing – it just came out in the last few days – a bill that gives a huge windfall to private schools while giving public districts increases that won’t even keep pace with inflation? Sounds awful? Great. I think the Governor and even some Democrats are coming out to help prepare it for you tableside. Open wide! (Journal Sentinel)
Dessert: Regressive Taxation Fruit Tart
With few other available options, Milwaukee is forced to turn to a 2% city sales tax to try to scrape together the revenue the city needs to perform its most skeletal functions.
“Without the sales tax, we have no option to prevent draconian cuts to basic city services,” Mayor Cavalier Johnson said in a statement, adding: “Milwaukee will soon have the opportunity to enact a local sales tax and the ability to resolve its own fiscal challenges, just as its peer cities around the country have. This is a major achievement.”
A major achievement? While it may sound appealing on paper, this fruit tart always leaves the diner with a haunting feeling of wanting something more. A sales tax, after all, is a tax on consumption, which is effectively a tax on Milwaukee workers who actually spend their money within city limits instead of, say, at the Sybaris in Northbrook with their mistress.
The fruit tart’s very existence raises the question: don’t we deserve something better? (CBS 58)
