Opinion

The WisOpinion Insiders, Chvala and Kanavas, debate transpo taxes and the Walker factor. Sponsored by the Wisconsin Counties Association and Michael Best Strategies.

The WisOpinion Insiders, Chuck Chvala and Ted Kanavas, tackle the difficulties of Dems vs. Walker and Ryan and Priebus on health care along with...

The WisOpinion.com Insiders explain how conservative rank-and-file legislators are driving a lot of the discussion in the Capitol. Sponsored by the Wisconsin Counties Association and Michael Best Strategies.

April 25 marked the fifth anniversary of student loan debt reaching $1 trillion in the United States. According to the latest estimates, over 43 million Americans now owe $1.4 trillion, making student loans the second largest consumer debt in the nation, more than what’s owed on credit cards or auto loans.

Trump’s plan would cut the National Institutes of Health by $5.8 billion — roughly 18 percent of its entire budget. For the NIH, which funds the vast majority of basic science on diseases like Alzheimer’s, this would be the biggest budget cut in history.

The order directs state agencies to track and post their record response times and, like last year’s order, gives procedural guidance that should make it easier for citizens to request and receive records.

‘Project labor agreements’ drive up costs on public-works projects.

Congress must authorize President Trump's use of force against Syria.

The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com. On Wednesday, North Carolina GOP Senator...

Trump has a new scheme to make himself a winner: take health care hostage. Threaten to blow it up. Extortion, until the ACA is repealed.

The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com. In 1945, Korea, then a Japanese...

The ultimate responsibility for local roads lies with local government. It doesn't matter what state lawmakers decide to do with transportation, roads in cities like Milwaukee will stay in terrible condition until the local government decides to make road improvement a priority.

Right now, Wisconsin Democrats are losing their minds worrying about who’s going to run for governor. But the larger, more important question is this: What’s on the agenda if they win?

It's Tax Freedom Day for the Badger State, the day when hard-working Wisconsinites have finally earned enough money to cover their total tax burden for 2017, according to the Tax Foundation's annual Tax Freedom Day initiative.

Republican bill to end permits and training for concealed carry is dangerous.

It didn’t make the Brewers more competitive, yet its price tag keeps rising.

Human weakness is eternal and there are always politicians and officials looking for help with their career or political fundraising. Which is why there will always be the influence peddlers, jostling to win favors and stay in power. But very few of those lobbyists ever did it with such rascally, unpretentious joy as Bill Gerrard.

State's “neo-vouchers” reimburse wealthy who send kids to elite private schools.

The incumbent superintendent was vulnerable. Why the GOP stumbled.

ALEC ranks state high for its policies, but they haven’t improved economy.

States that did saw the largest decrease in uninsured.

Both the data and politics point in one direction: accept the federal funding.

Comparing current policies or people to Adolf Hitler and Nazism is an embarrassing and insulting part of our political discourse. Such disgusting analogies almost always demonstrate gross political ignorance and reveal lazy arguments.

In Wisconsin, should a person suffering a slow and painful death from a terminal illness have the right to medically end his or her life?

It's possible that the Trump-Ryan bill is merely mostly dead, rather than thoroughly demised.

On this episode of Indivisible, Right Wisconsin Editor Charlie Sykes asked listeners who are affected by the opioid crisis to call in and say how it may or may not have influenced their vote.

This week, just shy of 100 Wisconsin dairy farmers who produce for Grassland were notified they would need to find somewhere else to sell their milk.

Unlike President Trump, we urge policymakers to consider the scientific evidence that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are increasing and global climate change is occurring, at least in part, as a result of man-made activities.

American farmers need to stick up for themselves and demand better for themselves, their families, their farms, and their animals. If we cannot muster the energy to do so in moments like this one, we never will. At that point, Canada won’t be around to scapegoat, and we’ll only have that reflection in the mirror to blame.

Cutting federal funds to local law enforcement would probably do more to harm to public safety than illegal immigration does.

A refund is just money you loaned the government

David Clarke should be removed from his position as sheriff.

As a graduate student in 2008, Desmond (who now teaches at Harvard) moved into low-income housing in Milwaukee and began documenting the difficulties poor people had keeping a roof over their heads.

Corporations always try to capture the zeitgeist and monetize it; ask any child of the "grunge" era who began to see ripped jeans and large flannel shirts in J.C. Penney catalogs. And when political issues bubble up, they take their place next to the Geico gecko and the Most Interesting Man in the World as tools to move product.

While those who want to overturn Citizens United complain that "money isn't speech," their speech is being funded by taxpayer money that pays for their ridiculous advisory referendums.

From now on, there is no respite for the weary. You can run, but progressive condescension is going to find you. Politics get clicks, and clicks bring revenue. There is no incentive for all this new punditry to be accurate or fair.

While Democrats keep griping about partisan gerrymandering, they have lost sight of the fact that conservative dominance in Wisconsin has been statewide and complete. Progressives are even having trouble mustering up a candidate to run against Walker in 2018.

Every year, Planned Parenthood’s health centers across the country provide more than 270,000 Pap tests and more than 360,000 breast exams. For nearly 72,000 patients, these lifesaving screenings catch abnormalities or cancer.

To the tune of a single sheet of paper in the mailbox, a farm’s legacy – maybe even generations of sweat and tears – could come to a close.

My fellow liberals, enraged by last November’s election, have taken to calling themselves “the resistance.”

Liberal fury could have helped unseat the conservative justice.

Tim Cullen abruptly announced he would no longer run for the Democratic nomination for governor. Was it truly the evil of fundraising? Or did he think his spirit of compromise doomed him among partisan voters?

If the Legislature does eventually allow anyone to carry a gun without so much as attending a single training session, they won’t be upholding the Constitution; they’ll just be committing yet another ill-considered, even reckless, act in their endless quest to appease gun extremists.

At least 30 other states have enacted legislation that allows them to produce hemp for either research or commercial purposes. It’s time for Wisconsin to catch up.

Earth Day reminds us each year that we only have one environment, and that it is each of our responsibility as citizens to protect it.

Nothing exposed the callous disregard these Walker and Ryan have for their fellow human beings than the recent debate — and debacle — over the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act.

It's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between our politics and what goes on in Arizona nowadays.

The media campaign, complete with its attack ads and spending that is provided by — laughably — "independents," makes it next to impossible to compete.

Wars, like elections, do have consequences, but are not as easily undone. Instead, we have failed to heed the lessons we should have learned 100 years ago, intoxicated by an "America First" mantra that we can do no wrong and only those who are weak stand in the way.

Sen. Duey Stroebel constantly harps about awful big government and how it's an ogre that hamstrings the independence of American citizens, but he's telling local property taxpayers the state government knows what's best for them.

I hate to say I told you so, but the incident at United Airlines a couple of weeks ago was bound to happen because of the obsession too many of our politicians have for deregulation.

One of the few legislators with the courage to stick his neck out for open government in Wisconsin is likely to be leaving soon and that will be a loss for state government.

The state workers and the teachers were required to bail out the GOP and help provide funds for corporate incentives and tax breaks. Now today, private workers are being asked to sacrifice decent wages to fix the shortfalls created by the convoluted Walker style of government.

Bill Gerrard was known as a "wheeler-dealer" in his long career in the Wisconsin political scene, sort of a throwback to an era when despite all odds things got done.

Fortunately, Trump's budget proposals aren't expected to fly — at least in the draconian form he has proposed. But they are clearly a blueprint for the road on which we will now travel.

Legislation such as this does little to actually benefit law enforcement officers and is more of a political stunt used to label any elected official who does not support it as being anti law-enforcement.

The Legislature’s joint audit committee is calling for the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Board to audit the relationship between all UW System campuses and their legally separate, affiliated foundations. That’s an excellent idea.

An ocean away, echoes of some of the same political themes that drove Donald Trump to victory in Wisconsin last fall are reverberating across France.

Following the expensive rebuilding of the major interchanges at each end of this stretch of freeway — the Marquette and the Zoo (now under construction) — it makes no sense to leave a bottleneck of an outdated freeway between them.

We could fix what we have in Wisconsin and nationally. We could move toward something better. Tragically, our leaders don’t want better health care, even at lower prices.

Wisconsin's largest teachers' union suffered a decline in revenue of more than $3 million between 2014 and 2015, the largest decline in the country, according to a new study by the Education Intelligence Agency.

I don’t know which is more distressing – the Democrats thinking the game is over because the party has not locked in lead candidates for Wisconsin governor in 2018, or the party assumption expressed at social gatherings that it has to be someone personally well heeled to take on incumbent Scott Walker.

The White House continued its careen out of control by adding sanctuary attacks to its judicial failures – and then criticizing the appeals court that has yet to hear the case.

We’d better use the special elections and the big one in 2018 to surround President Trump with intelligent, knowledgeable people who can act as brakes on his worst impulses and weathervane views.

Medicine in the post-AHCA era.

Rates are 32% higher than neighborhood states. Proposed bill would address this.

Earth Day and its commitment to a sustainable environment should go hand in hand with a concerted effort to slow the world's population growth.

When less than 16% of voters show up on election day, we have a problem. Let's try to fix that problem.

Gov. Scott Walker’s budget calls for eliminating a state law that mandates a minimum number of hours and days of instruction for students, apparently making Wisconsin the only state without such a law.?

We have to be able to work with our local communities, and constantly telling them what they can and cannot do is not the way to accomplish that.

The governor’s statement that there is "more than enough revenue" to fund transportation projects is squarely at odds with current and proposed highway budgets.

Citizens deserve a Supreme Court that can be viewed as a fair arbiter on the big judicial questions that face the state. I take no glee in stating this vote undermines the court’s credibility and severely erodes its luster.

I have no grand answers as to how this should be handled. But I think this is a good time to have a sober discussion about the role of government.

All gun stores should be required to to place all firearms in a safe or vault during after hours to prevent theft.

Records indicate that 3M could have easily paid whatever forfeiture Schimel had sought, and should not have been treated by Schimel as it it were a little startup business unfamiliar with Wisconsin rules, procedures and expectations.

Walker disdains Earth Day, as he also disregards the environment, also because Earth Day focuses attention on former Wisconsin Governor and its founder Gaylord Nelson.

Donald Trump yesterday tossed out a skimpy, one-page outline of his 'growth-through-tax cut plan' that had less to do with real planning and more to do with getting a First 100 Days photo op on the record.

You may think this is the Passover and Easter season, but for motorists negotiating Wisconsin's crumbling highways, there's been something of a Festivus miracle.

Right-wing WI Gov. and long-time pollution enabler Scott Walker has finally found a cut to environmental protection he can't stomach: the full elimination of Great Lakes restoration funding proposed by President Trump.

High capacity wells help big agriculture, hurt small farms, environment.

Some things to think about the next time you buy a gallon of milk or turn on your kitchen tap.

If the Assembly follows suit, Walker will sign the bill as fast as you can 'check's in the mail,' and people living or fishing or working a small farm nearby or downstream can watch the big users with their high-voile wells hold those withdrawal rights in perpetuity.

There's no way to minimize the environmental and legal disaster being imposed on Wisconsin and its publicly-owned waters by conservative donors and corporately-manipulated Republicans who occupy and are coordinating the Governor's Office, Legislative majorities in both chambers, the Office of Attorney General, all relevant stage agency management positions and a 5-2 majority on an openly-conflicted, giddly-greedy State Supreme Court.

In Wisconsin courtrooms, you're going to need a good lawyer and a good credit score.

This disastrous law is bad for Wisconsin and bad for America, which is why Republicans are working to repeal and replace it with a plan that increases access to coverage, lowers premiums, and provides more options for health care consumers.

Every one of the The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative's concerns about the diversion have been answered. Every concern expressed by the environmentalists has been answered. All that's left is empty liberal animus towards conservative Waukesha.

Kind shouldn't expect a different health care outcome from Medicaid expansion than from the sprawling Veterans Affairs hospital system, which Kind is familiar with now, and neither should taxpayers.

Are Trump’s erratic behavior and low poll numbers a factor in this fight?

Bill proposes same oversight voters have over public school revenue.

As long as voucher schools are being paid for by local taxpayers and districts are forced to face the voters to keep the lights on, local voters should have the same say on voucher spending they have on public schools.

Pundits on both the left and the right say the threat of a constitutional overhaul is real.

A decade ago not one Democratic senator opposed Gorsuch’s confirmation for a seat on the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 10th Circuit based in Colorado.

The Republican Party of Wisconsin launched a website Thursday morning with the aim of bringing the dysfunction of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin into sharp focus.

One thing all observers seem to agree on is that the decision by Republicans to employ the “nuclear option” to secure the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch has forever changed the Senate. The question now is how much?

Who is going to pay for lead pipe replacement?

Invited speakers shall be allowed to speak freely and without interference, regardless of ideology, and Wisconsin’s institutions must have rules in place to ensure that faculty and students are not mandated to publicly express a given views on social policy, but rather, to openly challenge popular, politically-correct opinions and truths.

Wisconsin Democrats need to get to know Wisconsin a little better. It would give them confidence going into the 2018 gubernatorial race.

Mark Pocan is focused on the future. And the work he does now will do far more to shape that future than the empty promises of Koch brother corporatists like Walker and self-absorbed grifters like Trump.

The court’s collapse as a functional branch of state government was confirmed last week when the five-member majority refused to abandon the practice of justices ruling on cases involving major financial backers.

Trump administration Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos did not have her name on the ballot when Wisconsin voted on the future of public education earlier this month. But the DeVos agenda was up for consideration. And it lost. Overwhelmingly.

Instead of cutting funding, he could address invasive species that are destroying the lakes.

The pivotal but almost unnoticed highlight of the spring elections in Washington County was the reelection of local favorite Annette Ziegler to a second ten-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

State schools got $107 million in 2015, helped pay for school nurses, speech therapists.

If Planned Parenthood really cares about women’s health, it can keep the taxpayer money that makes up 50% of its revenue by getting out of the abortion business.

We are being denied access to the only lifelines we have: therapies showing promising benefits in clinical trials.

Staggering increases in addiction. Help from state is needed.

Grocers Association blocking the free market.

A cadre of liberal senators believe America’s real tax problem is how companies like Quicken make money with products like their Turbo Tax software, not the fact that the tax code is so complex. They fail to see the forest from the trees to realize that filing one’s taxes is so much of a hassle that the average taxpayer needs help.

When adjusted for inflation, the state is spending more on roads today in the last two Thompson-era budgets.

Governor Scott Walker and Republicans across the country are paving the way for more experimentation and innovation in their efforts to help people move from dependency to work.

I became a legislator to change our justice system after being a lawyer in it for under a decade. My next legislative installment, the Fresh Start Package, is a part of my continued effort to create that change.

Milwaukee was once the healthiest city in the country. It won the award so many years in a row that they stopped the contest. That was in 30s and 40s. Things are much different now.

When our water, our air, and our soil are clean and healthy, so are our communities. The planet we leave our great grandchildren will be our most important legacy.

A life is taken by gun violence every three days in the City of Milwaukee. If someone died every three days from a preventable disease, you’d better believe we’d be working to find a cure for that. So why are guns any different?

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates recent Republican block grant proposals could cut Medicaid spending by as much as a third over the next decade. The cuts would start small, growing larger over the years.

March 24, 2017 is a date that Donald Trump and his gaggle of billionaire fat cats should long remember. It’s the date that Trump failed to deliver his first major deal to his ardent supporters.

If prescription meds were the gateway drug to an opiate addiction, there’s a medical response that’s being advocated. However, if one’s addiction stems from another kind of abuse, the response is generally criminal in nature. Shouldn’t all drug abuse be treated the same? And, shouldn’t there be a concerted effort to provide treatment instead of prison?

The very notion that Republicans have suddenly found religion and are genuinely concerned about the plight of the homeless is hard to believe. Not to mention that many of the public policy prescriptions that Republicans have advanced have exacerbated the problem for the most vulnerable residents in this state, which includes the homeless population. In my opinion, this new package of homeless bills is merely much to do about nothing.

The last three biennial state budgets in Wisconsin saw the enactment of dramatic reductions in state spending on K-12 public education. As you may have guessed, deciding to spend less on education as a state has not meant that education is any less expensive today than it was four budgets ago.

High-capacity well permits must be for a fixed duration like every other environmental permit.

Yesterday, eight more communities in Wisconsin voted by overwhelming margins that they want to see the U.S. Constitution amended to curb the role of money in politics. Monona had the highest margin, with 91 percent voting in favor.

Iowa Republicans rolled back collective bargaining rights for public employees and lowered the minimum wage in four counties that had raised it. Now no county can have a minimum wage above the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour.

The latest effort to fully repeal state and local prevailing wage laws matches the agenda of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a special interest bill mill that hawks pro-business economic and social policy proposals to state legislators around the country. ALEC has received funding from Charles and David Koch, and Koch Industries is a member of ALEC.

A rightwing group called the Texas Public Policy Foundation started lobbying in Wisconsin for the first time last month.

With the decision, judges in Wisconsin will continue to be perceived to have a price tag hanging from their robes.

It is time for Sensenbrenner to face the facts. Obamacare is popular. It is not failing. He can continue to work against it or he can help his constituents afford quality health care.

The biggest problem of all is that Wisconsin appears to have lost its ambition to be first or best.

In "Two Minutes with Mitch" radio personality Mitch Henck gives his two cents on the ouster of Bill O'Reilly from Fox News.

In "Two Minutes with Mitch" radio personality Mitch Henck gives his two cents on the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch as a Supreme Court justice.

In "Two Minutes with Mitch" radio personality Mitch Henck says the people who voted for Donald Trump are still strongly in his corner.

In "Two Minutes with Mitch" radio personality Mitch Henck gives his two cents about last week's missile strike against Syria.

In "Two Minutes with Mitch" radio personality Mitch Henck gives his two cents on Democrats who might come forward to challenge Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

In "Two Minutes with Mitch" radio personality Mitch Henck shares his two cents on why conservatives have a tough time winning local elections in Madison.

In "Two Minutes with Mitch" radio personality Mitch Henck says what Democrats should do now that Tim Cullen out of the run for governor.

Kooyenga may be the right answer to one of the left’s strongest voices.

There are no good answers left for America in Syria. There was a time when direct American intervention could have yielded positive results, but that time has passed.

While it was disappointing that Wisconsin’s prevailing wage law as not fully repealed in 2015, state lawmakers now have the opportunity to finish the job for the benefit of state taxpayers.

The DNR’s latest press release basically dismisses CWD’s ever-worsening spread by noting most sick deer came from Wisconsin’s “southern farmland zone.” True, but disease rates again set records across that zone, which covers much of south-central to southwestern Wisconsin.

Bill would bring together Wisconsin's traditions of military service and agriculture.

Nothing has befuddled me quite as much as Trump voters who stand by him even when he moves to kill government programs that have greatly helped them.

Author Amy Goldstein’s greatest accomplishment in “Janesville” is helping the rest of us genuinely feel what living this slow-motion nightmare is actually like.

Perhaps students can be forgiven for not dwelling on international topics when the disorder and day-to-day upheaval of politics at home in the Trump era are so, um, captivating.

Forget the current media swirl around the epic failure of Donald Trump’s first 100 days. It’s the awful and surreal November election night that still haunts some of us.

The Trump administration’s first budget proposes deep cuts to the federal government’s research and development funding. Since World War II, federal investment has been by far the nation’s most important source of funding for basic science and has been behind nearly every breakthrough technology of the postwar era. This funding supports hundreds of private and public universities nationwide, including in Wisconsin.

Gov. Scott Walker, in response to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price’s request for states to “innovate” their Medicaid programs, has laid out a proposal that would decrease access to health care for our most vulnerable, humiliate and marginalize those with addiction, and increase government bureaucracy.

I have no problems with accountability requirements. Indeed, the entire UW System already reports on a series of accountability measures that can be found here. But the devil is in the details when you start trying to figure out how to tie the distribution of dollars to these metrics.

Chancellor Rebecca Blank’s new blog entry highlights the AAU’s statement urging the renewal of the partnership between the federal government and research universities.

It is imperative that we find a way to change the paradigm of Milwaukee and state so that transit becomes a priority. The health and wealth of this community depends on a modern mode of mass transit.

We’ve made Wisconsin’s tax climate much more competitive and we want to reduce income and property taxes even more in the next two years to keep our momentum going.

Wisconsin needs to solve its highway funding shortfall, and toll-financed Interstate modernization is a powerful tool for doing so.

The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com. As the head of a manufacturing...

It seems that almost every day there is a new outrage in our national, state or local politics.

In recent testimony before the Legislature, the Secretary of the Department of Revenue for the Walker administration claimed that a runaway manufacturing and agricultural tax giveaway to the wealthy and corporations enacted in the 2011 state budget is helping create jobs. But in response to an open records request by One Wisconsin Now seeking documentation to back up Rick Chandler’s job creation claim the agency replied: “We do not have any such records.”

Our state budget invests more into K-12 education than ever before in Wisconsin.

The state Supreme Court has become known for its extreme partisanship, abysmal ethics, lack of judicial temperament and independence, and misbehavior by justices and their refusal to punish such misbehavior. Little wonder the court has attracted such a long list of critics.

At the heart of both the corporate greed of United and the Trump deregulation push is the questionable ideology that the free market alone can be relied upon to serve the needs of Americans.

Would require one-year wait for ex-legislators and legislative aides to become lobbyists.

New enforcement agents could collect $400 million in taxes owed.

In addition, voters give 24 districts permission to exceed state-imposed spending limits.

Top 1% of state pay 6.2% of income, middle-class pays 10%.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker doesn’t seem to care how many hours schoolkids are in the classroom, as long as they can pass standardized tests — a proposal that could go against the academic consensus that time in the classroom matters.

No one can question the fundamental duty of government to protect the health and well-being of its citizens. Like our national security and public safety, protecting public health and the environment is a basic government responsibility.

Members of Congress must continue to encourage middle-class homeownership, and a key part of promoting homeownership here in Wisconsin is the deductibility of local property taxes.

We must dilute the undue influence of money in politics, starting with full and public disclosure of political contributions and spending—even the Citizens United decision didn’t prohibit that and if people’s intentions were good they would not feel it necessary to hide their “free speech.”

One hundred years ago, on April 4, 1917, Wisconsin's Republican senator, "Fighting Bob" La Follette, voted against entry into World War I and gave an impassioned and prophetic speech.

The UW Regents and the chancellors have performed well throughout the history of the university in protecting free speech and have fended off elected officials wanting to restrict that speech.

Agriculture, manufacturing and tourism are the holy trinity of the Wisconsin economy and may always be so, given the state’s rich traditions in all three sectors. Technology increasingly drives each of those sectors, however, and is slowly building an impressive standing of its own in terms of the jobs and value it adds to the Wisconsin economy

Follow-ups demonstrate a person is engaged, cares about outcomes, and is willing to pound the pavement on the issue.

With the Joint Finance Committee preparing to vote on Monday, the WisOpinion.com Insiders, Chvala & Kanavas, debate transportation, self-insurance, education and more. Sponsored by the Wisconsin Counties Association and Michael Best Strategies.

Washington Post reporter Amy Goldstein, author of "Janesville: An American Story" about the closing of the GM plant, talked to the WisPolitics.com Book Club...