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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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