In a misguided attempt to encourage job growth, Wisconsin lawmakers have passed dozens of tax cuts in the last few years. Those tax cuts have a poor track record: they have not done much to improve the lives of Wisconsin’s families, and the Wisconsin economy continues to create significantly fewer

Governor Walker’s budget includes more than $300 million in new tax cuts. He proposes reducing the amount of support the state provides to critically important institutions, such as public schools and the University of Wisconsin system, to help pay for the new tax cuts and to close the deficit caused

Iowa-based Plan Offers Option to Mitigate Deep Budget Cuts A Wisconsin bill unveiled today offers a compromise on how to expand BadgerCare, while helping to avoid or scale back some of the deep cuts in the budget bill. The proposed legislation could save an estimated $241 million in Wisconsin’s 2015-17

Now that the Governor’s budget bill for Wisconsin has been introduced, we can begin to see the painful consequences of policy choices that state lawmakers made last session, such as enacting large tax cuts on the basis of overly optimistic revenue projections. But the deep cuts in areas such as

Wisconsin Lawmakers Should Stop Delaying Requirement for an Increased Budget Reserve Groundhog Day always makes me think of the Bill Murray movie, and the movie sometimes makes me think of the Wisconsin budget process. This year as I contemplate Murray’s almost endless entrapment in a Punxsutawney PA time loop, I

The Very Bad Fiscal News for this Year Offsets Improved Revenue Estimates for the Next Biennium New budget figures from the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) indicate that Wisconsin is on track to have a $283 million deficit at the end of the fiscal year. That hole is $153 million

Governor Walker has made it clear that he wants to continue to cut property taxes. The best way to do this would be to strengthen a state tax credit that helps keep property taxes affordable for people with low incomes. Yet despite the Governor’s focus on property tax cuts, making

Extreme Racial Disparities in Wisconsin’s Corrections System Have Worsened since King’s Death As we contemplate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and the unfinished business that needs to be tackled to achieve racial and ethnic equality, one of the issues that jump out at me is the huge growth

Wisconsin’s state and local tax system is tilted in favor of those with the highest incomes, according to a new report released today. Wisconsin taxpayers with low and middle incomes typically pay much higher rates of state and local taxes compared to taxpayers with the highest incomes. Some Wisconsin policymakers

Will the Governor’s Next Budget Postpone the Statute Requiring an Increased Budget Balance? A new set of comparative fiscal data published online last week by Pew Charitable Trusts reinforces the conclusion that Wisconsin needs to build up its budget reserves. The dataset in question shows that Wisconsin was expected to