The Farm Bill: 2 Years Late (Hour 2)

Good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Buck and Calvin Butenoff coming to you live from our studio here at Radio Park in Racine.

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is going to be joining us.

She owns a child care center.

She also belongs to the Main Street Alliance, and they have been having events across the state talking about how critically important child care is.

And we're on the cliff.

We're really on the cliff as far as extra aid going to help keeping these child care centers open when that money runs out.

And so Corrine's gonna be joining us.

They had a meeting last night.

They're gonna be having one again next week.

So give you a little heads up if you wanna try and make plans to attend that.

Corrine Hendrickson joining us after the 9.30 news.

Next hour, Darren Van Ruden, the president of the Wisconsin Farmers Association is gonna be joining us to talk all things Wisconsin farmers.

He's actually in Washington, D.C.

Yeah.

For a Farmers Union event,

probably lobbying, I guess.

I would imagine so.

So we're going to talk to him about that, who they're going to be meeting with.

Should be fun.

Yeah.

And who

they're

not meeting with.

And who they're not meeting with and who might just meet with them and be rude and yell at them and walk away.

I don't know.

We'll have to see.

And then we'll wrap up the show as we always do with this.

It shouldn't be a thing.

Today it is the Raccoon Gone Bad Edition.

There's a.

picture that comes with it, too.

I think Walter White from Breaking Bad.

Oh boy.

Stick around for that.

That's at the very end of the show, coming up around 1051.

Wanted to start off with, though, our yelliest, one of our yelliest lawmakers.

I would say he's

Wisconsin's yelliest.

Yelliest.

Yeah, definitely.

It's gotta be way up there.

No,

yeah, actually, when it comes to Wisconsin, yes.

Top of the

heap.

U.S.

Representative Derek Van Orden, now.

says he is against Republican efforts that would change the SNAP program, which is known more commonly as food stamps.

He's against cutting these benefits, even though he did vote for the GOP authored federal budget blueprint that calls for slashing programs like SNAP up to the tune of $200 billion.

His exact words were, your SNAP benefits will not go down a nickel.

Maybe and he appears to be serious about that ish Well again, I'm not sure why you would vote in favor of this budget that does call for more than 200 million billion dollars in cuts to programs including snap and then author a different Piece that says no, I don't want you're not gonna touch that.

Well, I think I see where the you know

He tells the story of being a poor kid single mom and having to be relying upon food stamps.

He says that food stamps

government cheese

things of that nature free free breakfast programs free food programs for kids, right?

Those are all great programs.

They're there for a reason and he's And he says in that in that video clip that we played a while ago that it will not go down and nickel I Think and I think you say it right here is that he says those things out loud

Snap benefits won't go down a nickel.

They won't they're they're safe with me.

They're

sacred.

Do not worry But at the end of the day, he's gonna vote for something that's gonna have to and he'll shrug his shoulders ago Cuts had to be made so he can still look like he was in favor of them even though he's gonna vote against them eventually Even if he tries to make it seem like an

indirect way of voting against them Do you think this is China kind of a posture for him?

So he will look like the good guy when they do ultimately vote to cut snap.

Yeah, because I'll say this right now

I believe Derek Van Orden when he says he doesn't want to cut stamp benefits.

I do believe him.

But that doesn't mean he's going to not vote against his own interests, because they do it, all the, all politicians do it all the time.

That's true.

Both sides do

it.

Yes.

I think that, I think there's going to be a matter of, well, we had to make the tough cuts and I didn't want to do it, but here we go.

And sorry, you don't get this free breakfast program or your food stamps, your WIC benefits are cut.

We'll try again in two years.

Dearing Van Orton does sit on the House Agriculture Committee, which oversees SNAP.

The committee has been considering a proposal that would, for the first time, pass on some of the cost of operating it onto the states while also adding work requirements and implementing methods to limit future increases to benefits.

This is from the Wisconsin Examiner and this is just kind of jumped out at me last week Van Orden walked out of a Republican House ag briefing and yelled an insult at staff So he's an equal opportunity insulter.

He doesn't like it.

I don't think he really likes anybody He sure doesn't seem to know he has there.

I don't know.

I'm not gonna get into the Psychological

anger issues.

No, I'm not going to do that That's that's for him to talk to a therapist about and I mean I'm being serious when I say that but

He just always, he's the kind of guy, and I'm saying guy for a reason, because it's a lot of this in men who believe, I know it's best, never question me, and how dare you even ask me that?

I know

what I'm talking about.

But there's a lot of that going around.

How dare you even ask me that?

And I think that starts from the top.

And that starts with Donald Trump.

I agree.

I think that they've always had that attitude.

But before Trump, there had to be diplomatic ways of addressing those frustrations.

Now, I mean, that...

I think it was with the Ohio Senator who called a guy a clown to his face because they fired him from his federal job.

He said, you look like you probably deserve to be fired.

Oh, to his

face.

To his face.

And he said it with like, what are you going to do?

And I'm like, dude, what are you doing right now?

So I think that, yeah, I think all that, you know, the felonious president has done is given them license to act like the biggest piles of junk they want to act like with no consequences, by the

way, either.

Not so far.

None.

Snap.

Right now helps feed more than 40 million low income Americans.

A previous proposal that the ag committee was looking at would have seen states share of costs reach 25% by the end of 10 years.

And this does seem to be a big part of what the Republicans are planning.

A lot of these federal programs, they want to push back off onto the states.

Now they're doing that with FEMA.

Now they're saying, let's just get rid of FEMA.

And then the states are going to pick this up.

Talk to the people in Western North Carolina and find out how that's going for them.

Well, also, I don't know if I'm right on this one.

So please chalk it up to my ignorance.

But we live in Wisconsin right now.

We do.

And we have currently as legislators who sit on a $4 billion budget surplus.

We're sitting on Pifa money, school money, hospital money.

That's been approved.

Yeah, so if the federal government wants to push FEMA or snap benefits onto us, that money is probably, well, that means that we have to authorize money somewhere.

which means it will never happen because this current government in Madison, Robin Voss and his minions, do not believe in doing any of those things.

So those programs will never be funded.

So even though they're pushing them on to us as the state, we'll never fund them because people like Robin Voss will say, we don't need to do that.

We're fine.

So I know people will be like, well, that's my tax dollars.

Don't worry.

They'll never approve it to be

funded in the first place.

But this is going to have major ramifications.

Even just talking about FEMA.

Jane, I don't know if you know this, but Robin Voss, don't tell anyone.

He doesn't care.

Well, and those ramifications don't really affect him.

No, until they do affect him.

And hopefully it's not a tornado or a flood or a fire or something.

And I don't, I'm not saying I want, I don't

want anything.

I don't wish that on anyone.

Nobody, but I'm tired of people reacting, and as it said, of being proactive.

And if the federal government is going to push the spending onto us,

We should be spending, we have the money.

We have that money sitting there in a bank account, but that's not what's gonna happen.

Join finance committee's been sitting on that money for how long now?

Two years?

How long have we been on the air?

Well, yeah, we've been talking about now almost since the beginning of this show.

Representative Van Orden was not the only one who recently walked out of this meeting.

He was along with Don Bacon from Nebraska and David Volado.

of California, Van Orden walking out of an agriculture panel GOP briefing last week, slinging an insult at staff before he left.

So at least I guess he's consistent.

I mean, that's just...

It's just bad behavior.

It's absolutely bad behavior It is it is unbecoming and it shouldn't be rewarded and that's the problem too is that people like yeah, you tell well What is he telling him?

I

don't know.

I just like when they get mad.

Well, what happened to the days of being the bigger person and and making your point and That being your stance as opposed to insulting people and screeching at people

Insulting, screeching, and being mean to people is what gets you attention, love, and clicks, and news stories, and we're talking about it right now.

And I

just wanted to clarify, it was Senator Jim Banks of Indiana who told a fired federal worker that he was a clown and probably deserved to have his job taken from him, said that to a voter's face.

So yeah, we read we we I think we may have we might not be in the darkest timeline right now But we're certainly traveling there at light speed

Talking about snap benefits Derek van Orden now says he opposes cuts to snap which he did say in At least one meeting that we have him on record for he got very very testy about that However, he did vote for the Republican budget blueprint.

So we'll see again if as you said he's just kind of

Placing himself in a spot that says look I didn't mean to I was against this but you know, they all passed it without me.

I can't not vote for the budget It's the budget everybody cuts must be made Sacrifices must be had and you all have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps There's only one bootstrap now.

We can only afford one bootstrap Cassandra on the live stream says I am so angry that I spent an entire day at the joint finance committee the town hall meeting last week over nine hours and they still were they're still refusing to

fund the things everyone is asking for.

And

that's red and blue sides.

It's all sides.

There are shockingly things in Wisconsin that we all agree

on.

Yeah, I'm just wondering.

I just would like to know when the impossibly inactive GOP of Wisconsin are going to do something to people who support them to make them go, maybe this isn't the right thing.

Maybe this.

I needed that program.

I needed that.

We're gonna talk about it more and Pat talked about 612 things they want to strip out of the state budget and They're not they're not tax breaks for millionaires.

Oh Oh, no.

Yeah.

Yeah, the job creators.

Yeah, are you kidding me?

I know I'm a crazy what I was listening to you I'm Pat on the way in this morning and when they were talking about the Republicans again want to strip over 600 measures from from governor Evers budget Essentially all they're leaving in the budget is the word though.

Yeah

Pretty much that's all you got.

I

don't want to anger, but I want to see more people angry about this.

I want to see more people on both sides.

That's the thing that's

frustrating.

And for Cassandra and other people who have gone to those joint finance committee meetings.

What an insult that this is obviously just performative.

Oh, absolutely.

They do this just to say, look, we, you know, we sit and we listen to our constituents and we hear people's concerns and then we leave and then we completely ignore everything that all those people said for nine hours.

Yup.

And their hotel rooms, their travel, their lunch, their per diem, that is my, your, everyone else's money in the state.

We pay for this clown show to tour the state and not listen to people and their very valid concerns.

It was four stops.

Four.

They did four.

That probably is going to cost.

few grand because I'm sure they're not staying at a roadway in or a motel.

They're staying with friends.

Yeah.

All right.

When we return, our long, long nightmare is finally over.

All the details on the other side.

Stay close.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

We'll be right back.

Good

morning and welcome.

Welcome to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach.

Dr. Slide on the board coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

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We got your tickets.

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Baseball, baby.

And there's me like, we got your tickets.

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make that a thing.

Todd Michaels, if you're listening, there's another.

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All right, our long nightmare is finally over.

The boat that was left along Milwaukee's lakefront is finally gone.

Crews worked all of yesterday to remove the boat called Deep Thought that had been stuck there for months and months and months

and months and months.

This took a

long time.

It got it got a grounded or what was what would be the official title?

It went a ground.

Yeah, sure boating terms in October,

right?

So yeah, we're looking at

seven months seven months It's been sitting there and it has become a hazard because people are jump climbing on it and defacing it and putting graffiti all over it But the whole removal process of deep thought started yesterday morning at 9 a.m

They got it over the rock wall and onto the rocks just before 4 p.m.

They finally got it into a flatbed around 7 o'clock last night The boat's weight briefly stopped the send-off around 8 o'clock when the tow truck got stuck in the street What a process it eventually worked its way down North Lincoln Memorial Drive the boat arrived at

All city towing just before 9 30 last night, they started at nine o'clock in the morning.

Okay.

I mean, you want to do I we're not, we don't do this as for a living.

No, I do this for a living.

Are you kidding me?

That's hard work.

I'd be like, no, thank you.

But it's not like they have to save it because it's going to get refurbished.

Right.

If.

Okay, Jane, let's be honest.

If someone doesn't auction this thing, we what country do we even live in?

Do you think someone's going to try and make money off of it?

I think there is sell pieces of deep thought.

Oh, God, there is there is at least 10 Bayview hipsters who would buy that thing wholesale, chop it up pieces and put it as a statue in their backyard next to their bird feeders.

Absolutely without a doubt.

That's not a bad idea.

Thank you very

much.

Well, then we see if that happens, then they should pay this company that stepped up and did this.

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, well, and they said that Lincoln Memorial Boulevard was shut down most of the day.

Just to get this boat out of there.

I don't understand why I had to head, but I'm smarter people, smarter people, Greg.

Well, see, and again, that's my question.

You couldn't just chainsaw the thing apart.

It's not like it's gonna, we're not taking it back out on the water anytime

soon.

That's a thing, that's a great point.

Like, all right, you hire two people with chainsaw.

Like, it was there for seven months.

Say, we want it out in a month to two months.

easily every day.

You just chainsaw a little bit.

Up here's part of the hall.

There you go.

There's the poop deck.

And then there you know, it's gone.

But no, now it's this

event.

Well, it was quite a thing.

Milwaukee County Supervisor Sheldon Wasserman said in a news release, the boat has been an eyesore and a hazard for far too long.

The county taking action for the advice of council.

And because we can't wait any longer in addition to taking to action taking place on the beach, we are pursuing every legal avenue

to ensure taxpayers aren't left footing the bill for someone else's negligence.

I jumped pretty hard on the owners of this boat.

They are.

You did.

I did.

No, I did.

It was a valid question because it just seemed like they had left town and there was no follow up.

And they were off the

hook.

Yeah.

But it does sound like they spent a lot of money.

This was going to be their retirement

plan,

which did not go well.

And so I don't know how we expect them to come up with the money to get it out of there.

So we had at least two people

who

donated money.

20 grand to help get it out of there.

But again, thank you to the company that finally stepped up and did this and I'm glad it's gone.

And I'm glad nobody got hurt

because

seriously someone, and that would have been a lawsuit against the city and the county.

So

it's a good thing that deep thought is finally

gone.

deep thought the story that never was really news in the first place this is i think part five of our coverage wba are you listening maybe

the guys who made hundreds of beavers can make a

film out of

deep thought in some way shape or form ones of boat

that's the name of the movie

we have news coming up next when we return we're to talk with koreen hendrickson

about childcare in Wisconsin.

They had an event last night.

There's one coming up next week if you would like to attend.

So stay close.

You're listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio

Network.

Good morning and welcome.

Welcome to Matt and Air on Air.

Jane Matt and Air, Greg Box, Sweet Calbee on the board, coming to you from our studio here at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text, no matter where you are.

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In Oshkosh, listening on WISS perhaps.

You can always call us or text us.

The number is the same at 855-752-4842.

Or leave a comment if you're watching on the livestream, on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter next hour at this time.

As we always do, we indulge in a little audio sorbet.

Little cleansing for your ears.

We get away from politics and things like that and talk about lighter things So next hour at this time we want to know what social media do you?

Accounts do you follow that make you happy there you go that make you feel better

I got a good feeling inside just thinking about the ones I do follow like like a genuine like breath of like oh wow

you check them every day even if it's just for two minutes you check this social media account just to see what silly thing they're doing we could all use a little bit more of that in our lives so we start thinking about it now what social media accounts do you follow just because they make you happy or they make you laugh we'll talk about that next hour at this time right now excited to have her back Corrine Hendrickson is here

She owns a daycare center.

She's a member of the small main street alliance here in Wisconsin.

And Corinne, you guys had a big meeting last night in Mount Horrib about childcare.

So can you tell us a little bit about how that went?

Yeah, so we had another community conversation.

Thanks for having me on before.

Ashland won.

And this time though, we had the raging grannies pick us off, which was pretty bad.

Nice.

I uploaded the video of the song that's about childcare onto our event, the Brick Cider event, if anybody wants to watch that.

I highly recommend them.

So that was super fun and a great way to kick it off.

And then Matt, who owns Brick Cider, spoke a lot about how as an employer, it's imperative for him to be able to have people that can work, that have reliable childcare.

And as a small business owner, restaurant industry, very small margin of profit, he can't afford to, you know,

offer it as a benefit for his employees because it's so expensive.

It's too much.

And also, how do you justify giving one employee basically a $2,000 a month bonus with against other ones?

And that's not fair either.

It affects all of us.

So he really is interested in something like a payroll tax like Vermont did, where it's 0.05%, which FYI, that would double what our manufacturers and ag pay in state income taxes because they only pay 0.05% right now.

So 0.05% is what they did in Vermont.

I haven't crunched the numbers for our state specifically.

However, what that did is it doubled the amount of revenue that the program's got per check because it increased the amount of money that was coming into the program.

And it's been wildly successful.

It started in April of last year.

Vermont is tiny.

They have fewer than a million children.

They actually have increased the number of slots by a thousand, which would be like 10,000 here.

They have increased the number of regulated family childcare by 50.

and group centers by another like 75 and 300 more people are in the field.

In seven months, you know, this report came out in February.

It's been like seven months and the affordability, the amount the parents were paying out of pocket dropped.

And so all these parents now, you know, they're no longer having the employer crunch, employee crunch that we were having.

They're no longer having the demographic issues.

We're about the same as far as age and everything.

And they are actually increasing their birth rate.

Weird.

Amazing what happens when people feel financially secure and they're able to go to their small businesses and spend money because if you're not spending the same amount on your mortgage as you are on childcare, all of a sudden you have all this money in your pocket to go to the restaurants and to go to the small businesses and just buy things that you can do with your family and go to the state parks and just do this.

It seems

like what you're

saying is that these programs wouldn't be so much as an entitled mentor.

for the takers, it's more like an investment.

It sounds like an investment with an ROI,

with a return.

Yes, a return on investment.

So speaking of that, old traditional return on investment studies have said between $7 and $14 for every single dollar spent in child care.

However, some newer ones have come out.

Washington DC has done a pay equity fund, which is kind of what we're asking for here in Wisconsin, increased the wages by about $5 an hour.

They've gotten 23% back.

$23 are back for every dollar they've spent.

Because weird, people have more money, the state's getting more income taxes.

The teachers are no longer relying on the public service, public goods, subsidy, Medicaid, food stamps, housing to stay in the field.

They're able to pay for that themselves.

So that starts to diminish as well.

And then Canada went to $10 a day universal childcare about two years ago, and they've seen an increase in their gross domestic product of 1%.

just from that, 1%.

Wow.

But as you said, it's how you sell it, right?

Because the Republicans, it's a tax increase.

We can't have any more tax increases instead of saying this is an investment in the future.

This is an investment essentially in business and certainly for small businesses.

And we've talked a lot about this yesterday, how crucially important small businesses are to the economy.

And one of the reasons why Wisconsin fared pretty well going through the pandemic was because Governor Evers focused so much attention on keeping small businesses going.

And if you don't help them and if you don't support them, that's kind of like they're part of the foundation and you don't support that.

And that's when the foundation starts crumbling.

Right.

And what part of that investment was increasing our wages from 10, 66 an hour to 12, 66 an hour.

By the way, we allocated the COVID relief fund.

Other states didn't do that.

The states that allocated the funds to every regulated program and wanted it and supported it and required, which we get audited.

It's a requirement.

This is not money that we're not accountable for.

We get audited.

That we have to prove we're spending it, how we say.

And the requirement was half the money had to go to the judges.

And so we did it.

And those states that did that fared better.

Those states that did that across the board are now investing state dollars.

Our state, as of tomorrow, if the Omnibus gets, you know, passed in the joint finance committee at one o'clock, child care counts is, that means, and I haven't heard any plan.

I reached out to Senator Mark Lange's office, he is my senator, and I specifically asked, what is your plan then?

What do you have as an option?

What's your, you know, what's your idea?

Because we do, we did say child care counts likely won't make it.

And that's why we've used the term childcare investment.

That's why we've said we want it to go to the wages, but they're not responding.

So that tells me that I very worried that it's going to be deregulation.

It's going to be 16 year olds.

Our insurance companies, West Bend is one of them.

They're sending out letters for non-renewal right now to everybody because they want to get out of the business because deregulation is causing more children to die and get hurt and increases the risk.

And so they want to get out of it, which I don't blame them.

But come on, insurance lobbyists, do your job and tell these people this is the problem.

Like, come on.

Seriously.

Help us out.

Yeah.

So, Corrine, just so I make sure I'm understanding this correctly, their answer, the Republicans' answer to the child care crisis in Wisconsin is to deregulate it so we have younger people who are working at these centers overseeing even more children.

Correct.

Correct.

That has been the only thing that I have seen as options.

I have not seen a single thing about a single dollar being invested.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Senator Marklein, you can email me.

You have my number.

Senator Marklein, you can call us

right

now.

855-752-48.

We'll take you.

We'll wait.

Sure.

So I have a question for you is, we've talked about this topic a lot on the show.

Apocalyptic version as always we want they want to do this.

So women just stay home have babies quote-unquote know their role as mothers for the family that kind of talk but Take that out of the equation.

I Don't like the version of this where it's working longer hours 16 year olds take it doesn't it's not something you can take and I'm talking from a political standpoint like campaigning It's not something you can take back to your constituents and campaign on to me

increasing funding for childcare, which last time I checked, Republicans and Democrats both require childcare, regardless of who you vote for.

I believe so, yes.

So if you make it easier for them, that's a good in a social version, good for the heart, but for your campaigning, that's also good to take back to your district and say, hey, we did this, we took care of you because we care.

I don't understand why they just cannot, why it is everything and...

digging your heels and saying, no, we're going to do it this way.

Because we know it's the correct way or it's the better way.

Instead of a, what did you say the increase would be?

How much of a percent?

Well, if it's like Washington DC, we're talking 23% return on investment.

Yeah.

But the, but the increase in taxes, it was like 0.05.

It's

negligible.

Yeah, and that's all nonprofits, all of our government services.

Everybody would be eligible as part of that, where if you do a employer tax credit, which is taxpayer dollars being used, because credits are still taxpayer dollars, then only your big businesses, only your for-profits are going to even be able to access taxpayer if they can find a spot.

And so this way, it builds up the entire system and allows every single part of our economy to actually work, which is kind of a neat tool.

So yeah, and like you said, Greg, it doesn't make sense because I don't

foresee very many people being able to go campaign on, you know, that deregulation and 16 year olds should be taking care of seven two year olds in the classroom by themselves.

And that's the other thing.

Brooke Legler, my colleague and co-founder of Wisconsin Early Childhood Action, needed did do the rounds and met with several Republican offices.

And we told Representative Boss's office, the person we met with, you know, you Republicans could be the heroes.

I mean, if you did this, you'd be the hero.

Yep.

Versus we reminded them that some of those senators like Balwig and Strobel who made a lot of comments about how they once Strobel said that women should just stay home and Balwig would claim that she was supporting childcare, but then voted against it.

We reminded them that we have to get them out.

We reminded them that we talked to our families and we talked to our community members.

We are respected people.

We are trusted with their children and we informed them, hey, FYI, Senator Balwig voted against childcare counts 10 times.

who's running is saying that she supports childcare investment and you can talk to her and here's her information.

And so we're not going to stop and we're not going to not do it this next time in 2026.

What was his reaction when you dealt him that?

It wasn't him.

It was one of his... Of course.

He was his policy person.

But her reaction was kind of like...

And then she goes, well, there's no money.

Where do you get the money from?

And then we said, well, we spent 2.5 billion in prison systems.

I feel like there's a little there we could take and reallocate and use to keep people from going down that road because the preschool prenatal to prison pipeline is real.

And if you want to reduce crime, if you want all the things that every single person was talking about at those JFC hearings,

Foundationally, it comes back to taking care of our families and our children and our communities, and childcare and housing are the biggest pieces of that.

Don't we have a pile of money sitting in Wisconsin?

$4 billion that we could use this?

To say there's no money is factually inaccurate and just ignorant.

Or you're a liar.

Yeah.

Agreed.

Point

made.

Tough to argue with that.

Kareen Hendrickson is our guest.

She is a child care provider.

She also belongs to the Main Street Alliance.

They had a meeting last night in Mount Horab and there is another one coming up next week that you can attend.

We're going to talk more about that on the other side.

Stay close.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.

We will be right back.

Good morning.

Welcome back to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach, Calvin Aider on the board coming to you from our studio, rather.

In the radio park in Racine, that's where we are.

We're at my house in Kenosha hanging out.

Racine, you can call us at 855-752-4842 or leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

Karine Hendrickson is our guest.

She's got a childcare center.

She belongs to the Main Street Alliance.

And you have an event coming up next week, Karine, that people can attend.

And again, we're talking about

Just how important childcare is in Wisconsin.

And before we get going on this, I just, it blows my mind when Republicans talk about how much they want Americans to have more babies.

We need to increase, you know, the fertility rate and we need to have more kids.

But when it comes to actually funding programs that parents need, then it's like, yeah, well, you're on your own.

Sorry, I don't know what we're going to do about that.

Yep.

It

makes

no sense.

It just

doesn't make

any sense.

It doesn't.

And so that's why we're doing the National Day Without Child Care.

This is the fourth annual one.

It started during COVID, 2021, I guess, would have been the first year.

And it was a reminder, hey, you begged us to stay open.

We were essential.

We're still essential.

COVID didn't start these issues.

We lost.

60% of our child care between 2010 and 2019.

6,000 programs closed.

They're down to 4,500 right now.

If they do this and they don't replace those dollars with state dollars, you're looking at 25% closing.

Green County, where I live, we're looking at 50%.

I am likely going to be one of them.

My rates are going to have to go up another $30 a week.

I don't think all my families can afford it.

I don't think I can replace them.

So even those families who can afford the extra money every week because they have better jobs, you know, a little bit older, whatever, they're going to lose me because I can't stay open.

If I can't keep, you know, 75, 80% of my kids here, I can't stay open and I'm not about to lose my house.

Not about to go bankrupt because of that.

I have other options.

And so that's what is really disheartening.

If you're going to force a business that's been stable, a pillar of its community, done great things, got one award, blah, blah, blah, because you choose not to invest.

18 years I've been in business.

This is small business week.

This is teacher appreciation week.

This is provider appreciation day on Friday.

And you're telling me tomorrow at one o'clock that I'm not worth it.

That's what you're saying to me.

And I don't need to stick around for that and neither do my colleagues.

Five years, we're tired.

We're done.

Like, this is it.

We're looking at our books and we're not going to go in the hole.

It doesn't make sense.

And so we're doing this day without childcare, again, nationally, but Wisconsin, we're pushing really hard because of the budget.

We have 10 on the map, which means that those are open to the public and people are putting it on the map.

But I know we have at least 20, 30, 40 more programs that are going to be doing.

And so Nouglares, Wisconsin, we have one of our biggest ones, Brooke and I are the co-founders of We Can.

So that's why we're doing a big one here.

We have Secretary of State Gavusti.

We have Deputy Undersecretary Tom McCarthy.

We have WEDC Office of Rural Prosperity, Beth Eskavik, if I said that right, is coming.

We have Representative Jacobson coming.

Senator Marklein hasn't let me know yet his plan.

He's been invited.

And our Green County Child Care Network has actually had invited both Representative Jacobson and Marklein then to tour the programs that are staying open that day, then, and meet with parents.

Representative Jacobson took us up on the offer, and she's visiting several.

Again, I'm waiting for Senator Mark White.

And so what we do is we talk about what would happen, what it would look like if we didn't have childcare.

But we also talk about what could it be?

It doesn't have to be this way.

So what can we do to change the system?

And with I love all the protests, I love all the people, you know, speaking out against things, but we also need to participate in democracy by saying what we want and what we need and talk to our reps that way.

So that's what this event is all about.

There's another big one and one key.

at the park there.

Representative George is going to be there.

Senator Husslebein and Secretary for Department of Children and Families, Jeff Pirtle will be there.

We're doing big ones in Milwaukee.

There's one up in Ashland.

There's one in Eau Claire.

And then actually I'm running to Platteville to do another presentation down there at the bank that evening at six o'clock.

And they're all open to the public and all free.

We're going to include all of the contacts and all of this stuff in our show notes so that people can find it and head out there and join you if they can.

You said how many daycare centers have closed since this has been going on?

So since between 2010 and 2019, 6,000 child care programs closed.

A lot of that was because of the recession and we weren't invested in.

And so when COVID hit, they took that and were like, oh, we can't do this again.

And so they invested in us.

And now our state is going to be one of six that's choosing not to put any dollars in state dollars.

So when you talk to your representatives, especially Republicans, they'll try and claim that we

Our state invested more money in the last budget show.

That is factually true.

They took the federal dollars that we fought for and got an increase from Senator Tammy Baldwin and Representative Mark Polkan, who are on key committees to get that extra money into our state.

And they accepted it and they've appropriated it, but our state does zero.

Oh, so they're claiming money.

They're claiming credit for money that actually came from the Fed, but they're claiming it came from the state.

Well, this would be good to know if you would like to perhaps call.

You're representative.

And if you don't know that number, how do they do that?

They go to my vote.wi.gov.

And all you have to do is put in your address and every single phone number from all of your elected officials will come up and you could call them.

I asked the question.

I'll make it very, very quick is because again, I'm looking at it from a point of view of campaigning.

You are going to not you them.

They are going to be people who you can say.

Thousands of businesses went out because of your inaction and your apathy towards a massive problem.

Thousands upon thousands of small businesses, which by the way, politicians love to bloviate on how they're the backbone of America.

But you had no problem with allowing thousands of thousands of small businesses to go under because you

didn't act.

Go take a walk this afternoon, take along your phone, make a couple phone calls when you're going for a little walk and please be polite because you're going to talk to some young person who it's not their fault.

Colleen Corrine Anderson has been our guest.

Thank you so very much.

Thank you for staying on for a second segment.

My bad.

I screwed up.

Go do what you got to do.

Thank you so much, Corrine.

And good luck next week.

I hope you get big turnout.

We have news coming up next.

Stay close.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome to Matt and Air on Air.

Jane, Matt and Air.

Greg Bach and Calvin Butenoff coming to you live from our studio here at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us no matter where you are, call or text.

The number is the same 855-752.

4842, leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter before we get to our next guest.

We do have breaking news as we come on the air.

Republican concedes long unsettled North Carolina Supreme Court election to the Democratic incumbent.

This has been going on for months.

A Republican challenger for the North Carolina Supreme Court has finally conceded last November's election

to Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs.

Jefferson Griffin finally says he will go along with the will of the people, essentially.

They were trying to toss out over 65,000 votes, a number of them from military members overseas.

And these were all, again, little procedural things, little, there was no, anyway, this is a good thing.

It's good that he went along with the will of the people that spoke.

Seven months

seven months ago, but anyway after months and months and months He has finally conceded to Allison Riggs who will now keep her place on the North Carolina Supreme Court our guest right now He joins us on the first Wednesday of the month to give us a little update about all things farm Darren Van Ruden is here the president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union You're on the road.

You're in our nation's capital Darren.

How's it going out there?

Yes, I am Jane.

Thanks

You know, steady but slow, you know, would be nice to get more action in a more timely manner than we are, you know, especially looking at the farm bill.

That's the number one reason why we're out here is let's get that passed.

We're already just about two years now behind schedule.

So looking at that, but we're being told in many offices that until.

The budget process gets cleared up.

Nothing else is going to get to the floor of either the House or the Senate.

And at this point, there's so much difference between the House version and the Senate version that it could take months just to get that process figured out.

For people who don't understand what that means for Wisconsin's farmers, Darren, maybe you can explain a little bit why we need some action on this farm bill that's been languishing, as you said, for almost two years now.

Yeah, it's really the uncertainty of what tomorrow brings because farmers in a time of crisis, if we have droughts or natural disasters, floods, tornadoes in southern U.S.

that hurricanes impact farmers, there's disaster programs that are really up in the air right now and trying to plan your year.

You can't go to the bank and tell them that you can pretty much look at, we're going to get this many dollars for

the produce that we have because the market is unstable.

And part of that is because there isn't that assurance from the federal government that natural disasters will be covered or protected in the areas that it's needed to be.

Well, and also on top of that of what we've seen from the current administration is that you also have contracts with the government and they're saying, yeah, we're not going to give you the rest of the money or any of the money.

So farmers are investing in equipment and feed and help.

And they're like, well,

Sorry

Yeah, that's one of the big issues that Wisconsin is kind of led the rest of national firm regime on as the LA program local food purchase program that is

done a lot for farmers around the state of Wisconsin, but also consumers putting more of the local food right in their in their place.

Instead of having to depend on something that comes from California or Florida, you know, they're getting that local produce right there.

And 289 farmers have been a part of the program over the last two years.

We've moved just about 4.23 million

dollars worth of local produce to those local citizens through their food pantries, tribal boxes.

Some school programming just got started last year to get dairy and beef protein into the schools that you know right next door versus having to bring something from another state in some instances.

So you know it's a program that really is bringing that local connection between the farmer and the consumer.

back in place and that program has been cut.

They're not going to be putting any money through the USDA at this point back to that program.

And we've got members out here that have $30,000, $40,000 of investments in their infrastructure on the farm that they were hoping could be used this year for the FDA program.

And now they're stuck hanging not only that investment in infrastructure,

But the product that they were produced don't have a market anymore.

So it's really a double whammy in most cases.

So a lot of those funds have not been unfrozen.

And again, we're talking about some of the money that was invested, if I understand this correctly, came under a Biden administration.

program.

And then that was frozen under the Trump administration.

Again, we're talking about maybe investments in solar, maybe investments in manure, how you're handling manure and things like that.

That money has already been invested and the farmers are waiting now for the federal government to come in and do their part, which is what they agreed to.

But that money still is on hold.

Some of it has been released now.

And it seems like there's quite a bit of cherry picking going on from what I can figure out across the country.

So the members of the Republican party that have dollars in their district, some of them are now being covered.

For instance, one of the people I was talking about in our earlier calls was.

had $70,000 for a solar installation that was supposed to be coming.

He's since gotten that.

And some of that might be because Representative Van Ord made a call to the White House and got some of those dollars released.

Whereas we're seeing in other districts that are held by Democrats.

they're still struggling trying to get those dollars for the same exact program.

So, you know, what's the difference other than who's the elected official to represent them in my opinion?

Yeah, it doesn't seem like government age should be based on favors.

That seems like a bad way to run the government.

And it's interesting that you say that that some

Some farmers have gotten relief where others have not.

Will Westmoreland has been a guest on our show and he went viral on TikTok a couple of months ago and he's been a guest on the show.

He was responding to a young farmer who was in the same situation where he had invested this money and now he's on the hook for it and he's waiting for the federal dollars to come in.

While his social media post went viral, and guess what?

He made so much noise that he got his money.

And I just don't think that every single individual farmer in Wisconsin should have to make a viral video in order for them to get the government to come through with what they were promised.

Yeah, yeah, that just doesn't make any sense at all.

You know, this throwing the baby out the bathwater method that they're using is just it's not right.

You need to have justification on why a contract shouldn't be upheld.

You know, which I'm really proud of the farm remembers that we have because they've been upholding their end of the deal to the point that they can and doing what the contracts were asking of them.

The bigger issue there is is that, you know,

Most farmers don't have 70 or 80 or $100,000 of cash laying around that they can just spend.

You know, they got to go to the banker and the banking industry is really nervous right now too, because of the uncertainty of the markets and the trade war coming that's, you know, going to cause more uncertainty.

So

Darren, we lost your sound there, buddy.

And

now you're back.

Now you're back.

They got to work on the Internet

video.

There you go.

That's probably yep.

They got to work on the Internet there in Washington DC.

I'm not quite sure what's going on with that.

You would think they cut the funding for that.

Darin Von Ruden Van Ruden is our Van Ruden.

Darin Von Ruden is our guest.

I'm sorry, Darin.

I keep doing that to you.

He's the president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union and he is actually out in DC trying to meet with our lawmakers.

What is the level of frustration Darin for?

your fellow farmers when you just hear all this.

Yeah, well, nothing's going to get done now because we're still fighting over the budget.

You know, it's really frustrating.

And, you know, time is everything right now.

It's planting season.

It's time to get the crops in the ground.

It's, you know, people have figured out what they need to do in the small vegetable and produce area.

You know, they've got their boxes that they've kind of promised people and

And when you don't have funding or the dollars there, it just doesn't help the mental attitude of what's going on.

So I think farmers have always been very resilient and will continue to be resilient.

But the bigger question is, how many more months or years of this uncertainty can we put up with?

There certainly is a percentage of farmers that are just throwing their hands up in the air and walking away.

The good ones stick around, but you end up with that thought process, what's going to happen next spring.

At

some point, there's got to be an easier way to make a living.

There's got to be something easier than this.

Yeah.

On Monday morning, we actually met with the Department of Justice National Board and most of the National Board members were here and actually had a really good meeting.

The Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, the leadership there was really in step with what we were talking about, trying to make sure that we don't continue to see this monopoly power that's going on out there on both sides for us on what we

buy but also what we sell.

The more options you have, the

more

competitive the prices are and then it costs you less for inputs and you're able to hopefully sell your products at a higher price that way too.

It seemed like the folks at the new people in that antitrust division are

really willing to go to work to make sure that some of these practices that are going on today won't continue down the road.

So it seems like a good continuation of what the Biden administration's folks at the Antitrust Division had started and really taking a close look at.

The grocery industry is a big one.

The Albertson deal out.

in California to Colorado up to Washington.

That got stopped under the Biden administration.

It sounds like there's still some issues in that part of the country.

And sometimes the ripple effects, what we're doing here in the state of Wisconsin too.

We're to continue our conversation with Darren Von Ruden.

He is the president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union.

He is in our nation's capital.

Stay with us.

You are listening to Matt Nair on AIR.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

We'll be right back.

Good

morning, welcome back to Matt and Air on Air.

Jay Matt and Air, Greg Bott, Calvitini on the board, coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text.

at 855-752-4842.

Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

We got baseball coming up today.

The Astros at the Brewers.

Our broadcast starts at 11.35.

You can listen.

On terrestrial radio, if you want to catch the crew today, on WRCE and Richland Center, WISS and Oshkosh, WRJN here in Racine and Kenosha, WCQM and Park Falls and in Hayward on WBZH.

The Brewers hosting the Astros today, our broadcast starts

at 11.35.

We are talking to the president of the Wisconsin Farmers' Union, Darren Von Ruden is our guest and he is joining us on the phone right now from Washington, D.C.

We were talking, Darren, before the break a little bit about the federal budget and farmers are waiting on that.

What is going on with the state budget and Wisconsin farmers?

Darren, are you there?

Darren if you can hear me give us a call eight five five seven five two four eight four two And we can get you back on the line here

We didn't be joined by Darren by Darren von Ruden One thing that I did want to talk to Darren about and this is an article in the Washington Post It says why Brazil's soy farmers love Trump and his tariffs on China Brazil accounted for more than 70

percent of soy exports last year to China and Trump's trade war will allow this to allow the country to solidify its market dominance.

And this has happened before.

This has happened the last time Donald Trump was in office.

We lost a big chunk of the countries to which we export because they found other suppliers for our soybeans.

And I saw an article recently with a farmer in Iowa

who had mentioned that things are tough, and there's lots of questions, he doesn't know what's going on, but he does expect that Donald Trump is going to bail out the farmers like he did last time, so he's going to be fine, and he's good with that.

Yeah, and that's the problem too, is that people will say, well, they got to check.

And some farmers might be like, yeah, that's great, I'll use the check, but there are other farmers who are saying,

I want to do my work.

Well, and there are other, again, that one-time check is great, but if you lose your export market forever after that, that one time is only going to go so far.

Yeah, but it can't really be two times.

It all goes back to the notion which you were discussing before, which is if someone makes a big enough noise, they're going to get their way with this administration.

So,

if they're going to continually screw over the farmers, then they'll say, well, we'll just cut them a huge check.

It was 12, how much, I think it was 12 billion last time.

It

was a big, it was a big challenge.

So it's probably gonna be closer to 20 or 25 billion, you know, all that cutting of unnecessary spending and whatnot.

But yeah, you know, it's fine.

Cut them a check, I guess it's, that'll fix the problem, throw money at it.

So a farmer, Wesley Rosa, 50 years old says the United States, he's in Brazil.

He says the United States is provoking this fight.

But it's Brazil that will end up benefiting.

China is by far the world's largest market for soy, importing more than 100 million tons a year.

For years, this was great for both Brazilian and American farmers, but the first trade war between Trump and China in 2018 crushed American exports and then Brazil stepped in.

And this is what we're going to see.

And guess what?

contributes to Brazil's overall GDP and their economy can boom because of investments and buying and selling.

It's just...

It's called shooting yourself on the foot.

The U.S.'

's remaining market share this Court of the Washington Post is already evaporating.

Department of Agriculture says a very small fraction of the 72,000 tons of soybeans purchased during a week's period earlier in the month, China bought only 5,400 tons of that.

Compared to 72,800 that's available.

This is not good.

Not at all.

This is not good.

I was gonna ask it before.

I was gonna ask it to Darren, or Darren before.

My gosh, Darren Van Ruden.

We have to stop talking about

Derek Van Orden and Darren Van Ruden on the same

page.

I completely agree.

What a terrible thing to do.

But also just as we spoke with Kareen earlier in the show in the last hour,

They get to step in and be the heroes.

These are farmers if they just you know Farmers aren't asking for a lot.

They're asking for help They're asking for partnership and they're asking for investment and if they did that thing they go back to their district You know say if you sit on the ag committee

And you say to your district, let's say the third district just as an example I'm helping to save the farming here, especially in my district but in all of Wisconsin and all the country Because we need to make massive investments in our farmers to keep them around to keep them flourishing and to make sure that these these are 5th 6 7th 8th generation farms not this crap They keep on pulling which is saying to them.

Well, they'll take it They'll deal with it and you know, where they're gonna go their farmers.

They can't they can't export the job Well,

right but exports

That's going to be an issue.

And again, Brazil already happily stepped in the last time we went through this and took a whole bunch of the soybean market.

And this is just paving the way for them to do the same thing all over again.

Our thanks to Darren Von Ruden, the president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union for joining us to talk about their efforts in Washington.

We'll have a little update with him next month and see how those face-to-face meetings went.

with the staffers anyway.

We have news coming up next, and then when we return, it's a little audio sorbet.

What social media accounts do you follow that make you feel better?

That's coming up.

Stay with us.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.

That's all it's got to show

Good, good morning.

Welcome back to Matt and Air on Air.

Jane Matt and Air.

Greg Bach, Dr. Slide on the board, coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text.

The number is the same.

8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.

Leave a comment if you're watching a livestream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter coming up in about 15 minutes.

We will wrap up the show as we always do.

With this, shouldn't be a thing.

Today it's the Raccoon Gone Bad Edition.

You ever have a thing you think should not be?

Send it into Greg and me at janesaysatcivicmedia.us, J-A-N-E-S-A-Y-S.

Jane says atcivicmedia.us and just a reminder, Fat Bird Week continues.

Oh shoot, I gotta

vote.

You gotta vote.

We will put the link in our show notes.

You can vote for Wisconsin's fattest bird.

The results will be announced on Monday and Amanda's gonna be back.

Emma Emma's gonna be packed with an update on Monday around 10 20 in the early matchups It was the dark-eyed junko in the trunk over says the necklace northern cardinal Dark-eyed junko in the trunk.

Oh big winner.

Yeah,

then it was the enormous eastern bluebird Feathering off against the spherical white-throated sparrow the sparrow took the top spot Rowed and yellow romped warbler over the well-fed yellow warbler the well-fed yellow warbler

And then the rotund ruby throated hummingbird versus the pudgy fine pine warbler.

The ruby throated hummingbird was the winner.

I

think

it's brackets.

We're doing brackets.

I just feel like Darko Junko and the Trunko is up today for a vote and I feel like that name alone is gonna win him You think

that's gonna

that's gonna put him over the top.

Yeah, that that's gonna bring bring the hardware home with us

as the kids So make sure you vote in Wisconsin's fat bird week which goes up until May 9th And then we will have the winner announced coming up on Monday This is the portion of the show that we like to call audio Sorbet where we take a little break and take a little breath

And do a little break away from the news.

Yeah, you know cue the harps

Here is the question very small harps and he's got a gig Yeah, what social media accounts do you follow that make you happy?

Yeah,

there's so much bad and There's so much news But there's still lots of little light spots out there

absolutely and

I would qualify this as also not joy you feel from rage accounts either like you you know you follow someone from hate watching no it's not hate this is like you you watch it and you melt into it

or you just or just makes you laugh exactly even if it's only 60 seconds long however what are your favorite social media accounts that make you feel better we want to compile a list yeah

so that we can include this in the show notes.

And then when you're having a really bad day, you can go and look and grab one of these social media accounts and just, it's like another audio survey.

Smaller,

smaller.

It's a mobile audio survey.

It's a travel size.

I like that.

Yeah, there you go.

855-752-4842, 855-75 civic.

What are some of the social media accounts that you follow that make you laugh and make you feel better?

Yeah.

Now my favorite one and Greg knows this because I make him watch it with me every

Friday

make me watch

it

It's called we rate dogs It's so good every Friday every Friday.

He comes out It's usually a

little before nine o'clock.

Yeah before when we were on a ten o'clock he would put it on like usually like 945 and we could

Right before the show, but yeah every every Friday.

It's the top five dogs of the week and these are all submitted to

this guy and They do rate dogs.

Yeah, it's on a scale of one to ten

But every dog video that they get, or every photo of the dog that they get, they either get 12 or 13 points.

Yeah, they're always overachievers in the points area.

And I love that they always have a runner up,

which is just as cute and wonderful as the top five.

But sometimes they highlight rescue dogs or just folks, people's dogs who, elderly man falls down.

He's walking his dog dog goes and finds people and then brings him back to his owner and they rescue the man

There was one we watched where the dog found a kid Like it was just it was yeah, and the kid had wandered off had gotten lost in the forest and they this is some Lassie stuff We're talking seriously is yeah, we rate dogs go find them go find them on YouTube

populate their social media accounts.

They are for the good of the world.

And they

do a lot of fundraising if they sell merch.

And so if you support by buying their merch, they use that money to help fund surgeries for pets.

Yes, they do.

Yes,

they've done so much good.

So again, it's called We Rate Dogs.

All one word.

We rate dogs.

I found them on Twitter, but they do have a whole dedicated YouTube channel.

They have a longer program that they'll do.

I mean, I mean, granted, I could talk about dogs forever, but like that would be very, very, I give respect to that to have a concentrated television show or YouTube show where you're talking about the wonder of dogs.

What is your favorite?

What are your social favorite social media accounts that you follow just because they make you feel better or they make you laugh?

855.

752-4842-855-75 Civic Terry.

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