The Great Wall Of Cheddar (Hour 1)

Transcript

The Great Wall Of Cheddar (Hour 1)

Matenaer on Air · Wed May 21, 2025

Kathryn Lake

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Jane Matenaer

Good morning, welcome, welcome to Matt and Air on Air.

Jane Matt and Air, Greg Bach.

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on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter, busy, busy show coming your way today after the 930 news.

State Senate Minority Leader, Diane Heselbein will be here.

We're going to talk a little bit about the Wisconsin State budget.

Will anything get done?

Well, it's a lot thinner budget now.

It

Greg Bach

is.

Far less to dissent over.

Jane Matenaer

Now that you took out everything your constituents want, it's pretty small.

The budget.

We're done.

We're done.

Exactly.

So we'll talk to State Senator, Senate Minority Leader, rather Diane Hissell-Bind coming up around 9.35 in hour number two.

Kristi Noem wants a new plane.

Well, don't we all?

Shouldn't we just give it to her?

Yeah.

We'll talk about that and the big birthday parade that President Trump wants to have in June.

Happy birthday, dear leader.

It's only a couple 20, 30, 40.

50 million dollars.

We got the money.

So it's nothing to worry about.

We will wrap up the show as we always do with this.

It shouldn't be a thing.

Today it's the Tono Edition and there's a video element that you're going to want to see.

Oh, you have to see this.

Yeah, you want to check that out.

So stick around for the end of the show.

Around 1051, this shouldn't be a thing.

The Tono Edition is on the way.

I wanted to start off though with talking about Elon.

Oh, what?

Where's he

Greg Bach

been?

Jane Matenaer

That is a really good question that you asked Greg Bach.

What has happened to Elon Musk?

We couldn't get away from him.

He was everywhere on television leading up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

Yeah.

And since then, he's just kind of gone.

Yeah.

Isn't that interesting?

Greg Bach

Well, it's weird because, you know, we're

Wisconsin, we're a scrappy bunch.

We are.

Jane Matenaer

But

Greg Bach

we're also humble.

We're not going to brag.

We're not going to boast.

But really did Wisconsin kind of at least put the brakes on Elon's public appearance.

He still is the richest man in the world.

Oh, yeah.

He still has the ear of the president.

He still is the shadow president if you want to call him that.

But I mean,

Wisconsin, we're a flyover state.

We're Midwest.

No one really worries about us.

But this scrappy little dairy state here said no to his money and no to his candidate and no to his ways of being for our Supreme Court.

And he was like, I gotta go.

I gotta go.

I gotta get out of here.

You hurt my

Jane Matenaer

feelings.

You're so mean.

I look at this as the cheddar block.

that stood in his way.

You really want the cheese wall reference?

I absolutely do.

We were the cheddar block.

We were the cheddar wall that stopped Elon Musk.

Yeah.

After he shelled out a hundred million dollars to get Brad Schimmel on the Wisconsin Supreme Court and then they were pretty soundly

Greg Bach

defeated.

Once again, it was a matter of by like 815.

They're like, well, Susan Crawford is one.

And I guess we'll just pack it up for the night, folks.

Jane Matenaer

We thought we were

Greg Bach

going to be here, but I'm out of here.

Jane Matenaer

But by this article in the Washington Post talks about how Elon has kind of kind of disappeared.

He said yesterday he's done enough political spending.

Greg Bach

Yeah, you have.

Jane Matenaer

Elon yesterday said he's done enough political spending, at least for now.

Perhaps another sign, the world's richest man, shifting away from political advocacy to return to his role as a tech evangelist.

Greg Bach

I hate that phrase.

Jane Matenaer

The shift has been forecast in his social media accounts over the past couple of months since he bought Twitter.

What used to be Twitter?

He's used it pretty much as a bully pulpit on just about everything.

And now that he's pulled back, if you follow him on what used to be Twitter, now Elon posts about space travel, electric vehicles, and artificial intelligence, while rarerly mentioning the 47th president.

Greg Bach

Well, I mean, it makes sense.

He should be talking about electric vehicles as he owns Tesla, a company whose stock took a massive hit in the middle of all the selection talk.

I mean, at the top, it was like a, it was like a, I'm looking at like even just six months ago, his, the stock for Tesla was four 79.

And I don't even think that was the highest ever, but by March, March 10th, March, yeah, March 10th, it was $222.

Now, and they granted.

That's a great stock price.

That's a pretty good price.

But when it goes from nearly 500 to under 250 and your boss, your CEO, the guy in charge of your company that you were, you were invested in is gallivanting around the country with a chainsaw, burning money, carrying a chainsaw, talking about how he's going to gut the government and the country.

Maybe it's time you get back to where you're at and where you come from, which is just.

Focus on your businesses

Jane Matenaer

well, and I have read reports that at least overseas They can't give away cyber trucks.

Oh, there is such a glut of Inventory yeah, they just can't get rid of

Greg Bach

well, I think the I think well first of all, let's just be fair and balanced to trademark They're the ugliest cars that have ever I mean DeLorean's were ugly These said hey DeLorean hold my cocaine because it was an 80s car and

And I personally believe that nobody buys a Cybertruck for its... Aesthetics.

Aesthetics or even the conveniences of having an electric car.

I think they buy it as a statement.

They buy it as a message to say, I bought this because I can.

And also it's a car that starts at about $70,000, $80,000.

So, and his whole thing was to make electric cars more affordable.

So I just believe anyone who owns a Cybertruck is saying,

Jane Matenaer

yeah.

Well, again, there were people who bought Cybertrucks before all of this began.

But

Greg Bach

they were barely on the road at the time.

You barely see them.

And now I see them a lot.

I saw a hot pink Cybertruck two days ago.

Hot pink.

Hot pink.

It was a hot mess.

But yeah, I just, it does not surprise me that it oversees because one, as you know, as you've been there, they're not big on big cars.

No.

Their big car is like a station wagon.

Because the roads

Jane Matenaer

are much more

Greg Bach

narrow.

Yeah.

And I think they also know that.

Big cars are an American thing and they don't have that that need They get they do they get by with what they have and it works for them So it does not shock me at all that cyber trucks do not sell over there

Jane Matenaer

This from the Washington boat, I'm sorry this one is from the New York Times.

We're talking about Elon Musk.

Yeah running into the great block of cheddar

when he came to Wisconsin, pretty much assuming that all of his money was going to make it a lock for Brad Schimel to get on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

That is not what happened.

After the last election, Elon disclosed over $290 million in federal spending.

And he was expected to stay a powerful financial player in Republican politics.

But again, he's really backed off the Wisconsin race.

in the New York Times may have been a turning point.

Mr. Musk appears aware his public presence in the race backfired.

He has said almost nothing, almost nothing about Brad Shimmel losing.

Public polling shows Mr. Musk has grown unpopular with voters.

Republicans have even started to try and distance themselves.

Greg Bach

I mean, there were stories that granted, I'm not going to...

quote them or who reported them because, you know, that's just gonna happen regardless.

But like right after the election, you already saw headlines saying Trump is distancing himself from, because this was a massive embarrassment

Jane Matenaer

for everyone

Greg Bach

involved.

And it really, it really speaks to those in the president's inner circle who wield a great deal of power, but stay real quiet.

They're the ones who unique, you've mentioned the name many times, Russell vote.

Those individuals who are also dismantling our way of life, but you don't hear from because they know it's best to stay in the shadows.

Jane Matenaer

Well, and that's kind of what I think.

I think he really loved the attention initially.

You'd get in up in front on a stage in front of 2,000 people and everybody's cheering for you I can see how that it can become something you seek people call I mean people refer

Greg Bach

to him as a Tony Stark Super genius,

Jane Matenaer

okay?

He doesn't actually invent any no he doesn't or that you pointed out He just backs people who invent things mm-hmm, which is great, but but again.

He's no he's not the inventor.

No musk's image has changed

from the Washington Post, from Genius Silicon Valley businessman to mega provocateur.

The brand damage is real for Tesla.

It's been a cloud over the stock.

Tesla has become a political symbol according to some guy who heads the Wedbush Securities.

Bullish on Tesla by criticizing Musk for his neglecting of the company while he was out traveling all over the country.

Greg Bach

And what really sucks is that Tesla, as we said,

Elon didn't start Tesla.

He didn't found it.

He's not a founder.

He is he is a Listed on their paperwork as a co-founder, but he did not find the company right the people who did had a mission anyone who starts a mission like that

electric cars, they want to help the environment.

They want to get it in the hands of the people.

They want to make it accessible.

And that was a wonderful mission.

And it's been poisoned to the point where I'm sure you've seen this, people driving Teslas with bumper stickers saying, I still think Elon is crazy.

So they almost have to distance themselves because of their purchase.

And that's too bad because we need electric cars.

We need those forms of alternative energy and transportation.

And he is kind of, I mean, I wouldn't, I mean,

I would, I would love to see the, the, the sales sheets for companies like Ravina and other EV or, or like Ford's EV sales.

If his behavior is kind of a cloud for all of them, because two years ago, Donald Trump hated electric cars.

He hated Tesla.

He publicly mocked Elon Musk, but

Open up that bag.

Well,

Jane Matenaer

exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

Open up the cash bag and things change considerably.

What you mentioned, though, about Russell Vogt, who, again, one of the main authors of Project 2025, now the head of Office of Management and Budget in the Trump administration, Elon's not going away.

No.

We're just not going to be able to see him.

No.

That's not necessarily good either.

Yeah.

I mean, no, he's going to stay in the background.

He's going to continue.

Dozing, whatever he does.

Even the doge has not turned out to be a huge success.

The doge has been a

Greg Bach

dramatic and predictable failure.

And we don't have the time to get into it, but I listened to a couple of really deep dives into the doge saga and how not only is it not saving us money based on the money that has to be spent in the wake of cuts,

They're either breaking even or we're losing money.

And also, they said $2 trillion.

That was the thing.

And then immediately, it's going to be $1 trillion.

And now they're like $150 billion, which is not even savings, as I just said, because of everything going into it.

It's done nothing.

It's done

Jane Matenaer

nothing.

And I go back to the whole thing is about waste, fraud, and abuse.

Fraud is a crime.

Correct.

Fraud is a crime.

So if they have been uncovering all of this fraud, then where are the people who are being put on trial for said fraud?

Or are they just, is Elon disciplining these people in the background that we just don't see it and they're all getting slapped?

Greg Bach

And that's even wrong as well, because if it's frauds of crime and they need to be charged and put in front of a judge, but also the other point too is, you know, when we talk about wasteful spending,

Why is the wasteful spending, if we look at what's being cut, why is it always services, programs, and departments that help the people?

We're never looking at military spending.

No, we're going to give them another trillion dollars.

Yep, we always want to give them more money.

Never look at them.

But let's make sure that someone with, you know, who's getting cancer treatment through research programs, let's cut that because that's wasteful.

Jane Matenaer

Yeah, that's what fraud.

Shizyu on the live stream says, I agree, Greg, we do need EVs.

Just not something that looks like a Minecraft reject.

That's perfect.

We have a break coming up.

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Jane Matenaer

Good morning and welcome.

Welcome to Matt and Air on Air.

Jane Matt and Air Greg Bach.

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Greg Bach

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Jane Matenaer

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Jane Matenaer

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Where are those tickets?

I imagine if there's a four pack, Jane, that those tickets are like.

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Jane Matenaer

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Greg Bach

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Greg Bach

Absolutely.

Jane Matenaer

We were talking before we went to the break about Elon Musk and being stopped by the great cheddar block.

here in wisconsin the great chateau wall the great chateau wall essentially after elon poured in millions and millions and millions of dollars into the wisconsin supreme court race and then they lost that race he's kind of gone bye bye

Greg Bach

but that doesn't mean he's going like he's gone he's going away on the

Jane Matenaer

um

Greg Bach

we're not

Jane Matenaer

seeing the tv circus

Greg Bach

yeah we're not going to be seeing him as much most likely that doesn't mean that those

Hundreds of billions of dollars are just going to sit in the bank most

Jane Matenaer

likely.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

Again, he can funnel that to a super PAC in any way, shape or form.

And we're never going to know where that money came from, came from, which goes back to, yes, we should get big money out of politics.

Yeah.

I think most average people agree with that.

It's only, you know, the people who need that money to get elected who would be against that.

But

He is still out and about.

Elon was at the Cutter Economic Forum.

Greg Bach

As you do.

Jane Matenaer

As one does.

And he was asked, and he took this so well.

Here is the question that he was asked by a journalist, Elon Musk.

You've talked about $4 billion a day being saved.

I think everyone can agree fighting waste and inefficiency in government is a good thing.

But if you add that up,

It is not going to get to $2 trillion over the lifetime of Doge.

He is being asked this at an economic forum.

What was Elon's response?

First, he said, I'm sorry.

And then he said, quote, I mean, I feel you're somewhat trapped in the NPC dialogue tree of a traditional journalist.

Wow.

So it's difficult when I'm conversing with someone

who's trapped in the dialogue tree of a conventional journalist because it's like talking to a computer."

I didn't even know what NPC was.

It's a non-playable character in a video

Greg Bach

game.

People want to assign him this this this brilliant brilliant super genius thinking on a 3d chest No, I'm sorry 4d chest feel a musket.

You can't handle what he's talking about But what he does and what a lot of I'll say it stupid people do to try to look smart is they string a bunch of words together

that have a lot of syllables, that sound really nice, they're shiny, Jane.

An NPC character in a traditional journal.

All those words sound great.

When really what he says is, you've caught me, you know that it's not gonna work.

I don't have an answer for

Jane Matenaer

you because

Greg Bach

I don't know what I'm doing.

Because I didn't study economics and advanced economics and I've never been a sitting politician in a...

in elected form.

He is not smart, and this just proves that any time you back him into a corner, he does that Elon Musk thing, and he then insults you for having the temerity to

Jane Matenaer

say

Greg Bach

anything to him.

Jane Matenaer

To ask.

He then told the journalist that in the context of his perceived restraints on Doge, his group has excelled.

Oh, yes.

Doge is an advisory group.

We're doing the best we can as an advisory group.

The progress made thus far as an advisory group is excellent.

Okay.

Sure, bro.

Keep telling yourself that.

Can we get him a friend?

Can we please just find Ilana a friend?

I think a lot of his problems would go away if the man

had a friend.

Greg Bach

I have offered up Calvin many times and Calvin says no every single time.

I just don't think anyone wants to.

It's too much.

Jane Matenaer

There's got to be somebody out there.

Jeff Bezos give him a call.

Go to lunch.

Take him to lunch.

Go to web.

They only had arcades anymore.

We could take them out to an arcade and spend a couple hours.

Go

Greg Bach

to Olive Garden.

Tell them it's on me.

I'll pay the bill.

It's fine.

All the soup, salad, and breadsticks you can eat.

Just let us know.

Jane Matenaer

Send it in to Jane says at Civic Media.

We have news coming up next.

And then when we return, Senate Minority Leader, Diane Hesselbein, is going to join us to talk about the Wisconsin budget.

Stay close.

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This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome to Matt and air on air.

Jane Matt and air.

Greg Bach.

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

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Delighted to welcome our next guest.

Wisconsin Senate Minority Leader, Diane Heselbein is here.

Good morning, Senator.

How are you?

I'm doing well.

Good morning, Jane and Greg.

Thanks

for

Jane Matenaer

having me on.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We wanted to talk a little bit about the Wisconsin state budget after the Republicans got a hold of Governor Evers' suggestions.

Pretty much all that was left were the words and and the.

They pretty much cut everything out of the budget.

So I guess I'm curious, Senator, where are we right now?

Yeah, well, it's unfortunately where we I mean the governor introduced this budget 91 days ago We were really excited We were just starting to make our way through the budget and the Republicans and the Senate had a press conference saying they were gonna take everything out of it already There's like the first thing they said before they even opened up the budget and that was disappointing and then they had these four listening sessions all over the state of Wisconsin and people came to talk about what was in the governor's budget that they were excited about and they still decided

just last week to throw everything out of that budget.

Even after people waited hours to testify for us for two minutes, they'd be sometimes they'd be waiting for eight hours to talk for two minutes.

But what they were excited for in the budget and the Republicans did not care.

Jane Matenaer

We talked about that quite a bit last week.

because it makes me crazy that they even bother to take this pony show on the road.

As you said, for people, there was one woman who listens to us who waited for nine hours.

She waited nine hours for her two minutes and...

Every report I've seen is that what the Joint Finance Committee heard from folks were about the same three things.

It was about health care, it's about childcare, and it's about education.

These are the important things that Wisconsinites would like to see something get done on, and yet the Republicans are like, why bother?

What are you just sitting there playing candy crush?

I'm not sure what they're doing.

I don't think they were listening to what the people were saying.

Jane Matenaer

But they

don't.

The number one thing that people were talking about.

Jane Matenaer

How do you go back to your constituents then?

I

don't know what they're going to do.

I don't know how they have listening sessions when they tell everybody we stripped everything out of the governor's budget we're starting from.

zero again.

And then they're going to be building something up, but we don't know what that is.

It's certainly not going to be to the levels of what Governor Evers proposed.

And when it comes to education and childcare, funding for our university system, the environment, we know what people in the state of Wisconsin want.

And unfortunately, what the Republicans did does not reflect that.

Greg Bach

And that's something we talk about a lot of time is like, you know, not just the bills that are in there for the good of the people, but let's also look at the other side of the coin, which is politics, campaigning.

Talking knocking on doors making them phone calls trying to get money if you strip everything onto there What do you go back to your district and say like I fought for nothing?

I fought for and the only way you can spit it is like I'm I'm not gonna vote on this budget Well, you didn't even give it a chance as you said senator before they open it up They said no and it seems very and I it that seems childish to me almost like we're taking our ball and we're going home and that doesn't make sense at all

It doesn't make sense.

And now they're going to be supposedly they're going to have meetings and maybe craft something of a budget.

I have no idea what's going to be in there.

I don't know what the Republican priorities are.

We'll see as we go through the process.

I don't know if we're going to have a budget done in time.

We are supposed to have the budget done by the end of July.

It's my hope that we get that done again because cities, towns, villages, and school districts are counting on us to get our act together.

pass a budget and hopefully something the governor can sign and then they can do their work and craft their own budget.

So I'm hoping we can get this on time, but it's really a slow start and it's unfortunate start this session.

Jane Matenaer

If you're just joining us, Wisconsin State Senate Minority Leader Diane Hesseblein is our guest and we're talking about the Wisconsin State budget, which is kind of in limbo.

We have Cassandra on the live stream who said that was me.

She waited for nine hours.

I said to them, I'm not even going to read what I prepared because it's the same thing that everyone else said, you know.

what we want.

And then they went back and said, yeah, we're not going to give you any of the things that you want.

There has been criticism, Senator, that Governor Evers won't talk to the other side, that he's not being nice.

I don't know what's the issue with that.

That's not true at all.

The Republicans, they had a meeting of, I don't know how long, about a few months ago or something, a few weeks ago.

Their staffs have been talking and they have a meeting set up today to talk about maybe trying to figure out can they find a way forward to move on this budget.

So that's happening today.

So the Republicans, I don't know who's saying that, because it's certainly not true.

The governor, Ivor, definitely wants to meet with everybody who wants to meet with him.

Jane Matenaer

Because I've seen that reported in several publications saying, it's the governor, he won't sit down and talk to us.

And I don't know, he's not answering.

during our

Greg Bach

calls.

You know, famously hard to deal with Tony Evers, just a brick wall.

She can never get through to that man.

Exactly.

He's so accessible.

Senator, one of the things we've also talked about in this show in the past, and this seems like a confluence of events, which it all like, I would say bubbled up from when new maps were instituted by the Supreme Court of the state.

And then you saw, you know, unfortunately for the Democrats, you didn't take control of either house, but there were gains made in seats.

And then what we saw was the, instead of the Republicans saying, all right, well, I mean, at kicking and screaming, we have to do some negotiations, some compromise.

Instead, what they did was it's a series of

you know reducing committee membership so it's super majorities within committees it's doing things like this still sitting on money that's for PFAS and education and for

The hospitals as well and and and things that you see as bipartisan issues that your Republican colleagues say these are bipartisan issues and we want to vote for them and get them through yet being stopped at every sense as almost a way of punishing you Punishing the governor and then punishing Wisconsin because they cannot let you win Anything that just seems like their MO now if they can't if they can't be in total control They're gonna make sure that we have nothing to show for it

Well, and you know, fair maps, I'm glad you brought up fair maps, because fair maps matter.

We went from 11 Senate Democrats last year to 15 now.

So it's 15 Senate Democrats to 18 Senate Republicans.

And you would think there would be more negotiating happen.

There'd be more conversations happening.

We'll see.

We'll see if the Republicans, I think their goal right now is to try to pass a budget with 17 votes in the Republican caucus.

We'll see if we get there because they have a lot of Republicans in their caucus that really are a party of no.

Nothing for education, nothing for higher ed, nothing for the environment.

And I don't know if they're going to be finding those 17 votes.

If not, I'd have an open door policy.

I'm hoping they come to me and they see something.

Maybe we can craft a budget together that we can help move the state of Wisconsin forward, but I'm not holding my breath.

Jane Matenaer

I did think personally, Senator, that when Governor Evers came out with his budget, some of his monetary requests seemed a little like overshooting.

Let's start out really high and then we can come down and meet somewhere in the middle.

But even that's not even happening.

It just feels like, as Greg said, there is no middle.

We can't meet in the middle.

And therefore, we're going to do nothing.

Yeah, I don't think the governor did overshoot his budget.

I think he really put out together a practical budget that we could live with.

I'll talk about special education funding for K-12 education from one.

So right now, all the districts around the state, they may be, if they're lucky, get 30% reimbursement for all their special education funding.

That means they have to fund about 70% on their own and really try to make tough decisions in those school districts.

Well, those unaccountable private school vouchers schools, they get 90%

special education funding reimbursement, 90%.

So Governor Evers asked for 60, right?

We're not even asking for parity with those because that really would be expensive and a really hard lift.

He asked for 60 and the Republicans right now are balking at that.

So it's okay for the 90% for the special education and those private, unaccountable schools, but only lucky to get 30 right now.

So I think the governor putting 60 out there, I'm hoping we can definitely get 60.

Jane Matenaer

And I think you said something very, very important that I don't.

think most people appreciate or potentially realize voucher schools do not have an oversight they don't answer to anyone even as far as curriculum is concerned correct that is correct so they can do whatever they want and and they don't even even having to come to uh come to the the legislature and say here are our results they don't have to do that either

No, there's

Jane Matenaer

no overs.

There's no oversight of schools within the voucher program.

That's true.

I think it was a few years ago.

There was a school in Milwaukee and the kids went to school on a Monday.

I don't want to say what the name was.

I can't remember.

But they went to school on a Monday.

It was closed.

It was shuttered.

There were gates.

It's like, sorry, closed.

And overnight, the owners of that school flew to Florida, and they just shut the doors.

Done.

And so all these 90 kids had to go try to figure out where they were going to go.

They went to the public schools, and only one out of 90 kids passed an entrance exam could only pass one thing.

They didn't do well in math.

They passed one kid out of 90 who was able to be comprehensive in reading or something like that.

Not good.

So we don't know what's happening in some of those schools.

Jane Matenaer

What is the justification for that?

I would love to be in on some of those conversations with the Republican supporters of these schools.

How do they justify this lack of accountability or don't they even bother?

I don't.

They don't.

They don't bother.

I

Greg Bach

mean, I'm looking at the school you're referring to is the Life Skills Academy.

And this was two

thousand and it was

Greg Bach

two point three million dollars in.

taxpayer money was given to that school for them to close their eyes and I know of an example in Racine of a Catholic school that tried to open that had no Could not get certification from the Archdiocese that wanted to teach a pre-vatican to correct him to the children and They didn't pay teachers and the guy who started it all closed the doors left and took all the money.

I mean this is look There's a conversation to be had about vouchers

but one thing I think we should all be able to come together.

There should be accountability.

There should be a board that meets with these schools and says, all right, what is our tax payer dollars getting

us?

What are we getting for

Greg Bach

this?

And not like, oh, sorry, you don't have a school to go to anymore.

Sorry, bye-bye.

Exactly, exactly.

They should have to.

reply something that we should be able to know what they're teaching in those schools and who's teaching and making sure they're all licensed.

That's important.

Jane Matenaer

Before you joined us, we were talking about Elon Musk kind of hitting the brick cheddar wall here in Wisconsin.

He's kind of disappeared since all of his money did not buy that Supreme Court seat for Brad Schimmel.

But you want to find fraud, waste, and abuse?

Maybe let's look at the voucher program.

That might be a really good place to start.

It just seems so...

I do not understand.

I just don't understand how it's acceptable that we can give all this taxpayer money to people who then do not have to report back.

That doesn't make any sense to me.

It doesn't make any sense to me.

I've been fighting this regime for a very long time.

Greg Bach

I

Jane Matenaer

just have to take a...

Greg Bach

Well, and then I think of other programs, departments and groups.

who receive taxpayer money and they have to-

Jane Matenaer

They come for everything.

They come for

Greg Bach

every penny down to the moment and submit and be, and still, and these are groups that will be like, we're trying to help kids, we're trying to educate, we're trying to clean up our rivers and they'll still get their funding cut because someone will say, it's wasteful.

Okay,

all right, make it make sense.

Reading literacy programs for kids, all that stuff.

People have to be accountable for what they're doing, what they're teaching, how they're teaching, how many kids that they're seeing.

boys and girls clubs, like everybody has to come back.

I was on the audit committee for years and that we would audit everything.

So it was important to know what the ambulances were doing, what everything was going on in different departments all over the state.

Jane Matenaer

But special rules for this.

Yeah.

Well, just we give them a special, yeah, special carve outs for you.

That's all fine.

If you're just joining us, Wisconsin Senate Minority Leader, Diane Hesselbein is here and we're talking about the budget.

Senator, we only have about a minute left.

What are the next steps?

What happens next in Madison as far as the budget is concerned?

Well, I am hopeful that the Joint Finance Committee will start meeting and actually, you know, vote on some things in the budget.

Like I said, we have a duty that we pass a responsible budget by the end of June, cities, towns, villages and.

school districts are counting on us to do our job.

I will continue to do my job.

And if the Republicans can't get the votes in the Senate, then my door is open and hopefully we can talk to what we need to do for the state of Wisconsin.

Jane Matenaer

You can always contact your representative.

It's so easy.

It's my vote.WI.gov.

They love to hear from you.

Give them a call.

Be nice to the people answering the phone.

It's not them.

Wisconsin Senate Minority Leader Diane Heselmein.

Thank you so very, very much for your time.

Really appreciate it.

Have a wonderful day.

Thanks for having me on.

Take care.

Stay with us.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air coming to you across the Civic Media radio network.

We will be right back.

Kathryn Lake

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

Jane Matenaer

Good morning and welcome back to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach.

Doctor, 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 at 855-752-4842.

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

Our thanks again to Wisconsin Senate Minority Leader, Diane Hesselbein, for taking time out to talk to us about the budget.

And we did spend a little time talking about

voucher schools and the incredible amount of money that voucher schools get from taxpayers.

And yet they're not accountable to anyone for anything.

Greg Bach

No.

And as you've put it before, and we've been saying now regularly, this is a whole second school system being funded by us.

This is not magical money coming from the ground or from the sky.

It is money that comes from my pocket, from your pocket, from everybody's hardworking pockets.

If you I want to have any idea on how much is being spent out of our pockets I will once again link that page which you can go to your school district Yep, and see how much money has been taken from your tax dollars to fund this second school system

Jane Matenaer

because it is yes It's an entirely second separate Unaccountable school system Jim from Brookfield texting in my guess is that the Republicans

go back to their constituents, because I said, I asked the Senator Husslebine, what do these guys say when they go back to their constituents and they vote against everything?

So Jim is saying, we fought against wasteful spending.

And Jim, I'm sure you're right.

We stopped us from throwing our dollars away.

Of course, we didn't get anything done, but we prevented this.

And then Jim from Appleton listening on WGBW

in Green Bay says voucher schooling is bad in its current form.

What you are now talking about is the right way to attack them accountability.

And Jim, I wouldn't have a problem with voucher schools.

Again,

But I want to see your results.

If you are getting taxpayer dollars, I don't understand why you get to stand under this special magical umbrella and you don't have to come back and say, here are our graduation rates, here are our literacy rates.

Here's like every other person who gets, every other agency I should say that gets taxpayer money has to have some kind of an accounting.

Greg Bach

Also another thing that we don't talk about because when we talk about accountability, we think about, you know, what are your, what are you, who are you taking in?

What are your school scores?

What are you, what is, as Senator Hasselbein said, are your teachers accredited?

But also, is the student who's receiving the voucher actually not able to afford the schooling?

That's a big one.

Jane Matenaer

It is a big one.

Greg Bach

Families who can definitely afford it are still getting vouchers.

So they're getting free school for,

for an education they could afford to pay for.

So yeah, this is, and I don't foresee any of our detractors, whether it's on the live stream or the text lines, telling us how we're wrong, but tell us how we're wrong.

Why is non-accountability, I don't wanna argue school vouchers as an entity.

That's a bigger discussion.

But why is non-accountability an okay thing?

For people who are so about wasteful spending, fraud,

and all of that rig of a roll, why is this one thing absolutely okay?

Jane Matenaer

No problem.

Yeah.

No problem.

It's just fine.

And the fact that she, Senator Hessebein mentioned that one school district, that one day they just closed their doors and the owners took the money and went to Florida.

$2.3 million.

In our money.

That's

Greg Bach

called

Jane Matenaer

fraud to me.

I would say that would be considered fraud.

Greg Bach

Yeah.

So once again, make it make sense and, and quote unquote freedom is not an answer.

I want some kind of say, Hey, send me an article, send me a survey, send me something that shows that this is the way to do it.

But every time we ask this question, it's like they're all going, well, I didn't hear you.

What would you say?

I wasn't listening.

I wasn't listening.

I was playing Candy Crush.

I'm really high level.

Like I'm on level like.

200, I don't know.

I don't know the game.

205, that's high up.

Jane Matenaer

Oh, that's

Greg Bach

high.

Oh,

Jane Matenaer

like that.

Yeah.

By the way, I'm opening a school.

Jane's House of Pain and Politeness, I think we'll, we'll try that.

And yeah, send in that taxpayer money to me.

I'm going to start my own school system.

We're going to have very selective, you know, requirements and probably five.

I think we'll probably have five students.

That's what I'm planning on anyway.

Greg Bach

Well, okay.

So Jane, uh, with this, uh, are you willing to be accountable for like your students, the counter students, how old they are, if they're,

Jane Matenaer

why would I have to do that?

Greg Bach

Well, it's just, it's a good idea.

Cause we're giving you taxpayer money.

Jane Matenaer

So you should just trust me.

You should just trust me, Greg.

You're right.

What was I thinking?

What was I thinking?

Just give me a couple million dollars in taxpayer money.

Trust that I will do the right thing.

Would four million be good?

Is that good?

I think four.

I could make it.

To start?

I could fly with four million.

Great.

Greg Bach

All

Jane Matenaer

right.

You can fly to Florida.

Jane's House of Pain and Politeness coming soon to a school system near you.

We're not going to have time to talk about what I've.

what we had planned on, but this is something very disturbing as well.

This from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Emily Pofall with the byline.

Waterford track meat investigation reveals racist remarks toward Milwaukee students.

This is from a couple of weeks ago, track meat out in Waterford.

And the team from Rufus King High School actually left the meat early for safety.

Greg Bach

After they had spoken to the people on the, like the people

like the coaches from who they're competing against saying, can you help us with this?

And they didn't do anything.

And Jane, you, I mean, I think a lot of people just assume, wow, those terrible kids, those awful, awful kids.

Jane Matenaer

It was their parents.

It was their parents too.

It was their parents.

Yep, adults.

We wonder where kids get this stuff from.

Yeah.

They learn it at home.

Greg Bach

Yeah, so.

Jane Matenaer

We will include this story in the show notes.

The superintendent I believe of the Waterford schools did apologize to Rufus King and apparently they're going to have some kind of meeting with the student body.

We'll see what happens from that.

Can't wait for the response.

You need to sit down and talk to the parents.

Yeah, that's where it all starts.

We have news coming up next and then when we return, Christy wants a new plane and Donald wants a parade.

That's all coming up.

Stay close.

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This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Kathryn Lake

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