Good morning and welcome.
Welcome to Matt and air on air.
Jane Matt and air Greg Buck and Calvin Butenoff all coming to you live from our studio at Radio Park in Racine where you can join us.
You can call you can text.
The number is the same.
855-752-4842.
You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter busy, busy show coming up today.
Michelle Valesquez from Planned Parenthood Advocates is going to be joining us after the 9.30 news, among all the other things that are going on with the budget that's being kicked around in Washington.
There are some backdoor efforts now to, yes, not a surprise, defund Planned Parenthood.
Oh,
yeah.
I mean, not shocking.
Yeah, not shocking.
So we're going to talk about that.
And Planned Parenthood, by the way, and we will talk about this with Michelle, does offer things beyond just reproductive health care.
Absolutely.
They do cancer screenings and breast cancer screenings and cervical cancer screenings and all kinds of things.
So again, Michelle Velasquez is going to be joining us after the 9.30 news.
Friday, that means Dan Schaefer, Civic Media's political editor and the creator of the multi-multi-award-winning Reconpopulation Area.
We'll be here after 10 o'clock.
We're gonna hold off on talking about the big fight.
Fight, fight, fight, fight.
Ooh, a good old-fashioned slap-fast.
Yeah, between the president and his closest buddy.
the world's richest man.
So we're gonna talk about that a little bit with Dan Schaefer that will come up.
In our number two, we will wrap things up as we always do with this.
It shouldn't be a thing.
Today, it's the Shrinky Dink Edition.
I just like saying that.
Shrinky Dink.
Shrinky Dink.
It's one of those things that just- This
show was actually originally gonna be called Shrinky Dink on air.
Didn't fly through the panel.
Changed to the last second.
Yeah.
That's the way things go if you are if you ever have a thing you think should not be along with Potential guests that you think we should have on this show
If you ever want to reach out to the show, super easy way to do it, you can email us at janesaysatcivicmedia.us, J-A-N-E-S-A-Y-S, all one word, janesaysatcivicmedia.us.
And don't forget too, we are in our, the week one of our statewide text win, Scotty Summer.
Contest so coming up after 11 o'clock with Tom Hartman He's gonna have a keyword for you that you need to text in via the civic media app Only
Yeah, that keyword will be delivered by you
and I. That's right.
Yes.
So be listening for Greg and I. After 11 o'clock with that keyword for you to text in, you have an hour to text that in via the civic media app.
And then you're in the running for either $100 cash or a pair of Milwaukee Brewers Club level tickets.
And everyone who enters is in the drawing for the grand prize to a little getaway.
And we pay your gas.
That is just like
just.
Love that part.
No, it's great.
Like Ashley in Wisconsin Rapids.
She was a winner.
Nice.
Listening on WIRI.
Well, thank you very much for listening and for playing.
Appreciate that, Ashley, and congratulations.
So that's coming up after 11 o'clock.
Be listening for that keyword.
It happens four times a day in the 7, 11, 2, and 4 o'clock hours.
Our statewide text-to-win Scotty Summer Contest through today and all next week.
Yes.
I wanted to start off by talking about some local wins.
At least this is a win.
Attorney General, and this is from Civic Media, our Civic Media News Department.
I've heard of them.
Lucas Hunt doing a great job.
Attorney General Josh Call wins court order against Trump.
America, AmeriCorps programs, whether will be restored.
That's fantastic.
Wisconsin Department of Justice released details.
The administration has been ordered to restore programs and members of AmeriCorps.
This is a nationwide program that helps address the needs of various communities like helping veterans with therapeutic recreational activities.
Again, a couple of years ago when I was at a different radio station and I did some longer feature stories and had an opportunity to talk to some of the groups that work with the VA.
including a group that put on plays.
That's so cool.
Shakespearean plays, artwork, guitars, guitar
lessons
for veterans.
If anyone's out there listening right now and has an in with guitars for vets.
It's a great group.
Please contact us because they are a hard group to finagle.
And I would love to have them on the show, but I apologize.
But yes, that's the work that they do with vets alone.
as well as other groups.
It just
is a win.
Yeah, AmeriCorps also has recovery coaches helping people with substance abuse problems.
The coalition established the Trump administration was unlawful when they dismantled AmeriCorps.
Attorney General Josh Call calling for further action.
Saying, quote, this decision is an important reprieve not only for many programs supported by AmeriCorps, affected by the Trump administration's sudden and unwarranted cuts.
but also for the many communities that benefit from those programs.
Congress should also step in and prevent the Trump administration from doing further damage to AmeriCorps, unquote.
And there were a whole bunch of people that were working for AmeriCorps that just got blown out.
Yep.
And this is another example and something we've spoken with Jim Santel about of lawyers and judges stepping in and protecting the Constitution, protecting the people, protecting our programs.
where our elected officials are not only not stepping up to protect them, but actively working against them.
So thank you, Josh Call.
Thank you to all of them who are protecting our democracy.
Yeah.
And especially again, the judges that we talked about yesterday with Jim Santel.
And speaking of Jim Santel, and I would imagine he will talk more about the Trump administration has been losing, losing lots of court cases.
Yes.
Lots.
Yes.
And many of these are Trump-appointed judges.
Sorry, but they are.
And I'm sure Jim will have more about that tomorrow.
He has a statewide show Saturdays across the network called Amicus a Law Review from 9 to 11.
Great, great show.
And you can also always go back and listen to his archives if you're not able.
You know, you might be running around people.
It's a Saturday.
People have things to do.
It's a great podcast to listen
to
because it is just while you're driving, while you're exercising, he just, it's so jam-packed with information, but it's also digestible to those who are not in the law.
And he speaks like a law professor, but he has the love of what he talks about.
So there's a certain sense of like, you feel fired up when you listen to him.
There's a positive energy.
Even when he's talking about the darkest things,
His
energy gives me hope.
So check out Jim Santel and again if you can't listen to his show 9 to 11 across the network on Saturdays You can always go to civicmedia.us Just click on shows and scroll down and you'll find Jim's show and there's a whole bunch of archives there Like you will find for all of our shows.
Yeah The other thing that we wanted to throw in here because we were just talking about this this week earlier this week with Nathan Deming
Yes, who is a filmmaker.
Yes, he is a native of Tomah, but he's been kind of he kind of bounces back between Wisconsin and California making movies.
And we were talking about this film tax credit bill.
Yeah.
And it has passed that it's been approved
in the assembly
in the assembly.
It's remarkable.
We agree on this.
Look, we can get things done in Wisconsin.
Investing in art can have an ROI.
This is wonderful.
A bill to provide a film tax credit in Wisconsin and set up a state film office ready to be voted on by the Senate.
After being approved by the Chamber Committee, Wisconsin Tourism Secretary Ann Sayers says that Wisconsin's lost out on a lot of opportunities because movie companies don't want to shoot here.
because of this lack of a film credit.
And as it was explained to us by Nathan, if you say you're going to spend $5 million shooting a movie here, you'll get a refund on like 30% of that.
Yeah.
And that's
great.
It's not like we're paying outright to lure them here.
No.
They will get a break on the money that they intend to spend while shooting a movie here.
Yep.
And other states, New York has a film office, Georgia has a film office, other states.
I mean, it's just
I feel like it's a it's a it's a very simple investment from the state from the government to get over time a wonderful return and also just
You know they create jobs in the community whether it's people working on set or just you know support
system support
system and also investing in investing in the local economy hotels restaurants if you have entertainment there people are you know shoots done people want to go out and have a drink they're gonna go to maybe go to your bar like it just feels like a win-win plus it just feels cool to be like hey we have a film office we
want them here well and as you had mentioned when we were talking to Nathan on Wednesday
Look at what Georgia has done and how Atlanta Atlanta has become like a second Hollywood.
Correct.
Yes, it really
has.
Yes, you go to you feel the presence of that Hollywood aspect when you're in Atlanta and and Europe.
England has invested in Georgia as far as filming.
They have a whole United States essentially not franchise, but like another location here in America of their Pinewood Studios where all the Bond movies were filmed.
So.
there is proof in the pudding that this works.
And I'm happy that the assembly passed this.
This makes me very, very excited.
Well, again, we'll see what happens
when it goes over to the Senate.
Can
we just have this moment, Jane?
Can we just have?
Embrace the win.
Yes.
Have win.
while we have it.
We're halfway there.
We're halfway there.
I like that.
Senate Bill 231 will allow companies to apply for a 30% credit equal to costs of salary or wages for Wisconsin residents working on the productions.
Yes.
So this is now ready for a vote by the full Senate and credit to Joanne Kruelitz, Kruelitz, the wonderful Joanne Kruelitz, also part of our news department for Civic Media.
She just posted that too on our website.
This is a good thing.
These are good things.
These are good things.
He's make me happy.
He's make me excited to be in Wisconsin.
Are you feeling?
movie-ish I would
totally great character in a movie.
I would I'd be amazing I would also look I would thought about I thought about like emailing His name Deming Nathan.
Thank you.
Wow
Friday is here.
Um, but also just asking about what the aspects of producing a film is because I'm a producer.
I'm a producer here at Civic Media.
I produce comedy shows.
So that's sort of putting things together and making them run is kind of in my blood.
And the, the aspect, the idea of producing movies has always interest me.
So I kind of wanted to send him an email.
I'm like, look, I'm not asking for a job.
I already got one.
Got that.
But also just like, Hey, what are the things?
I know one of the things that you, you need to know is how to budget.
They
say that if you
want to get into movies, get a degree in accounting.
Economics.
Yeah.
But
yeah, it was a great discussion.
And I'm glad that so close to having that interview with him, this information comes out that has to make him very happy.
Also, someone like Civic Media's very own Pete Schwabba,
who I
believe on our show came on last year and talked about the fact that there are people who just aren't making their films because they want to make them here, but they can't afford to do it.
So maybe this program will help them.
I just see it as a win all the way around.
I agree.
I really do.
Cassandra says too, yeah, next up, funding education.
Well, I know Cassandra, we hear you.
I agree with you.
Maybe
in the tax credits for movies.
We can slip in something for water and education and childcare.
Universal breakfast.
Just put them in there.
Don't tell anyone.
Okay, when we return, we're going to talk about something else that was slipped in to this budget.
that the house just passed.
If
you didn't think that they were kind of heartless before, I think you will after we explain this cut.
Not sure who's been calling for this, but we'll have all the details on the other side.
Stay with us.
You are listening to Matinair On Air.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
We'll be right back.
Good morning and welcome to Matt and Air on Air.
Jane Matt and Air, Greg Bott, the Board Lord, coming to you live from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.
Join the scholar text.
It is the same number, 855-752-4842.
You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream.
on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter after the 930 News.
Michelle Valesquez from Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin will be joining us.
Stay tuned for that.
Right now, though, we're going to talk about something else that all kinds of little hidden gems in this budget bill.
But before we get to that, Jim from Brookfield is on the line.
Good morning, Jim.
Thanks so much for joining us.
What do you want to say?
I wanted to just circle back on the cuts to the AmeriCorps, which I just
I just can't believe what we're facing these days.
Just a personal story, my oldest daughter has graduated University of Minnesota and she went out and wanted to DC.
She wanted to work in the DC area, got a job with AmeriCorps, working with public schools, helping these kids get back up to reading levels or whatnot that they were a little behind because of COVID and working at home.
She could have worked in Milwaukee, but she went up to DC.
put in a year's service there for AmeriCorps and she helped public schools get them back up to standard levels after COVID.
She really enjoyed that year.
It was a very good learning experience and she also got an incentive that could be used for further education.
It was a very nice bonus.
It had to be used for
um further education and at certain schools and these weren't trump these weren't trump university schools these were you know some ivy leagues with scots and whatnot long story short um she her friends now that still work for americorps they've been told they're gonna be phased out and this incentive this bonus is now in question now how can the government go back on their word you know and you know pull this out the rug literally out from under these kids
that are there teaching, student teaching, serving their country.
I just can't believe what we're facing these days that not only would they end that program.
but retroactively pull the rug out from this incentive, this bonus that my daughter earned going to the public schools in DC every day for a year.
Well, and what's crazy about it too, Jim, is that we need more teachers.
We talk about this all the time, the lack of people going into the teaching industry, and now you have these people like your daughter who want to do this, and now we're gonna penalize them.
Or as you say, rip away,
Rip away the incentive.
It's completely across purposes, right?
Exactly.
And she's taking in strides somewhat.
She's not working for a private law firm out there in DC.
She used that year's service to get Atlanta job out there.
But she feels just sick about her friends that are still there with AmeriCorps that are being phased out.
And her incentive is up in question.
I mean, come on, Musk, Trump, whatever.
Live up to the obligations, the commitments that have been made, and try to look at the better good for this country.
That's
a
wonderful plea, Jim.
And we agree with you.
I really appreciate that.
But look at what they did to our farmers.
Look at what they did to our farmers with farmers who had already invested in improvement projects on their farms, whether it was solar or perhaps it had something to do with manure mitigation or whatever.
They had invested this money
with the promise that under the infrastructure inflation reduction
act, I
believe that the government was going to pay them for it.
And then Trump came in and left them all on the hook for that.
Well, I think that unfortunately, and I don't like be the doomsayer or the.
Debbie Downer on this one, Jim and everyone listening, I don't understand why any of us would hold them to any standard as one, they said they were going to do this in the first place.
But of course, they're not going to pontificate.
So we didn't know the extent of these cuts.
And also they show no signs of being beholden to the people and making and doing and making good on promises, let alone trying to create a country that thrives under investment opportunity and just, you know, saying like, we're here to
We're here to make sure we are the best country in the world.
They say it all the time.
We're the best country on earth.
But they're constantly doing things that undermine that.
And unfortunately, the story that Jane, you want to talk about, just is like one more.
I mean, like this is disgusting.
Republicans want to ban pets from domestic violence shelters.
So hidden in this budget bill, along with that little provision that
prevented states and localities from doing any regulations on AI for
a decade.
This also is in there.
They want to cut a proposal program that helps people who are in violent relationships
bring their pets with them to shelters.
So a lot of domestic abuse shelters won't take animals because they're not equipped to handle them.
The program known as PAWS, PAWS helps fill a gap.
It's a budget, it's a budget of $3 million.
That's nothing.
That is like the small staplers in an office in DC.
That is nothing.
That is, that is a, that is, I,
I'll look it up, what the percentage, it's like zero, it's gonna be like zero, zero, zero, zero.
It is so
insignificant.
But they wanna do what with that change?
They're going to get rid of it.
Of course.
And the important part of this, and I volunteered at a better women's shelter a number of years ago, if you're in an abusive relationship, you are highly unlikely to leave your pet behind because your abuser is going to harm your pet to get at you.
So therefore, if you don't have a safe place to go with your pet, you're going to stay in this relationship.
And so this,
Poultry, $3 million for this program that's helps shelters set up a place where people can bring their pets.
They want to get rid of this.
Because Diane Hendricks needs a tax cut.
So do the Elans.
They need a tax cut.
So does Eric Hovde and Tim
Michaels.
Those
guys, they need a break, you guys.
And no matter how much they fight on social media, Elon needs a tax break.
And he's going to get his tax break.
And yeah, Jim, you're talking about them taking away, them taking away.
America or cutting America or programs, but how do we how do we lower the bar?
Well, they just did it.
They just lower the bar right here.
We have news coming up next.
Stay with us.
You are listening to Matt Nair on air.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Good morning and welcome.
Welcome to Mattnare on air.
Jane Mattnare, Greg Mock, Calvinator 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 855-752-4842.
You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube and what used to be Twitter.
And if you have the Civic Media app, you can leave us a voice note
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So you just record it.
on your phone, you send it into us and we can play it on the air.
If you are busy, maybe you're driving right now and you want to pull over later and leave us a voice note, you can do that as well.
Glad to be joined right now by Michelle Valesquez with Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin.
Good morning, Michelle.
Thank you so much for joining us.
How are you?
Hi, good morning.
Nice to see you again.
Thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
We were talking before you joined us about something else that they've kind of snuck into this big budget bill that the house has already passed.
In this instance, they want to do away with funding for domestic abuse shelters.
to help women who will not leave their their dangerous situation if they're not allowed to take their pets.
So that whole three million dollars they're going to cut out of there because obviously that's a big that's too much money.
There are other things that they are attempting to defund within this bill that aren't getting nearly as much attention as maybe they should, Michelle.
Yeah, I think that's right.
I think, you know, the simplest way to talk about this bill is that it is
the largest transfer of wealth from the most vulnerable people who need it from the vital programs and services that we need to be investing in to make sure people are healthy and safe.
And all of that is being transferred so that the richest people in this country can become even richer.
So what are your concerns as far as Planned Parenthood is concerned?
What kinds of cuts and what kinds of what are they going to do to that?
Yeah, that's a great question.
So there is a provision in this bill that would specifically defund Planned Parenthood.
And what I mean by that is there's a provision in this bill that would make any nonprofit, family planning, sexual reproductive health care provider who also provides abortions.
prohibited from being reimbursed and participating as a Medicaid provider.
So sometimes people think, you know, Planned Parenthood gets just sort of blocks of money from state or federal government, but that's actually not the case.
We're a healthcare provider, just like any other
who sends out bills for reimbursement from, sometimes it's a private payer insurance, and other times it's a state Medicaid, which is an insurance coverage.
So whether it's badger care or the family planning only services, Medicaid coverage, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin provides health care services, sends the bills to the insurance companies for coverage, and in many, many cases, most cases for our...
for Planned Parenthood care, it's Medicaid.
And then it's reimbursed for those health services.
And what this bill does is prohibit Planned Parenthood from being a Medicaid healthcare provider because it also provides abortion.
So it is sort of a backdoor way to make abortion less accessible.
It's not an outright right ban, but it would essentially make
the largest provider of both family planning and abortion care unable to participate as a Medicaid provider.
And it takes away healthcare from people who use Planned Parenthood for all sorts of things, contraception, vasectomies, breast and cervical cancer screenings, gender-affirming care.
So that is what this bill does in addition to defunding
Medicaid and essentially kicking off.
I've heard estimates of around 11 to 15 million people would lose coverage under this bill.
Yeah, again, this isn't a direct assault on Planned Parenthood, even though they've been trying to kill it for decades.
This is essentially a backdoor way to kill Planned Parenthood, which is what they want to do.
And I think to Michelle, I think there is people have the wrong idea because you had mentioned
you offer so many other services beyond just abortion care.
And in a lot of instances and in many neighborhoods, I would think that for some of this stuff, Planned Parenthood is the only provider that people can get to.
That's absolutely right.
I mean, there are Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin as 21 locations across the state of Wisconsin as we see other health systems leave.
neighborhoods or leave some of the rural parts of the state.
Planned Parenthood has really been there to step in and fill those gaps.
It is a safety net health care provider.
Oftentimes it is the
the sort of entryway for many people into bigger healthcare systems.
Certain health issues are detected at like a wellness visit for example and then people get connected to care.
Cancer screenings are done and then they're connected to care.
Somebody has a positive pregnancy test and they want to continue with that pregnancy.
Planned Parenthood is there to help connect them and make sure they get that prenatal care that they need.
And so it's really just a part of the larger healthcare sort of tapestry of the state of Wisconsin.
And frankly, I think that without it being able to participate in Medicaid, that would result in the closure of health centers, absolutely.
If you're just joining us, we have Michelle Velazquez, who is the Chief Strategy Officer for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin.
And Michelle, one of the things that we like to do here is, and I want to really endorse this for the people listening right now is sharing what you know as you're speaking on this topic, is tell your friends about what's going on.
Because one of the things we're seeing with this bill going through Washington are people realizing, and some of them are elected officials who just voted on it, saying, oh no, wait, what, that's in the, no, we can't do that.
and getting the word out to people and what are you doing as an organization to like really press it because as Jane has said they've been trying to kill Planned Parenthood for decades and we've been talking about for a long time that it's not just abortion care and access it's all of these other things.
What is the campaign to get out there?
Is it phone calls knocking on doors?
How are people getting made aware of this?
Yeah, that's a great question and I think you know right now with all of the different things happening in the news every single day it is really hard sort of Breakthrough because there's always something new new happening and was listening to a podcast earlier this morning and people do not like this bill, but there's also
a lot of people who don't know about this bill or what's in it.
And to your point, we have elected officials who are saying, oh, I didn't know that was in there.
Their job is to know what is in this bill and how it affects their constituents.
So Planned Parenthood advocates of Wisconsin started phone banking.
People can go to the website ppawi.org to volunteer, get involved, just to let people know what is going on right now.
This bill is in the Senate.
So if people
want to take action, it's as simple as calling your senator.
So in Wisconsin, you can call Senator Tammy Baldwin and thank her because she has stood up for Planned Parenthood.
She has stood up for people maintaining access to health care.
They can call Senator Ron Johnson and tell him, no, I don't want you to vote for this bill.
He's saying he's going to vote, no, not for the same reasons that we would want him to vote, no.
But it's really important that people make their voice heard and tell Senator Ron Johnson, tell his office,
why you are against this bill, why Medicaid access, affordable health care access, food share, we even talk about the reduction, the huge reductions in access to food share benefits.
And so that is one way for people to get involved.
And then tell your family, your friends, your neighbors, your communities, what is in this bill and how it is going to impact maybe yourself or people you know.
Most people want their family and friends to have access to
health care.
They wanted to be quality, affordable health care, and they wanted to be in their communities.
This bill really takes that away for not just Planned Parenthood, but by reducing
the number of people who would be able to participate in Medicaid and have that coverage.
If you are not certain where to get the numbers for Senator Tammy Baldwin, or perhaps Ron Johnson, just go to myvote.wi.gov, myvote.wi.gov.
Really useful website.
All you have to do is enter your address and.
Click that in and all the phone numbers and all the contact information for all of your elected officials will show up and we've talked to a lot of lawmakers to Michelle in the past who have said if you know if they don't hear from us then they think that we are we go along with them and we think this is fine they need to know that no this isn't fine and I don't want you to do this whether or not Ron Johnson is going to listen to you or not because he's probably not going to and
I also want to talk, and you had mentioned this briefly, about the number of men who use Planned Parenthood.
I think it's much higher than people realize.
Yeah, you know, I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but certainly Planned Parenthood provides care not just to women, but to men as well, and people across the gender spectrum of all identities, and it does so in a
compassionate, judgment-free way.
Gender affirming care is a specific type of health care that is really under attack right now.
Planned Parenthood Wisconsin has continued to provide that care and it will continue to do so no matter what and you know in the advocacy space these are the types of issues that Planned Parenthood advocates of Wisconsin really organizes around all year round to make sure that people have access to that full spectrum of care and by taking Planned Parenthood out of the
Medicaid as a participating health care provider in Wisconsin means that up to, you know, somewhere around 50,000 people could lose access to its services.
That's how many people my parent of Wisconsin has seen on average over the last few years.
Sometimes it has been upwards of 60,000 separate individuals.
So that is a lot of people potentially losing their main source of health care.
I mean,
I'm going to go back and say it again and share what you know, everybody.
This is like these.
So I know that the, as you said, Michelle, there's so much going on and the, and the internet's on fire about two guys fighting over, over social media.
And while that's entertaining, that is a squirrel compared to what's happening right now in this conversation.
And these are the things that we need to be talking about.
Fine.
You want to talk about them fighting?
That's great.
But also follow up with.
Did you know that this bill also is going to take another piece of healthcare away from Medicaid because they just can?
And we have congressmen who admittedly did not read this, so it is important to get ahold of them.
It is important to talk to your friends and family and share this information.
Michelle, there will be in our show notes a link to the organization to let people know where they can go to find out more information on this.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you for that.
And this bill right now is with the Senate.
So that's why I was talking about calling Tammy Baldwin to thank her and call Senator Ron Johnson to tell him that you do not want him to vote yes on this bill.
The provisions you might want to get taken out, for example, the defunding of Planned Parenthood provision.
pay attention because this film may end up going back to the house.
And if it goes back to the house, then we're talking about your representatives, your congressional House of Representatives.
And so no, you should be able to see how they voted.
It will be no surprise that all of the Republicans from Wisconsin voted.
yes for this bill.
And there's still opportunity to call them and tell them what you think of it, particularly because if there are markups from the Senate, this will go back to the House.
Yeah, I don't know that this is a done deal yet.
This could be bouncing back and forth for quite a while.
So we'll have to see what happens with that.
You also mentioned volunteers.
So Planned Parenthood does still use volunteers if you would like to get involved.
You can also go to your website.
Absolutely.
Planned Heritage Advocates of Wisconsin has phone banking going on.
We have tabling at various festivals this month in June for Pride and Juneteenth.
And at those events, we will be talking to people in those communities attending about what is going on with this bill.
So absolutely great way to get engaged.
We will include those all in the show notes, all of those links.
Michelle Valesquez, the Chief Strategy Officer for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin.
Thank you so much for your time, Michelle.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you for having me.
Stay with us.
You are listening to Matt Nair on air across across the Civic Media Radio Network.
We'll be right back.
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Jane Matt and Air.
Greg Bach.
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The Brewers are home for a long homestand.
I think it's 12 games.
Yeah, and I'm gonna go to one of
them.
You're gonna go.
They are playing tonight.
Our broadcast starts at 6.35 as the crew hosts the Padres.
You can listen to the game.
on terrestrial radio, it does not stream.
So if you want to listen to the game tonight, catch it on WRC in Richland Center, WISS in Oshkosh, WRJN here in Racine and Kenosha, WCQM in Park Falls near Butternut.
Butternut and WBZ H in Hayward the crew hosting the Padres our broadcast starts tonight at 635 I
need a different name for I need a different way of saying butternut because we have because we have your other favorite place
Amory, we'll work on it.
Yeah, but another is mine is my newest place.
I've never my newest favorite place I've never been yet yet
Rumors abound.
Rumors abound about a potential road trip.
Possibly.
Possibly.
Once we get the OK and that, we'll share all the details.
Yeah.
But hopefully soon we'll let you know if we're going to be hitting the road, taking Matt Nair on air on the road.
Matt Nair on the road.
Matt Nair on the road.
I wanted to spend a little time talking about this.
And we've talked to Matic.
Milwaukee Area Animal Domestic Control numerous times over the last year and now this from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The Wisconsin Main Society is at crisis level capacity.
So they have dropped their dog adoption fees.
Again, Matic has had this problem in Milwaukee, now the Wisconsin Humane Society.
I know Hawes in Waukesha County has had the same problem.
They just have too many dogs.
And it's bad for the animals to be in these really crowded conditions.
Just think of the noise factor.
And if you have a pet who gets anxious, think about 100 dogs being in that constant state of hype because they're, because they're
They're too close together, and there's too many of them.
So now is a really good time.
It's summertime.
It's summertime.
School's out.
It's for summer.
What a wonderful time to adopt a dog.
I hope my wife isn't listening right now, but I would love a second dog, but not right now.
Maybell needs a friend.
Would
everyone get on my side on this one?
Calvin, Calvin, you agree that Maybell needs a friend, right?
She's been alone this whole time
alone.
Two dogs is a lot of work.
Thank you.
It adds a lot.
That being said, I really think my dogs appreciate each other a lot.
OK,
they keep
each other
company.
OK, I want to ask a really quick question.
I'm going to ask a really cool question and we'll get back to the topic because I agree, especially right now.
Calvin, how far apart were your dogs?
Like how like what?
You had one dog and then you had a second dog.
Was it like, you know, within a year or two, or did you wait like five years and got another dog?
I
will give you that.
I think Willie is eight and Dolly is might be getting close to four, either three or four.
Okay, so I'll give you another year.
Oh, I don't think it's good.
I think no, no, the Bach family household will have a second dog in the next, within the next year,
easily.
Well, you can also get another dog.
You can get your first dog.
Really, this is a great time to adopt a dog.
And if you don't want to adopt, you can foster.
You can foster.
And I know with, I believe with Matic, and I can't speak to Hawes as well as the Humane Society, but they do programs where you can take them home for a weekend.
Yes.
See if they are a good fit with your home, with your family.
You get to have a little trial
run.
Yeah, because it's, you know, people, I don't know.
That was one of the weird things when we got a dog.
And I knew that we weren't going to give her up, but people do give them up because they can't handle the responsibility.
Sometimes
they have to move.
Things change.
Sometimes they have to move or you lose your apartment.
And it's tough if you're a renter, especially being able to keep a pet and you're right.
I'm sure they deal with all kinds of really painful surrenders.
Yeah.
So it's, it's, it's something to really think about.
But if you've been thinking about getting a dog, I would really.
No better time than now.
Yep.
And all of those humane society, Maddeck and Haas, they'll all be on the show notes.
So you can reach out to whomever's closest.
And just start with a question about getting one.
And I think fostering
is a really great way to go.
And that helps the shelter as well.
That takes some of the burden off of them.
It's really good for the animal to get out of that kind of hyper situation with all these other animals.
And again, with the Wisconsin Humane Society, their adoption fees typically range from $1.99 to $2.99.
Now it's $75 through June 11.
And that includes...
That's it.
That's it.
And they've got their shots.
And they've got, I believe they are chipped.
And they're spayed and neutered.
And they're spayed and neutered.
So all of that's taken care of 75 bucks is a deal.
It's a great deal.
I think that, yeah, the next dog we get is going to definitely be rescued.
And this is purely a financial thing when we got our dog.
It was not a rescue.
And we paid money for it.
And we went to there's a rescue at the farmer's market in Kenosha.
And we were like, how much is it?
I was expecting to hear this astronomical price like 450 with everything.
I'm like, what?
Yeah.
So yeah.
All those organizations, their information will be in the show notes.
And you can find out more.
But yeah.
And I would say, yeah, foster.
Start with
fostering.
Start with fostering.
If you've never had a pet and you're not sure about it, do a foster.
You'll probably keep it though.
You'll probably keep it.
Yes.
Humane Society, again, has almost 400 dogs.
That is insane.
So Wisconsin Humane Society is at a crisis level.
So is Matic, Milwaukee Area Animal Domestic Control, and Hawes, Humane Animal Welfare of Waukesha County.
Like Greg said, we'll have links in there in our show notes.
Get a friend.
Have a friend for the summer.
Or as my wife says, good friend for your friend.
That works
too.
News is coming up next, and then Dan Schaeffer will be here from the Reconpopulation Area, Civic Media's political editor that's all on the way.
Fight, fight, fight.
You're listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Good morning.
Welcome.
Welcome to Mattener on air.
Jane Mattener, Greg Bakken, Calvin Butenoff coming to you live from our studio here at Radio Park in Racine.
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Right now, because it's Friday, he joins us every Friday at this time, Civic Media's political editor and the creator of the multi-multi-award-winning Reconpopulation Area.
Dan Schaefer is here.
Good morning.
How are you doing?
Good morning, Jane.
Good morning, Greg.
Doing well.
Always wonderful to join you here on Matt and Aaron.
Glad to have you with us.
Let's start with the state budget.
And we just can't agree on anything.
Yeah.
divided government.
Isn't that
great?
This is the fourth trip around that we've had with crafting a budget in Tony Evers time as governor in this era of divided government.
And it doesn't seem like things have gotten any better throughout that time with Republicans who have constantly obstructed the governor at every turn over and over again.
And here again, we have, you know, going into this, I wondered if we would have a little bit of a different process given the smaller margins in the Republican majorities in the Senate and in the Assembly.
But it just doesn't seem like the Republicans ever want to budge because they have their one economic
Policy button that they want to push every time which is a tax tax cut and they don't seem to want to meet the governor You know in a reasonable middle ground to fund particularly as the governor outlined in his press release on Wednesday evening K-12 education child care and the UW system
well, you know so
We've talked about this on the show with you and with other people that this has been a slow road for the Republicans as far as like slowly having Different ways chipping away at her power Tony Evers coming in fair maps more Democrats winning seats in the Senate and Assembly and at every turn instead of looking at them and saying hey might have to even hold our nose But some of these things we're going to compromise on let's do it instead.
They are
They are holding onto their power however they can.
And in ways that seem real petulant in childlike too, whether it's changing committee assignments or lowering numbers of Democrats and doing things like this.
And one of the things Dan is that you, people are saying, I hate saying that, but it's kind of the rumor from Republicans is that they can't get with Tony Evers.
They can't have a conversation.
He's not sitting down with them.
And part of me thinks one, I don't know if that's true.
because I just don't.
I feel like Tony Evers when it comes to the budget, and especially in such an education heavy budget that he wants to pass, he's going to want to have those sit-downs.
But also if you're Tony Evers and you present a budget and they strip out 612 items and their joint finance committee tour is a joke, why is he incentivized to have any sort of discussion with them at all?
Well because they're still in the majority They're still in the majority in the Senate the assembly and I think you know I think the Senate in particular is the one to watch here.
I think boss typically gets his Caucus in line in the assembly I think Lemahue has been a little bit less adept at that in the Senate and I think you know there's been like the Republic the super hardliners
like there's uh uh steve nas from whitewater area i believe he's already said these let's just like let's not even pass a budget if this this is what we're going to do
oh let's just not do
it so that so there's one republican vote that they're gonna lose on that if they lose a couple more like these margins are going to matter and
i
think with the senate that you know there's a only half of the senate has been on the ballot under new maps so there are
at least there are three state senators who have not been on the ballot under new maps that are in districts, one by Kamala Harris.
So you would think that Howard Marklein, being one of those, the co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, and a couple of the others, Rob Hutton in the western Milwaukee area suburbs, and Van Wangard in Racine County and Southern Milwaukee County, you think maybe some of these vulnerable senators might say, hey, we need to actually pass a deal here.
or else we're going to lose our majority in two years.
So, you know, I think as dug in as Republicans are on this and have been on budget items so often over the years, like they're gonna have to budge on this or they're gonna lose the majority.
Those are the stakes right now for them.
I would love to believe that, but...
After seeing the results of the four joint finance committee meetings that they held around the state for hours and hours and hours and the top three things that people, constituents brought up to them again were childcare and healthcare and education and they ignored all of it.
So I hear what you're saying about what the numbers imply, but they seem so dug.
It's like, we don't care.
We don't care what the people want.
We don't care what the constituents want.
We know what we want, and we're going to do that regardless.
And I don't know about Mark Lyne and the other gentleman you just mentioned from Western Milwaukee, but...
Van Wangard ain't doing anything.
He'll do whatever he's told to do.
The fact that he has lasted in that seat for as long as he has, and you tell him where to go, he goes.
That's it.
I
know you've got a lot to say on State Senator Wangard.
I do, but I will reserve that for another time.
But it goes to the point, Dan, of what you were just saying is...
They're not thinking strategically on this matter.
I mean, yes, they could have the next election and they could retain the Senate, but they better work for that.
Those guys better knock on some doors and make some phone calls because it's not gonna be the same.
And those areas that you're talking about, Dan, they have slowly gone more blue over time.
And if you get a charismatic character in there to run against them,
It might not go the way they like
don't you feel though.
I feel like they're so insulated and The they don't hear criticisms.
They're not hearing criticisms.
They're not hearing I just think they are so in their own bubble They don't feel like they have to do any compromises at all
Yeah, I think you're right about that and I think they've been you know drunk on gerrymandering
for so many
years
that they haven't had to really, you know, work things out in compromise in any way.
And so I wonder too, if like, if we reach a point in this budget process, and we're already late, you know, this is already moving more slowly than it is, than it does in typical years.
And so if the Republicans are going to go off and say, okay, we're not going to strike a deal, we're going to pass our own budget, should Tony ever say, hey, I'm going to veto the whole thing this time?
If you guys don't include.
Let's say Medicaid expansion.
If
you guys don't include funding for childcare, if you guys don't include anything for K-12, I'm vetoing your entire tax cut or whatever other priorities you want to do.
I think Evers has an opportunity to be a little bit more hardline with this.
I don't know.
What do you guys think?
Well, I think it's interesting, I mean, and Tony Evers did kind of give a little bit on tax cuts, is my understanding, the last time they talked about this, and then the Republicans rejected it anyway.
Yeah, because I think they, Evers wanted them to step up on K-12, on childcare, on higher education, and they didn't meet what he was looking for.
Like, Evers was clearly ready to come to the table.
From what, you know, in that press release, there was no mention of, you know, Medicaid expansion or other health care items, like...
or the postpartum Medicaid expansion, and I know you guys have talked about a lot on this show and elsewhere.
Like, I don't think that was in the deal as outlined by Evers in that press release either.
And then I saw a clip, you know, upfront on WISN, they put out the clips before the Sunday show.
They have a clip of Robin Voss saying that Tony Evers was lying in that press release.
And they had a clip of Robin Voss saying that like, oh, it wasn't zero.
You know, it wasn't zero that we came to the table with on K-12 child care and higher education.
Well, clearly you didn't do enough.
Like if the governor's ready to come there and basically pass your tax cut.
How do you do nothing?
We have a $4 billion surplus.
The money is there.
The deal is there.
Well, when it comes to Robin Voss, this is the same man who was touting.
We did the biggest education investment in a generation.
Yeah, because you'd been suffocating it for a generation.
So really, anything better than nothing is a win for him.
But also going back to your original question about whether or not Tony Evers should just veto the entire thing.
Honestly, whether he decides to run or he decides not to run, I think it's a win for him to do that because it comes out looking strong and for the people of Wisconsin.
But the most important thing to it is if he decides to veto that whole thing, he has got to get on every talk show after that and talk about this, touting the win and explaining why he did it.
Because that's the one thing he has not done well.
He has not touted victories.
He has not gotten on there and
done what politicians need to do, which is, you know, say, Hey, I, I did this for you, John Q public.
So I think he looks strong either way as a way of saying, I'm going to run again.
And this is why because of this kind of budget activity, I need to, I think I can help.
And if he's not going to run again, it's like, I'm out peace and we're going to do this the right way.
But either way,
he's got to
have a messaging plan to go along with it.
Well, and I don't know that you know this off-hand, Dan.
And by the way, Dan Schaefer is our guest civic media's political editor and the creator of the Reconvobulation Area.
He joins us every Friday.
I don't know if you know this offhand, but if you want a little indicator of the pettiness of the Republicans, how many of Governor Evers' board appointees are they still sitting on?
Aren't there over a hundred?
There's still over a hundred.
I don't even know at this point because it was such a big story and I just don't remember if the Senate actually ever came to the table, but it was like at one point.
I think it was almost 200 at one
point.
Some crazy amount of the governor is within his rights to place these people.
These are his appointees on these boards and the Republicans won't even give him that.
So if you don't think they're petty...
Just look at that.
I think that's a pretty good petty indicator.
Oh, they're extraordinarily petty.
Tom Petty.
They out Petty Tom Petty.
According to this cursory search as of January 2023, 180 appointees remain unconfirmed by the Senate.
This includes five cabinet members serving as secretary designees designees.
Yeah.
And the Republicans have essentially said, we're not even going to give these people hearings.
Yeah.
It's absurd.
It's just absurd.
But it's totally on brand, Jane.
I mean, this is just a carbon copy of what the U.S.
Senate did to Barack Obama when there was a Supreme Court justice to be filled.
They're
like, no, it's too, that election's nine months away.
We're too close.
So it's, yeah, this is the same old garbage, garbage in, garbage out with them.
And frankly, I know you're right, Dan.
It is.
important for him to sit down with them because they are the majority.
But also I understand why Tony Evers might just be like, I'm not talking to you guys talk to him.
I have nothing to say.
Well, and the other thing that made me laugh was when that article came out about how we can't come to an agreement, the Republicans were saying, oh, we were having really friendly conversations up until this point.
Were you really, really, was it that friendly?
The good, they were characterizing as good faith negotiation.
Yes, that's what it was.
That was the
phrase that they were using.
I did notice it was, I did think it was kind of interesting.
And I don't know if this is like a little bit inside baseball.
But I thought it was interesting that Evers put out his statement, you know, kind of summing up his whole position there.
And then there was a statement from assembly Democrats.
There was a statement from.
Senate Democrats and then there was a statement from the Joint Finance Committee co-chairs.
So it does seem like there is some sort of breakdown to a certain extent within the Republican side of things.
I don't know if like Assembly and Senate and wherever else are all on the same page with what their priorities are in the budget, with what they want out of a negotiation with Evers.
I do think it was kind of interesting that it wasn't like a cohesive statement there.
We're going to continue our conversation with Dan Schaefer on the other side.
Fight, fight, fight, fight.
You're listening to Matt Nair on air.
Good morning and welcome back to Matt Nair on air.
Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach.
Doctors, slide on the board.
Coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.
You can join us, call or text.
The number is the same.
855-752-4842.
You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.
We're joined by Dan Schaefer, Civic Media's political editor and also creator of the multi-multi-award-winning recombobulation area.
We haven't talked about this yet this morning, Dan.
We were saving it for you.
But if you were, I don't know, anywhere on the internet yesterday,
You might have heard about this little spat between formerly two best buddies.
They were the president of the co-president, Donald Trump and Elon Musk, not so buddy-buddy anymore.
What a day to be terminally online, right?
Oh my goodness, just the back and forth between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
on Twitter yesterday escalating into Epstein accusations
and
all sorts of other stuff You know at a certain point you just got to sit back and pop the popcorn and watch the craziness unfold So I did I did enjoy that quite a bit not gonna lie not gonna lie
When you think about it too, like in a day where the president was sitting down with the world leaders of France, Germany and England, and France and England were like criticizing and making fun of him to his face in a way that Trump didn't really understand.
And then he makes that
horrible
statement to the chancellor of Germany about D-Day while laughing.
That would have been yesterday like the end all be it got.
Buried by this Twitter fight.
I'm sorry truth social socialing all over the truthiness, but
yes I mean
I I saw that come through and I had to make sure I had to go to Elon's Twitter account because I want to make sure it was real and then I immediately screenshot and sent it to Jane and I was like
What is going on right now?
It was crazy.
It just exploded yesterday.
Now Elon Musk, of course, coming out and saying the budget is going to increase the deficit, which the CBO has said, and numerous other organizations have said that, yes, this is going to explode the deficit.
And now we don't know where we are.
Now we don't know where we are.
As of today, President Trump says he has no plans to talk to Elon.
Elon, I'm seeing on other places reporting that he's realizing the error of his ways.
But one person I knew we could count on, I knew we could count on him to capitulate is Wisconsin Senior Senator Ron Johnson, who of course said nothing.
short of trillions of dollars of more spending cuts in this budget bill.
Not going to vote for it.
Rojo, super strong on this.
Oops, here we go.
He had a private conversation with the president and a White House meeting and now Ron Johnson capitulating, quote, one thing I came away from the White House meeting is
I know I've been out there not sounding the most positive about things.
The truth is there are a lot of positive things in this bill.
I absolutely support whatever we pass.
I wanted to succeed.
We left shaking hands at smiling at each other.
Mr. President, I want to be more positive and I'll try to be more positive."
Said Wisconsin Senior Senator Ron
Johnson.
Now I have a question for you, Dan, because, you know, as you said, we're terminally online.
We're addicted to the news.
And anybody who slights the president gets attention, whether it's on Twitter, Twitter, social or wherever, Ron Johnson has been critiquing this bill for a few weeks now, a while.
And it's really, he's kind of.
Stayed away from the ire of not only Trump but like the Trump loyal no one's been saying no one's been calling for his head
right
impeach him and recall him He's really kind of flown under the radar.
Well completely completely criticizing this bill that's in the Senate right now I don't do you want do you do you have any theories on why this is happening?
You know I think we have to look back to the last time that Ron Johnson was in a similar situation in the 2017 negotiations over the Trump tax cut bill he
pushed for this additional tax cut for certain types of businesses, perhaps not coincidentally, the U lines that have his biggest political donors.
And so there is always some sort of end game with Johnson.
So I do think that's what we should be looking at.
But over and over again, he has talked about
wanting to, that this wants to make certain.
He's kind of like the opposite of what our criticisms of the bill are, right?
We say
that this bill is wrong to cut Medicaid, wrong to do all those things.
He thinks it doesn't cut enough.
And I think he has really...
Probably meant more in agreement with Elon, although it does seem like he got a little bit of a talking to you from from the from the principal yesterday.
Yeah He was just sitting in his chair outside the other oval going.
Oh, man.
I'm
in trouble
Laurie from Shawnaw is on the line Laura we got about 90 seconds left.
What did you want to say by the way?
Thank you for joining us
You're welcome.
Um, yeah that whole
spat between the lovers, this dog fight between the two pit bulls.
Elon Musk said that it was going to be painful two years
and
now he's feeling the pain.
Tesla went down for over 14%, but now today it's back up.
So how, how does that happen?
How does it back up, come back up so fast when he's alienated all of his customer base?
It's like with the jobs report last month, there was like 87 jobs per projected and then the next day, oh, it's 150.
So I heard that unemployment was up, but now they're saying 139 jobs more than what they thought was added.
Where are these numbers coming from?
Are they just coming out of taco's butt?
That's a really good question, Laurie.
We will look into that.
Well,
we won't look into that necessarily, but we will.
We'll see what we can find out.
Thank you so much, Laurie.
Really appreciate it.
We got news coming up next.
We're going to continue with Dan Schaefer on the other side.
Stay close.
You are listening to Matt Nair on air on the vast statewide, countrywide.
You can listen in New Zealand if you have the app, the Civic Media Radio Network.
Saw signs said, welcome to...
Good morning and welcome welcome to Matt and air on air Jane Matt and air Greg Bach our resident young person Calvin on the board coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.
Join us caller text the number is the same 855-752-4842 you can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream 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 is the Shrinky Dink Edition.
I'm just like saying that Shrinky Dink.
Shrinky Dink Edition coming up.
What is it again, James?
Shrinky Dink Edition.
There it is.
Of TisBat coming up around 10.52 or so.
Also, Maggie Dawn later on today from 4 to 6 p.m.
She's gonna be talking with our very own Civic Media's Greg Gunderson
what's good local and overlooked, where they highlight things that might be going on in your neighborhood.
And then also at 530 today, I love this segment, Ask Maggie, where you can ask her anything.
And she will answer you, whether you want to hear it or not.
There it is.
That's what we love about Maggie.
So ask Maggie today at 5.30.
Maggie Dawn from 4 to 6 p.m.
right now.
Dan Schaefer may or
may not be an appearance from yours truly on the Maggie Dawn show.
Are you going to be on this afternoon?
So stay tuned.
Yes.
Check that out.
What time are you going to be on the show?
I believe I'm
on at five o'clock.
All right, join Maggie Dawn, four to six, across the Civic Media radio network.
Right now, this is a segment that we like to call Audio Sorbet, where we lighten things up a little bit, take a break, away from politics.
Although everything could be political these days, I guess, but the wakeboarding controversy.
I'm not sure, Dan, if you were aware of this,
But there have been a whole bunch of letters to the editor in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about wakeboarding.
Now, I don't live on... All right, so tell me more about this one.
I don't live on a lake.
I don't know anyone who has this issue.
But so here's the debate about wakeboarding.
Wake-enhanced boating uses ballast tanks to create great big waves for surfing and tubing.
But this has raised concerns about shoreline erosion, damage to lake beds, and invasive species.
So the question that the journal Sentinel posed was should wake enhanced boats be regulated differently than other powerboat activities like skiing.
So apparently, again, and correct me if I'm wrong, 855-752-4842, these wake boats
Drive a little more slowly create these big waves for your so you can surf over them and stuff But the issue is the erosion along the lake shore is these waves come slapping up against the the land
And it's not like the speed of the boat, right?
It's not a snow.
It's not a
generating like larger Larger
weeks and so again, that's making bigger waves and this is causing problems with erosion on some of our lakes so lots of hot
It's interesting how hot people get about stuff like this.
I was surprised.
Oh, I mean, well, one, people are going to get upset about anything nowadays.
You say anything like, I like mayonnaise with my fries.
How dare you?
You are an American, sir.
It's cats about nothing.
But I think when you start to delve into one of the great aspects of Wisconsin, which is summer times at the cabin at the lake.
and you start to mess with that aspect of their being, I am not surprised at all that people are going to lose their fluff in minds.
Here are some of the comments from some of the letters to the editor talking about wakeboarding and we would love to hear from you at 855-752-4842 should wakeboats be regulated differently.
And is this an issue where you are?
This one letter Tim from Rhinelander says, I'm a lake resident in northern Wisconsin.
Crescent Lake, our lake is too small and shallow for wake surfing.
Our shoreline is suffering damage as two to four foot waves crash our shore from a neighbor's wake boat.
Another one Gunner from St.
Germain says, I've been around all types of boats my whole life.
I have come to find everyone feels like they are the one the lake is for.
What does that mean?
Everybody who has their own type of boating or their own type of activity, that's what the lake is.
They're the king of the lake.
My activity should trump all other activities on said lake.
Well, and I think that those who are pro wake machines, I guess, whatever you call them, wake boats.
are gonna think, and they're gonna say, ah, don't worry about it.
Stop it.
We're gonna have to have a good time.
Why do you guys have to ruin that sort of mentality?
Which is very king-like mentality of, I don't have to worry about what you think.
I like what I like, and what I like is great.
So get off my back, freedom.
And
there's some of those letters in there.
Not said in so beautifully and concisely as you might have said it.
But yes, there are some of those.
Great Gary from Winchester.
I live on a chain where the town and the residents voted to ban wake surfing on the lakes.
Erosion isn't the biggest issue.
The safety of other lake users and bottom scouring as a result is an issue.
And the ballast tanks are potential transporters of invasive species.
from lake to lake.
So again, if you get zebra mussels or something on, if you go in one lake and then you go into another lake and they're concerned that that's going to transfer and then get into that ecosystem and cause problems.
Dan, when
you take your
boat out.
I feel like I got to try this out to just see how fun it is because then who cares about the zebra mussels, right?
If it's really a lot of fun.
You
can just write that off.
Yes.
There are some serious.
I just
want to see if it's fun.
That ends maybe worth it.
I need to make some boat friends this summer.
Yes.
Everyone needs a boat friend.
This time of year, I'm like looking at, you know, making my summer plans, kids are finishing up with schools.
You know, I never really make it a priority, but I really need to make it a priority to make more boat friends this summer.
I think that's a good
goal.
So if
you have a boat, I am, you can invite me out and I'll come
check out the
re-boating.
Any time.
Two words?
three syllables, Pat Crichtlow.
Oh, there we go.
Now it's a pontoon boat.
Yeah, that's it.
That is the only piece of read.
And I want to say it because I love that they have it.
But like, as far as a, a, a, a spending, like I would never buy a motorcycle.
I would never buy a sports car.
I don't think I'd buy an RV, but if I had the money, I would buy a pontoon boat.
That
is,
I mean, a floating living room.
Are you kidding me?
Yeah.
Nice and relaxing.
Yes.
Nice and relaxing.
Talking about the wake boat controversy in Wisconsin if you'd like to chime in on this 855-752-4842.
Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube and what used to be Twitter, Milwaukee Journal, Sentinel asking folks about this issue and some
Really hot letters coming in.
Lori writes in, my family enjoys this type of boating better than tubing or water skiing.
It's a slower way to boat and have fun surfing the wake.
It's better than water skiing and tubing.
It's not as loud and the boats are going slower so they're safer for the person behind the boat.
One thing though, Lori is from Illinois, so I almost think that we have to throw that
one out.
Right.
Asterisk.
Asterisk on all comments.
No,
yeah.
Mike from Green Bay listening on WGBW texted in as a general rule, wake boats are really bad for small lakes.
They do a ton of damage to the shoreline as well as docked boats and equipment.
They also do harm in some cases, even kill wildlife, especially shore nesting birds.
Now what's interesting about Lori's letter is she's talking about all the fun and memories.
Now I would love to see someone say to Lori, but here are the ecological impacts of it all.
What do you think?
And I think Dan, to your point, what you're saying is
It's that thing of like, but I like it.
Yeah.
It's, it's fun.
Like, you know, weird, weird comparison.
All my friends who are like, like, I think guns are terrible.
You take them to a gun range once.
They're like, that was amazing.
It was so much
fun.
Let's go back again.
It is interesting though.
And we will include this in our show notes.
If you want to read these letters to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about, and a lot of the ones who are pro are like, yeah, it's just really fun.
Why can't I do what's fun?
Sue from Krivitt says, freedom, baby.
Yeah.
I live on the largest lake in Mirana County.
Many of our residents have had to put large rocks on their shoreline.
The lake clarity declines much more quickly when the wakeboats get in the water.
Our lake is widely used by people who do not live there.
So we are highly susceptible to invasive species.
Another guy, Bruce, on Turtle Lake.
We've lost three feet of shoreline because of wakeboats.
And that right there is dangerous for homes that are on the shoreline.
Eventually, like that shoreline is going to a road to the point where your house can just dump into the lake.
And that is a fact.
I learned that in a class in college because I learned things.
And maybe not.
OK, if the if the lake is of a certain size, it just makes sense to ban these boats or ban the activity itself.
If you're in a huge lake, maybe there's something that can be done or you can go to a different lake that allows it and it's less invasive.
But yeah, if you're going to a small lake, why would you go in there and purposely
try to cause harm to the environment.
Well, but I don't think they're looking, they're not looking at it like we're causing harm to the environment.
They're looking like Lawrence on Lake Bula who says, wake enhanced boating has provided us hours of entertainment and enjoyment for me and my family.
But she's also writing that letter after knowing now that it does.
She's responding to the question essentially.
So she knows that there is an ecological impact.
But my boat doesn't do that.
My boat's special.
Exactly.
From Illinois.
My boat doesn't cause environmental damage.
What's wrong with you?
Are you saying there's trade-offs to having fun sometimes, occasionally?
I'm learning this for the first time.
Yes.
It's very anti-American, I want to say, to say like, hey, do I have to give up something of mine so other things can thrive?
Whoa,
what?
There was a May 28th closed-door meeting held by Mary Felskowski, president of the Senate, and also the representative of a district with lots of lakes and lots of constituents worried about this wake-enhanced boating.
That meeting included Felskowski, representatives Tyler August, Rob Sweringen, Robin Voss, Senators Cindy Dukow, Rachel Cabrera-Guavera, and also lobbyists for the boating industry.
Of course.
And lakes at Stake, Wisconsin.
So Felskowski says the meeting brought together stakeholders from all sides of the wakeboat issue.
I still want to try it out.
We're at the appropriate lake where it's not going to be, you know, damaging to any beaches or shorelines or clarity of the water or anything.
I want to try it out.
I'll probably like...
I was like,
this whole segment is just to be named Dan wants to go on a boat.
Let's
have you want to go on a boat.
Let's make boat friends.
That's actually that's the segment.
Let's make a
boat friends.
Yeah, you got your you got your podcast headline there, Greg.
There you
go.
Current state law does allow motor boats, including wake boats to at least 100 feet from shore.
It also allows local units of government
to pass more restrictive boating rules.
So I don't know of wakeboat fans.
I think there might be some regulations coming your way.
I know it's just freedom.
Yeah.
But that's the way it goes.
It's true.
We live in a civilized society.
The
boat floats.
I don't know.
That's not
how the wakeboards jump.
I don't wakeboard either, okay?
My typical boating activity is sitting on a pontoon boat drinking too many Nuglarist Moonmans.
So, you know, that's also a good time.
We can do that.
We're just okay.
After the show where I'll get in my car, I'm driving up to Lake Wissoda and we're going to just say, Pat.
Put the boat in the lake.
We're going
to commandeer
the boat.
We're going to commandeer the pontoon.
This
is a science experiment.
We're here to find things out.
Dan needs to do boating.
And he told us, you're the closest one that we know.
For journalism.
For journalism.
Exactly.
Block the press club.
Are you listening?
Exactly.
Dan Schaefer is Civic Media's political editor and the creator of the multi-warning re-combobulation area.
Subscribe.
It's absolutely worth it.
Thank you so much, my friend.
We will see you later.
Thank you.
Be well.
Stay with us.
We're going to wrap up the show with this shouldn't be a thing.
Shrinkied Inc Edition.
You're listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Welcome back to Matt and Air on Air, Jane Matt and Air, Greg Bach.
Doctors, slide on the board, coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.
Join us, call or text at 855-752-4842.
Leave a comment on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter before the break.
We were talking about the wake boating issue in Wisconsin and whether or not wake boats need to have special regulations because of environmental concerns, safety concerns.
And Kirk from Eau Claire texted in listening on WCFW.
Yes, they do need to be regulated I have been rocked by a wakeboat going back and forth in a narrow channel These are a look at us boat Equipped with a thumping stereo system.
So they don't go out into the middle of the lake They need to be somewhere where they can be seen
That sounds really obnoxious, Kirk.
I couldn't believe it.
I can't believe I didn't come up with this joke until right now.
And I needed to hear Dan to laugh at it because it's very funny, but you get a guy like regulation coming in and they'd be
like, Hey,
I'm here to wake boat, not to woke boat.
Thank you.
I'm here all week.
I could go on a shirt.
Come to the
laughing tap or here
all weekend.
I appreciate it.
Thank you, Kirk, for sending that in.
And yeah, well, we'll see what, uh, what happens with this and who's going to win out.
I feel for the folks who are seeing their shorelines erode.
Yeah, that's not what that's
not a that is not a good thing.
That is a definite problem.
It is a problem.
Hey, coming up after 11 o'clock, be listening for Greg and I to give you the keyword.
Yeah, right.
It is our statewide text to win, Scotty summer text to win contest.
After 11 o'clock, you will hear the keyword you want to text that in via the civic media app.
Only and spelling is important.
So make sure you get the keyword correct You're gonna be in the running for either a hundred bucks in cash or a pair of Milwaukee Brewers Club level tickets and Everyone who enters whether you win or not will be in the running for a grand prize a nice little summer vacation Including gas to get there.
Mm-hmm.
Shannon in bearable Was a winner you could be too
Nice.
Nice.
I
can't be a winner.
You cannot.
That's coming up after 11 o'clock all next week as well in the 7, 11, 2, and 4 p.m.
hours.
Calvin is getting late.
10.55.
That means it's time for.
This shouldn't be a thing.
If you have a thing you think should not be, send it in to Greg and me.
Jane says at civicmedia.us.
This from the BBC.
Matt Taylor, the lucky reporter with the byline the headline reads,
Scientists create world's smallest violin.
Physicists at Lowborough University have created the world's smallest violin using nanotechnology.
Oh man, like Iron Man.
They say work on the violin smaller than the width of a human hair.
Really, really, really little violin.
Smaller than the width of a human hair will help with research.
into a whole bunch of things from improving computer efficiency to finding new ways to harvest energy.
Professor Kelly Morrison, head of the university's physics department, says, quote, a lot of what we've learned in the process
has actually laid the groundwork for the research we're now undertaking, unquote.
Well, it's powering the satellite a billion nanofilons.
They're
really fast.
Really, really fast.
It's working on the tiny wind power of those strings.
The violin measures 35 microns, long 13 microns wide.
A micron is one millionth of a meter.
Why are you using such a tiny measurement against such a larger...
A human hair ranges from 17 to 180 microns in diameter for comparison.
This was created to test the capabilities of the university's new nanolithography system.
You nailed
that
in one shot.
Thank you, and I didn't even practice.
Which allows researchers to build and study tiny structures.
Nanolithography allows us to design experiments, to probe materials in different ways.
using light magnetism or electricity and observe their responses.
Once we understand how the materials behave, we start applying that knowledge to develop new technologies.
So when you're sitting there listening to a buddy complain about something that shouldn't be complained about, you can simply say, I'm playing the world's smallest violin.
And they'll be like, oh, funny.
Like, no, do you know how small it is?
It's like less than the width of a hair.
And he'll be like, what are you talking about?
And he goes, I heard it on a radio show.
Just write it down.
13 microns long 13 microns wide there you go drop that at a cocktail party, huh?
You will be asked not to
return That wraps up today's episode of
this shouldn't be
a thing coming up on Monday Matt Randolph
Mr. Global will be here.
Seeing your global is back?
Yes, Mr. Global will be back Monday after the 9.30 news.
Also, State Representative Christian Phelps is going to be joining us.
So I hope you can join us coming up on Monday, busy week next week.
Todd Alba will be with us.
Also, I'm really excited about this.
Brad Sturmer is a principal at a school in Wisconsin that has seen their math scores go up.
That's fantastic.
So I'm going to learn how to math.
It's about time.
Next week.
Yes, it probably is about time.
Thank you, Greg and Calvin and all of our engineers without you.
Nothing works.
And thank you most of all for calling and for texting and for listening.
It means the world.
I hope you find some joy over the weekend and you have the chance to share it.
We got news coming up next.
So keep it right here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Have a good weekend.
We'll see you on Monday.
Good good morning and welcome welcome to Matt Nair on air.
Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach, and Sweet Calbee coming to you live from our studio here at Radio Park in Racine.
You can always join us.
Call or text the number is the same.
855-752-8552.
4 8 4 2.
Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube and what used to be Twitter.
He joins us every other Tuesday at this time.
The host of mornings with Pat Crite low.
The aforementioned Pat Crite low broadcasting live from his home at Lake Wissota.
Good morning, Pat.
getting, getting the Yacht Rock
fix that I need every Tuesday morning.
God bless you people.
You
know where to come.
You know
where to come.
We got you fixed.
We got you taste from, from a, a very smoky, rainy.
I've actually got Ronnie Mills app in my head, smoky mountain rain.
Cause we get this smoky rain.
I've never seen this before.
Seriously.
It's a, you think the rain would, you think the rain would wash it out.
It's, it's coming in with the system.
It's, it's insane.
that in mind as well.
We are under some advisories as far as air quality is concerned because of the smoke from the Canadian wildfires.
So be aware of that.
We are delighted to be joined right now along with Pat Cratlow, the founder of Motherhood for Good.
Kate Duffy is here.
Good morning, Kate.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Good morning.
Thanks for having me.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
We wanted to talk to you because you did a little
Katie Porter kind of whiteboard breakdown yesterday after Lou Ann Bird, who was a friend of the show,
we've
had on the show many, many times.
Lou Ann Bird had a little exchange with no one other than the speaker of the assembly, Robin Voss.
We like to affectionately call the popcorn king.
We do have a clip from that exchange.
We're gonna play the clip of the exchange and then
Kate, you can take over once it's done about what you talked about in your video.
Okay.
Great.
Play that clip.
Got one,
please.
I guess I look at it and say, just don't have, um, we already have enough welfare.
I really don't know.
Oh, it's
a hundred percent.
And we already see there have a chance of probably funding Medicaid as it is.
Well, that's going to get worse.
We know that.
So why not, why not take care of poor people?
What do you mean?
Why not take care of poor people?
Women.
Well, they already have access to Obamacare for free.
Feel free to come in and sign in here over here.
Well, it doesn't right
now.
But still, postpartum care, I guess, doesn't get covered.
I'm dedicated.
Is that what the deal is?
Correct, but would I know Obamacare?
Which is why I wouldn't want people to go on Obamacare.
Feel
free to come
right in and sign in.
No, no, no, no.
Is that what I said?
What was the word you said?
There's two ways for people to get insurance, private sector, and public sector.
Public sector should have a last resort at
first.
That's
enough,
Kevin.
It's kind of hard to hear, but Robin Ross essentially tells Lou Ann Bird when she asks about coverage for poor people that Obamacare is free, that the ACA is, it's free.
I didn't know that, Jane.
So everybody should be good, Pat.
What
do you think?
Dragon,
Kate,
do it.
Yes.
So this was interesting.
So Luanne went to one of his listening sessions a couple of weeks ago and I have heard his listening sessions.
He doesn't really take just any question.
It's like a very kind of stricter format.
I bet it looks like in the video, I think she got there early and just kind of like went and talked to him really quick, which is like so Luanne.
Um, and she got this and she, she actually sent it to me.
And so part of it surprised me and part didn't write the, the welfare part.
We've heard him say that a lot about this postpartum.
Medicaid and blocking it.
And as a reminder to everybody listening, this is like so supported by everybody on both sides.
It already passed the Senate 32 to 1.
It has the support of 74 out of 99 assembly members, including many from his own pocket.
Just to
clarify, just to clarify Kate, what you're talking about is extending this postpartum coverage for a year.
Yeah, and it's not even expanding it to more people It's just allowing the people who are eligible for it the women who have access to Medicaid because they're pregnant and postpartum Just extending that time to 12 months as opposed to kicking them off at 60 days And we are one of only two states who has not done that
right
so
and
his
whole Robin boss's whole contention is that that's expanding welfare if we do
that
Which, and he said that before, he already thinks we have enough welfare, yadda, yadda, yadda.
I would love if like, somebody could just ask him when they have him, well, what is welfare?
Because, you know, it's not like a, it's more of an ideology, not necessarily a policy.
And why is he calling this welfare, but not, you know, support for school vouchers?
Or the loan that he got for his business during the pandemic.
Yes.
Yeah, that's not
welfare.
It's
definitely a strategic word he uses when he's talking about certain things.
But besides that, it was interesting that he said three times in that clip, well, we don't need it.
Those women can just get on Obamacare for free.
Again, another word he's deliberately using Obamacare.
Because that's not true.
And he said it like three times.
Yeah.
And that was the thing was like, when I heard that and
Try to keep the professionalism in my in my in my voice here, but when you
watch the
fit When you watch the video this sneering and the condescension of his words the way he speaks to Luan Who is just trying to get an answer and he just speaks from a place of like that was the question I had is he's either lying
Or he's ill-informed and I don't think he's ill-informed.
I think
he
knows that Obamacare isn't free
But he says
things like that and just gets lets it he allows it to just be out there in the world and he walks away.
It's like, yeah, I told her
Yeah, and I'm I wasn't like fully surprised to hear him say that because because I have like a large community who calls about this all the time and they call their own reps I have heard from some people from their reps like
Shay sort well and a couple other ones that their reps have been telling them well We don't need it because these women can just get on obama care for free And that's why I said in the video that I did like I just showed the math.
It's like No, you you can't maybe so there's like, you know, you're eligible for the Medicaid based on
where you are in regards to the poverty level.
You see it goes up when you are pregnant and postpartum.
But the ACA is like that has different stipulations too.
So there may be a case where somebody can get like almost free or very low cost.
But again, that's very rare.
And even if they can get that, it's like then going through all the paperwork and trying to apply and going through all that when you have a six week old, like give me a break.
Yeah.
That's something we've talked about, too, is the fact that this isn't just you walk in the room, press a button, and you get all this money.
Right.
Or you fill out one app,
one sheet.
We're not talking about a one sheet application.
I made the example last week.
This is how strict BadgerCare is.
I once tried to apply for it many years ago.
And I made $19 over the accepted.
And that was it.
There was no negotiation.
There was no do this.
It was literally, you make this much?
Sorry, you're not eligible.
And that was the end of the conversation.
So there are
guardrails in place.
And this isn't about pregnant or parents who have had children who are gaming the system.
This is something that everyone agrees upon most.
Here's what you have to remember about the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare is that it is not public insurance.
There is no public option.
Joe Lieberman killed the public option idea for the Affordable Care Act.
So if you're getting support, you're getting premium credits to purchase
private insurance from private companies.
The Affordable Care Act just makes some of that care from private companies more affordable.
What Robin Voss is doing is once again playing the role of Joe Lieberman and saying, we don't want you to have the public option of Medicaid.
We will steer you toward these private companies as we continue to try to knock down the Affordable Care Act so that once again, these private companies can deny coverage on a whim.
So for him, it's less
about the new moms now than it is his long game of eventually undermining the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid and making sure that the private sector for profit insurance companies always come
out on top.
If you're just joining us, we have Kate Duffy for motherhood for good, as well as Pat Critlow, who is the host of mornings with Pat Critlow right here on Civic Media Radio Network from six AM to nine AM.
The one thing I wanted to make clear also in that video, because yes, there's a lot of things happening to a lot of noise.
I'm going to post the video, Kate, that you put up explaining everything, but I also want to just let everyone know at the end of that video, he states clearly on what Pat was just saying, I would rather have people go to private insurance because there's no money
for his campaign and for him through a public option.
He wants to make sure those private guys are taking care of him.
And that, again, that's the other thing too, is like, are you lying or are you ill-informed?
I think you're lying.
Yeah, translation to that is he would like people on for-profit.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, because business is the best, the marketplace is the best, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, yeah.
It's so infuriating because she says, well, I don't want you to want to take care of poor people.
And Robin Voss just can't even muster up the energy to...
Well, it's more like, well, there's already help for them.
They don't need any more help.
It's already there.
It's already there.
It already exists if they would just take advantage of it.
But yes.
Well, that to the like 40 women a year dying in that postpartum period, Robin Voss.
But they're pro-family.
And
they want more women to have a
lot more babies.
We should all be having more babies and being more pro-family and all that stuff.
It's just, once you have it,
We don't like to help them.
Well, come on,
kid.
You're on your own.
They barely like to help you while you're having the baby and they'll do the everything they can to get the baby.
And then you're just, you're fine.
Go away.
Bye, bye,
bye.
Right.
It's the benevolent.
benevolent billionaire mindset of, you know, your healthcare will be taken care of by the private sector or by donations, the same with your education.
That's why we fight public education.
It's why they fight public transportation.
It's why they fight almost anything with public in front of it is because to them it's taking food off the table of these billionaires who will otherwise take care of us.
I'd rather we take care of each other with our tax dollars and have good responsible public servants who identify a problem like two
many new moms dying and do something about it.
Well, and as you
said, and what's really frustrating about that, that expanding that coverage for new moms is that that's a bipartisan thing that passed as you, as you pointed out when we first started talking with a lot of support on both sides.
Yeah, so poor down both sides.
But also it's like in every single like lobbying group that supports it is like a cast of characters you would never imagine on the same bill together Association pro life Wisconsin of course like physicians and and ACLU and ever like it's Supported by everybody.
So that's what I'm saying.
It doesn't make sense.
It's a very interesting hill to die on I don't know if he's just being stubborn and holding out or Or
what but but I saw something also this morning that said
30% of employers do not offer health insurance.
So it's not like every company offers health insurance.
Not every company is in a position to do that.
They don't.
I think that this goes back to what we've talked about in the past, which is when they had all the power in the world,
They could do whatever they want.
Once Fair Maps came into play and a few more Democrats got into power, they are going to do everything they can to deny Democrats any sort of say, and more importantly, deny Tony Evers any sort of win possible.
And he will allow, as you put it, Kate, women to die every year to keep this from happening.
And I think it's just, when you hear Republicans in the Assembly openly say, I don't know why this isn't happening.
And also, from a political standpoint, Pat, you can attest to this.
take it home to your district, knock doors and say, look what we did for you.
This is Robin Vos being the worst version of a monster possible and caring not at all about it.
Yeah, I mean, it's almost like he knows he's going down and he's taking everybody with him.
I completely agree.
Do you think, do we really, because a PJ on the live stream says Robin's up for reelection in 2027.
Do we really think that Robin's finally done being king of the hill?
No, and it would be 2026, and the term would start in 2027, but he's going to stick to his ideological guns because he is an ideological extremist, and that's what they do, and they don't care if he goes down with the ship.
He sees a long line of people who've been...
well cared for if they get defeated or leave office or things like that.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy looking at you, for example.
Yeah.
That Crite Low is here.
Kate Duffy, the founder of Motherhood for Good.
We have so much more on the way.
Stay close.
You are listening to Matt Nair on air.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
We will be right back.
you
Good morning and welcome back to Matt Nair on air.
Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach and Calvi Teenie 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.
855-752-4842.
Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream, on Facebook, YouTube and what used to be Twitter coming up an hour from now.
We will wrap up the show as we always do with this shouldn't be a thing.
Today it is the Boulder Dash edition.
I highly encourage you to stick around for that.
Right now that we are joined by Pat Critello, host of Mornings with Pat Critello.
Morning six to nine across the Civic Media radio network.
And the founder of Motherhood for Good Kate Duffy is here as well.
And we were talking about earlier about this battle over statewide Medicaid access for pregnant people.
And just in general, we don't expand.
We haven't expanded the ACA coverage here in the state.
ever, uh, pregnant people have two, two, 60 days
after
giving birth, but there's also a wider discussion we were talking about earlier.
And one of the things, and, and, and, and I think what Robin Voss tries to do, and we see Congress and the Senate doing is weaponizing this fight for Medicaid in the way of saying we're saving Medicaid, we're preserving Medicaid.
And they like to talk about able body people, which always gets me.
really upset because as you just said, Jane, when 30% of businesses do not offer health insurance, it has nothing to do with able body versus disabled.
This has to do with the coverage you can access through your business.
And big businesses like Walmart, I've been tracked and clocked as telling their employees, go on state aid.
We don't want to give you health insurance.
Go on state.
It's better.
While they get millions, tens of millions, if not billions in tax breaks, all those things.
Some would call that corporate welfare, but like, yeah, it's just, what we're seeing now is that, you know, making a poisonous narrative to push cuts to Medicaid that are going to affect everyone, including the people who voted for them.
and by the way cuts that aren't necessarily explicit cuts but by increasing those work requirements those reporting requirements as Kate can tell you her hands are a little full right now as it is with the little one at home now imagine having to get online or fill out a form and now you have to do it more often to prove that you've been working for 80 hours a month or whatever the case may be and you finally just you give up because you you can't jump through all those hoops and they say you see we didn't cut Medicaid right
Busy Kate decided she just couldn't fulfill the requirements anymore.
She still needs it as much as ever.
Yeah.
Well, and and that's what is happening and will happen if these women get cut off at two months, right?
And this is actually why a lot of Republicans are for it, right?
Because they know that like if these women drop off at 60 days, we know most of the postpartum deaths happen between six and nine months.
And beyond those, there's a lot of near death experiences.
There's a lot of situations where women end up in the emergency room if they don't have insurance.
that's not good for any of us as the state anyways, and having to pay for people who don't have
emergency
care.
So that's why they also support it.
I think the fiscal estimate for this is like $20 million.
And when we're looking at the overall biennial budget we have and the surplus we have, which is in the billions, it's literally like the tiniest fraction of that.
And
just personally, the other thing that really annoys me to no end about this,
I feel that there is this assumption by some that every woman's pregnancy experience is the same.
And every pregnancy starts out great and it goes great and there's no problems and she gives birth and bingo, she's back.
That's not reality.
No, it is not.
And I say that as the husband of an OBGYN.
And we have, of course, another OBGYN, Dr. Kristen Lyrely on all the time.
And Kate, you talk to countless moms.
And the fact that there are still politicians who promote this.
Norman Rockwell version of pregnancy that is free of complications.
And it doesn't just affect the coverage.
We had we talked yesterday about how Iowa is the latest state to require people to watch a human growth development video that is riddled with inaccuracies so that they can have this cartoon depiction of how wonderful every pregnancy is.
That just ain't so.
No, it's not.
And even like my representative is a Republican and one of the staffers I talk to all the time when I call
tells me how his wife really dealt with postpartum depression very bad for a year.
And so it's just like, there are stories all over the place.
And by the way, when we lose these moms, these kids are losing their moms.
We're not just letting them fall through the cracks.
It's causing trauma to a child and an entire family.
And we know the stats on what happens when a child that young grows up with trauma.
They end up
not only is it bad for them personally, but they have a higher rate of landing in poverty, incarceration, things like that.
So,
I don't know.
Yeah, I feel like we have to bring in Joni Ernst to say, well, we're all gonna die anyway.
That's the mindset we're getting from Republicans
like Joni Ernst.
And Kate, the way you ended that is how whenever we talk about Robin Voss and this topic, I always end up with a huge crescendo, always peter out with
Because I just want to say to him, why don't you care about people?
What is it about you that makes you not care about the well-being of the individuals who live in this state that you claim to represent?
Everything you do in your job seems like you dislike us and want nothing for us.
Because this right here, supported by so many, as you said, Kate, a wild cast of characters, he's just like, no, I don't think so.
Well, there's the I was at the Senate hearing when this went through their health committee and representative Pat Snyder is in there who's a Republican and he said, if we can't get behind this, then what the hell are we doing here?
You
know, and it's like.
I just agreed with him.
There is bipartisanship.
I know.
I'm agreeing with Rand Paul lately.
What's it going on in this world?
Kate Duffy is the founder of Motherhood for Good.
We will include that clip
in our show notes
so you can take a look at the just warm way Robin Voss interacts with the lovely Lou Ann Bird.
Pat Crichtlow, the host of Mornings with Pat Crichtlow, 6 to 9 a.m.
Monday through Friday across the network.
Thank you so very much for joining us, both of you.
News is coming up next and when we return we're going to talk about board games are good for you.
That's all on the way.
Don't go away.
You're listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Good morning and welcome to Met and Air on Air.
Jane Met and Air, Greg Box, Sweet Calbee on the board.
Coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine, you can always join us, call or text.
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We're talking Econ 101 joining us because we are not economics experts.
That's why we talk to the experts.
Rick Reed is here, an economics instructor with the Fox Valley Technical College.
Good morning, Rick.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Good morning.
Thanks for having
me.
Absolutely.
We want to talk about the downgrade, the U.S.
downgraded by Moody's.
All three major credit rating firms are no longer giving the United States their best rating.
For those of us who have never taken economics and are just kind of peripherally aware of economics, what does this mean and why should we care?
Ah, we should all care.
So.
Probably the easiest thing to relate to is when you go to apply for a credit card or a loan saved by a car The lender is going to run your credit report and they run it through one of three credit rating agencies and They collect that on you and determine how likely it is you are to pay your bills on time and based on that score Determined helps determine what your credit
what your interest rate is likely to be and how likely lenders are to be able to lend money to you.
In a very simplistic way, this is kind of a very parallel situation.
Nations, when they go to borrow money, excuse me, get raided.
And the three dominant ones that we care about in the United States are Standard and Poor's, Fitch,
and Moody's.
Standard and Poor's downgraded us in I think I want to say about 2011.
Fitch was just a couple of years ago about 2023 and Moody's was the was the last one to come to the show and basically what it means is is that the United States credit in other words when the United States sells bonds to be able to borrow money from anybody that's willing to lend it to us.
we're slightly less perfect in terms of our ability to manage our debt and pay our bills.
Well, and that's what it comes down to, essentially, if I am hearing you correctly, Professor, that they are looking at the United States and how likely we are to be good for our debts,
right?
Right.
And actually, Moody's in his commentary offered a few comments.
One of them is that
the the big knock on the rating resulted from our inability to manage our debt overall and come to agreement and This has been something that's plagued both Republican and Democratic administrations and and Congresses, so it this isn't something that suddenly happened, right?
However, it did
just suddenly happen
because of this latest downgrade by Moody's.
Right,
right.
Rick, I have a question for you because I remember when that, I remember that push notification that came through my phone saying that standards and poor standards and poor's had downgraded America's credit rating and it sent shockwaves through the news.
I mean, it was like, oh, okay, our economy is very bad.
And, and we, I mean, granted, we were like,
downgraded I think one level and it wasn't the end of the world, but it was still a huge thing and it's hard to come back from.
Did Standard and Poor's ever upgrade us?
Did we get back to the perfect across the three?
Or have we been sitting at that credit rating with them since 2010, 2011?
I believe we're sitting with the same credit rating since 2010, 2011.
So the question I would have because I'm an individual who has for the past, oh, good Lord.
Times a construct say 15 years.
I've been working on getting my credit better and better and better because for me as a person it helps yes How does that work for a country though?
What's the process?
What's the process?
For like if America said hey, we want to really get back on track and spend right and and get that credit rate because if it hasn't changed since then it does it really matter then is because as an individual basis I feel like credit ratings are kind of a scam I think it's a game but
How does the country on the whole improve our score?
Yeah.
Right, right, right.
Well, the big knock has been on our ability to manage our debt and our budgets.
Moody's made commentary that it felt fairly confident that we were able to manage the value of the currency, which is really important, right?
And that falls on the shoulders primarily of the Federal Reserve.
They've done a great job of making sure that the value of the dollar has been relatively stable.
But the thing that really has hurt us is the fact that we continue to run deficits and we don't seem to be able to get that under control.
And as importantly, we don't seem to be able to set a clear path over time.
So if you think about the current issues that are hitting us,
the tariffs all the issues around the tariffs has created a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace and the issues around the What the administration is calling the big beautiful bill that has now been approved by the House of Representatives You know that wasn't the thing that comes to my mind is that remember the film from
This is a long time ago planes trains and automobiles sure and John candy and Steve Martin are driving down the highway.
They're trying to make make time and a driver is Riding parallel to him and hawking their horn and saying you're going the wrong way and candy and Steve Martin go ha ha ha.
How do they know where we're headed?
Right sure buddy ha ha ha you know there This is kind of the same thing in my bed.
It was the first thing that came to my mind was that
Moody's is basically saying, folks, you got to get your act together.
Congress and the administration are saying, okay, yeah, this is what we're going to do for our budget.
We're going to have these tax cuts that we're going to reinforce.
We're going to cut some spending in specific areas like Medicaid and SNAP.
But at the end of the day, the Congressional Budget Office has basically said that Bill is going to create another $3.8 trillion in debt over the next 10 years.
That's the kind of thing that Moody's is pointing to and saying, you know what, you've got enough debt.
You've checked that box.
It's time to reel
it in a little bit.
And
you need
to start making some progress in that direction.
Oh my
gosh.
I don't wanna say that's it, but that's a really, for me, my brain, that's a really good comparison.
And now, as a way of thinking and talking about it, that's a really scary way of putting it, that they're basically saying, hey, here's how you do it.
And we're like, cool, we're gonna do it a different way.
See you in a couple of years.
Well, and I guess again, I go back to...
the IRS under President Biden because they had hired so many more IRS agents who were going after the bigger tax cheats, which brought in a whole that brought in over a billion dollars when they were doing that.
And now they've x that out.
So we don't have that revenue coming in either.
So it's kind of a it's kind of a rolling ball that doesn't seem to be stopping anywhere, does it?
Exactly, no it doesn't and seems like it may be headed in the wrong direction.
You know one of the great challenges though is that we talked a little while ago about the US bonds and the fact that the yield just went up on the US bonds because they became less attractive and that preceded Moody's downgrade and
there have been a number of factors, not the least of which is the fact that part of it had to do with China selling off a lot of their holdings of the US Treasury bonds after they were threatened with a very steep tariff level.
And you can interpret it however you want.
The easy interpretation is that China was saying, okay, if you're going to charge us with tariffs, take this.
and they sold off a bunch of US Treasury bonds.
And what that really did was it effectively depressed the price of the bond, which raised the yield rate.
Bottom line is it makes it more expensive for the US government to borrow money moving forward,
right?
On that topic, Rick, so in China's sold bonds,
Who do they sell them to?
Do they sell them back to the United States?
Do they sell them to other countries?
Do they sell them?
Can they sell them to individuals?
Or because if they're selling them off, I'm just wondering who gets them in the long run then.
Yeah.
An easy way to think about bonds is kind of like cars.
Yeah.
You've got the brand new car coming off the assembly line, and then you've got the used car market, right?
And so when the US issues a bond, it's minting a brand new car, a brand new bond.
And they sell it to the market and it matures in
you know, one, two, 10, 30 years.
In that period of time, that bond can be sold on the open market to anybody that is willing to buy it.
So it's kind of like the used car market in that analogy.
But much like the used car market, it doesn't exist in isolation.
So if the used car market is starting to show signs of price instability,
that impacts the new bond market as well.
So when already issued bonds are generating a lower price translating to a higher yield to the buyer, that means that the U.S.
government when it issues new bonds has to compete against that and they have to kind of respond in kind.
If you're just joining us economics instructor Rick Reed is our guest.
He's with Fox Valley Technical College just talking about econ 101 trying to break things down for those of us who are not economists and We had talked about bonds the last time that you were on because in from again from what I understand Rick Rick bonds were like the the most solid of bets
Bonds were always a pretty solid bet, right?
You are buying from the US government.
You are helping to fund the US government by buying bonds.
Is that accurate?
Correct.
You're supplying the lendable funds to the government.
I'm loaning them money.
I'm loaning them money.
But then when the interest went up, that was bad for the government, but good for me as the holder of the bond?
Exactly.
Exactly.
Because the reality of part of what you're buying with the US government bond is a very secure instrument.
So far, knock on wood, the government's never failed to pay its debt to any of the bondholders, right?
So from that perspective, you're basically getting kind of a sure thing.
When bond prices go down and the yield rate goes up, it's good for you as an investor, it's horrible for the government because now they're
They're
actually paying
a higher interest on anything they need to borrow
money for.
I've asked this question to a lot of situations where we are investing in the government, whether it's our social security or unemployment insurance.
What happens if the government can't pay?
Is it just us too bad, so sad?
Or is it, I mean, do I have action to get my money?
Because I bought in good faith from you and now you're saying you can't pay me.
Is it a you risk it with the bond?
Even though it's so
surefire or is it something where I can come back?
And honestly, we have to go to break.
So if you want to answer this on the other side of the break, because it's going to take a little bit longer, but.
Recreate is here, an economics instructor from Fox Valley Technical College.
We are going to continue with Econ 101 on the other side.
Stay close.
You are listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.
We'll be right back.
Good morning.
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We were talking to Rick Reed, who is an economic instructor at Fox Valley Technical College.
And before we went to the break, I posed a question that I will sum up very quickly.
If I, the investor, invest in U.S.
bonds and the government can't pay yields on those, what is our recourse as individuals
or anybody?
Yeah, basically solve a bond.
is what you would do because the likelihood of them saying we're not going to pay, period.
I don't think it would be like light switch where one day the government can pay and the next day it can't with no news about that in advance.
More likely what would happen is that if the government was unable to pay and really what we're talking about is not
not that it can't pay, but that it can't pay on time.
The reality of it is that would push the value of the bonds down pretty considerably, push the yields up pretty considerably.
And I think what you'd see is a bunch of investors that are holding bonds trying to sell them very quickly.
The likelihood of us going from where we are today to that scenario, it would take
Hopefully it would take years, maybe decades.
I don't think you're going to see it happen overnight.
What's more likely, though, is that we continue down the path of having it eroding credit rating as a nation.
And if that continues to happen, and if the government, well, one of the things that happened, I think it was back in 2012, 2013, where the government
Basically, we shut down.
There was a group of congressmen that basically said, if we can't balance the budget, we're
just going to
pass the bill.
We're not going to pass a bill that doesn't balance the budget.
No will cause a really bad way to do it.
And the reason it's a bad way to do it is that it basically raised the question of the stability of the government and the ability to pay its bills on time.
And that's going to have an impact on attractiveness of bonds to buyers.
Yeah, Cassandra on the live stream is essentially asking the same thing if this house but a bill does not pass in the Senate, what happens then do we default on our debt?
Or is it just more likely that they're gonna have to do another continuing resolution?
Right, they're gonna have to continue to, we're gonna pass this thing up as long as we can.
Now one of the historically what we've had in the light if you look over the last ten years We've had really low interest rates, right?
Really low interest rates and so that's been that's enabled the government to be able to borrow money And and not worry quite as much about balancing the budget Urgently right because the interest rate, you know if you're paying, you know two percent It's a lot better than if you're paying three four or five percent sure
That time is gonna start to run out and we're gonna start to see the interest payments start to rise pretty quickly if we're not careful.
Well, and weren't our interest rates held, not unnecessarily, but they were held low for a long time purposefully.
Right, right.
The Federal Reserve in response to the Great Recession in 2008, 2009, one of the things that it did was it,
below the balance sheet, basically they made as much lendable money available as possible.
Because one of the things that you don't want to have happen at the end of a recession, during a recession or at the end of the recession is having qualified borrowers not being able to access funds quickly and relatively inexpensively.
You want them to be able to borrow the money to be able to invest to stimulate the economy.
The Federal Reserve kind of went
overboard
on that a little
bit.
They kept them really
low for a long time.
You bet.
Yeah.
This is why we have experts on folks, because Jay and I, we are not experts.
We're not lawyers, doctors, or economists.
We are all those things adjacent.
Yes.
That's why Rick Reed is here, an economic instructor from Fox Valley Technical College.
We've got time for maybe one more question, Rick.
Yeah, Laurie from Hayward asked the question, do you think that we should raise, oh, I'm sorry, do you think the social security cost of living adjustment should be raised this year?
Well, historically, it's raised based on the cost of living.
They're raised based on the CPI from the prior year, and it's voted on by Congress to be able to enable it.
If you're receiving Social Security, you want it raised as much as possible.
If you're not receiving Social Security, you don't really care much until you start getting close to it.
So should it or shouldn't it be?
The standard practice has been that it's raised in accordance with the CPI.
There was an increase last year, I believe.
I believe there was an increase in the cost of living last year.
He is an economics instructor with the Fox Valley Technical College.
We do econ 101 with Rick Reed to try and break things down.
Thank you so much.
We really, really appreciate your time.
Thanks for having me on.
Stay with us.
News is coming up next.
And then when we return, we go beyond the cheese with the McLaughlin and Hayes Hatt Company.
Stay close.
You are listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.
