The State Budget Isn’t Perfect, Here’s Why (Hour 2)

Good morning.

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We are hoping to connect

with Wisconsin State Senator Keldoroy's.

We are close to a budget deal in Wisconsin.

It's like

tentative, it's feeling

like- I know.

It's, wow.

Yeah.

Yeah, wow.

And apparently they reached this deal last night, put an embargo on it until five o'clock this morning.

And so we're just trying to get caught up.

And again, there is still voting going on and there's still things going on in Madison.

So we are hoping to connect with Wisconsin State Senator Kelder Royce to talk about this process and how we got to where we are and what this means.

Pat Crightlow from Mornings with Pat Crightlow will join us after the 9.30 news.

We'll continue to talk about the Wisconsin State budget as well as the federal budget.

Lots of things going on there too.

Yeah.

And things that apparently just air dropped into this budget that no one knows how it got there.

No one knows who put it in there.

It's like that old story of the cobblers go to sleep and they'll the elves would come put it's like

It's just you just wake up.

It's there.

It's a magical thing After 10 o'clock Dean Muller is the president for Wisconsin for environmental justice He is going to be joining us to talk about climate change.

We had talked to PJ leash I believe it was last week about the increase in the tick population here in Wisconsin Yeah, that is all tied into climate change because as things

continued to warm.

Critters that would have stayed in warmer states are moving up as we continue to warm.

So Dean Muller will be joining us after 10 o'clock.

Our audio sorbet today because it's summertime.

Yes.

First day of

July.

OK.

What is the worst ice cream?

The worst ice cream that will be audio sorbet.

I talked to someone yesterday who had feelings about this.

Was it me?

No.

Oh, it was not you.

It was someone else.

Okay.

All

right.

That's audio sorbet.

That's after 1030 and we'll wrap up the show as we always do.

Oh, this is a good one.

This shouldn't be a thing.

Today, the you dirty rat edition.

There it is.

How was that?

It was my cagney.

It wasn't great.

I would say it was more of an homage rather than an invitation.

So

fair

honor.

You're honoring the legacy.

I am.

I am attempting to honor.

Yes.

So that is all coming up on the show today.

I hope you can stick around for that.

As we said, we are hoping to connect with Wisconsin State Senator Kelder Roy's about the budget deal.

We'll see if we're able to make that happen.

I'm sure she's getting pulled in and out of meetings and all kinds of other things.

But here is what we know as of today.

from the Wisconsin Examiner, Baylor Spears, Governor Tony Evers, and legislative leaders reach bipartisan deal on budget after months of negotiations.

A lot of this stuff seems to be good.

Yeah, it's one of those things where you read it and

you

say

to yourself,

really?

I

know.

I know, where's the trick?

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

This tentative agreements will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the UW system, as opposed to the $87 million the Republicans wanted to cut from it last week,

right?

It was last week.

Yeah, it was it was very much very recently where they said we want to take nearly $100 million out of the out of the UW system and

Now, like I said, I'm waiting for this rose to squirt water

in my face.

Where's the anvil?

Yeah, exactly.

It's going to hang a flan on my head.

The budget also creates new grants and payment programs for childcare.

Something that's really important to a lot of Wisconsin voters.

Yep.

Yes.

We've talked about this ad nauseam.

And now, apparently, it's cut through a little.

Let's cut through a little bit.

The tentative budget also further boosts investments in special education and cuts $1.3 billion in taxes.

Governor Evers said he focused on the investments in education and childcare, saying this is a pro-kid budget that's a win for Wisconsin's kids, families, and our future.

I

know.

It's

what?

I'm very excited about this.

I'm excited about the possibilities right now.

I will not, I will reserve excitement, full-blown excitement, unbridled ecstasy for when the ink dries on the paper.

But for at the moment, this is a budget that Wisconsin...

It works for Wisconsin.

This doesn't feel like a Republican or Democrat thing.

This feels like something that works for the state.

Oh my gosh, you mean compromise?

Holy cow.

What a terrible, dirty, horrible word.

I know.

In

2025, in

this

economy, compromise?

Amazing.

Wow.

The biggest piece of the package is a hike of more than $500 million to special education funding compared to current law.

And again, just as a reminder,

We fund Wisconsin taxpayers fund reimbursement rates for private schools who have special needs kids at 90% Yes, yes not for public schools correct now.

They've upped it a little bit they will increase the reimbursement rate to 37.5% in the second year of the budget up from the current level of 32.1 Committee also okayed going to 90%

to reimburse districts for high costs of special ed kids, those who incur expenses of $30,000 more in a year, the deal takes the reimbursement rate to 45% by the second year of the budget.

Again, still 90% for private schools.

That doesn't feel like a total win.

I feel like it just makes sense that it would either match or

they would say, hey, private school, we'll reimburse you at 70%.

Right,

so we can,

yeah.

Yeah, that's still a huge discrepancy.

Governor Evers had earlier threatens to veto the budget unless lawmakers included a commitment to address childcare costs.

So this tentative budget deal calls for $331.6 million in new funding.

That includes 110 million indirect payments to childcare providers, which is what they wanted.

Yeah.

And Robin Voss, correct me if I'm wrong, said, we're not, no, we're not going to do that.

That's a terrible way to do that.

We're never going to do that.

Now it looks like we're doing it.

I would like to know the conversations that because last week, nothing was happening.

The governor had walked away.

the Democrats, I'm sorry, the Republicans weren't giving an inch and the talks have broken down.

It was essentially, we're just going to go with the old budget.

Yeah, exactly.

We can't get anything done.

Exactly.

Exactly.

That was much to the chagrin of Chris Kappenga, too.

He wanted to do that.

That was his thought.

Like, let's just stick with the old, because for those who don't know if Wisconsin can't come to a budget, we don't shut down.

We don't stop.

It just reverts to the current budget spent expenditures.

So we wouldn't stop working.

And that was fine by Chris Kappenga, and I'm sure

some others.

Let me hear what seemed fine with

them.

But I don't know who came to the table.

I don't know who presented the first olive branch.

But this is a budget that works for

Wisconsin.

And that is...

huge.

If you would like to join us at 855-752-4842 that's 855-75 Civic John from Menominee Falls.

Listening on WAUK what we've heard about the state budget seems like a little too much common sense.

I'm guessing there will be massive tax refunds for the wealthy while the special ed spending is an improvement it is still an embarrassment.

Dan from WASA also listening on WAX, AUK says two positives can unfortunately sometimes make a negative.

Yeah.

Well, and also, I mean, I don't just agree with the special education spending.

And I'm hoping that it's something that over the next few, unfortunately, budget cycles will continue to rise.

But I have a feeling that if there was a massive tax refund for the wealthy in there, that would also have been reported.

They're like,

unless they're still bringing that to the table, if there was some sort of massive, huge Washington, big, beautiful bill version of this in Wisconsin, that we'd know about that right

now.

I don't know.

You never know.

Maybe they just airdropped something in overnight that no one has seen yet.

No one knows who it came from.

That's what they're doing on the federal level.

Governor Evers says the people of Wisconsin expect their leaders to show up, work hard, and operate in good faith to get things done.

We've shown we've been able to get good things done for Wisconsin when people put politics aside.

I look forward to signing a bipartisan budget that makes these critical investments in our kids, families, and communities across the state.

Evers has also agreed he will not use his partial veto power very, very stung by that.

On parts of the budget included in the deal.

Robin Voss.

says in a statement, he appreciates Governor Evers willingness to work with lawmakers to find a bipartisan agreement, quote, this budget delivers on our two biggest priorities, tax relief for Wisconsin and reforms to make government more accountable.

This deal brings those investments and reforms together and creates a Wisconsin that works for everyone.

Does that, are we giving more money to goat then?

Why are we not talking about goat?

Hey, Jane.

Hey, Jane.

is go back.

Oh, nice.

Thank

you.

He has two shows.

Yeah, two shows, folks.

Two shows.

Totally different, totally different shows.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like everyone is gingerly walking around it because we just want to see what all comes together at the end of the day and what, you know, when everything is signed and good to go.

But this seems like, I'll tell you this much.

If you would have told me yesterday that this was the budget that was going to be happening, I would have said you are out of your mind.

The Republicans will never agree to this.

Governor Evers won't come to the table for a deal that they want because that's what we were seeing.

But this just feels like, you know, I want to know the conversations that have happened behind closed doors over the past few days.

Because someone had to say to the Democrats, we need your votes because the Republicans didn't have enough, did not have enough.

They had, they had enough dissension in their own ranks to.

put us to a place where we would be using our current budget for however long.

So just that thing of getting in behind closed doors and having those conversations, that was a start.

And there are people in the comments in the live streams that

aren't

totally impressed by it, but I will say I would rather take this for now than what I thought it was going to be.

Cassandra on the live stream says, I was very shocked when I saw this report this morning.

I am waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Yeah.

And that's fair area.

Cassandra.

That's absolutely fair.

Something kind of good.

Yeah.

Where's the, where's the catch?

Yeah.

Where's the catch?

Do

you have to give up my car?

I have no idea.

I have

no idea.

Like, yeah, we're very much used to that in, in the non-compromise 2025.

Absolutely.

In

the rhetoric of.

My way

or the highway, baby.

Exactly.

Exactly.

We're going to continue talking about the tentative Wisconsin State budget.

That's where we are this morning.

Still also hoping to connect with Wisconsin State Senator Kelderoy's.

We'll see what happens with that.

You can always join us.

Give us call 855-752-4842.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air.

Stay close.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

We'll be right

back.

Just a

sitting in my bedroom laying

last night.

Good morning.

Welcome.

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Host of Mornings with Pat Crite Low.

Pack right low.

We'll be joining us.

Again, we'll continue our conversation about the Wisconsin state budget.

If you have a tentative agreement,

I should say on the Wisconsin state

budget.

So that is coming up also in hour number two after the 1030 news, a segment we call Audio Sorbet.

Are we trying to lighten things up a little bit?

Just a little bit.

Get away from the news.

Thank you, Calvin.

Today, it's going to be the worst ice cream.

What is the worst ice cream?

Everybody's got an opinion about this.

Yes, I do.

I talked to my knife sharpener yesterday.

He had an opinion about this.

Wow, Jane Matineer living the fancy life of having a knife sharpener.

It's

part of the service.

Wow.

Anyway, Worst Ice Creams, Audio Sorbet after 10.30.

And some exciting news to tell you about.

We are going on the road, baby.

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It is officially official.

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I hope you can come out and visit us when we hit the road.

In just a couple of weeks, our special road trip edition of Matt and Air on Air and Todd Alba, July 16th, 17th and 18th.

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Take that advice.

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Come and see us when we hit the road along with Todd Alba.

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We'll be in Oshkosh on July 16th in Butternut on the 17th and then in Hayward for the big lumberjack competition on the 18th.

I've always wanted to say this.

Maybe we'll be in an area near you.

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Come and visit us.

It should be

a lot of fun.

We were talking about the Wisconsin State budget before we went to the break.

We're going to continue that.

Childcare was a big, big, big concern.

And we are making some investments.

Childcare portion of the tentative budget includes a $123 million to boost a state child care subsidy program for the working poor.

This will help ensure families that qualify get payments big enough

to cover about 75% of the available childcare slots in their area.

Now there's 66 million for a new Get Kids Ready initiative, provide payments to childcare providers to serve four-year-olds and get into a curriculum to help them prepare for school.

And then about $29 million to increase reimbursement rates for those serving toddlers and infants.

So it's not everything that had been hoped for but it is certainly more than we were hearing about the only thing that the Republicans the only Fix they had for this was make it bigger and let 15 year olds watch kids well and

also the the tax credit to businesses to open their own childcare centers which I feel like when they announced that it wasn't announced announced announced it wasn't a

for real thing.

They were floating the idea, I believe.

I'm pretty sure they probably heard from businesses and they said, yeah, no.

Yeah, we're not doing that.

Also, I just want to

We were also talking about special education reimbursement in the public schools.

We want to make a correction.

And thank you to state Senator Chris Alfheim for sending us the information.

It is going to be an increase of to 42% in the first year and then 45% in year two of the budget.

So that brings the special education reimbursement for public schools up from where it currently is, which I believe is 30%.

Okay, so it is a raise and that is the correct information.

I want to thank State Senator Alfheim for that.

Absolutely.

Because an increase is an increase.

It's not

90%.

It's not 90%.

Which is

what private schools get.

And Alicia on the livestream says, for me, an okay budget is a whole lot better than what we would have gotten if Democrats hadn't won more seats last year, thanks to those fair maps for that one.

And you're right.

It isn't everything that was wanted, but I will say, as I said earlier, if you would have told me that this is the Tentative Budget Agreement yesterday, I would have said, where did you hear any of this magical information from?

Because this is nowhere near where I thought it was going to go.

And what are you smoking?

And according to State Senator Chris Larson, he has made it clear on social media, Dan Schaefer broke this to us in our chats, that he has said that unless there are more amendments agreed upon by the Democrats, he will be voting no for this.

So

this is not a

done deal.

It's not done.

Yeah.

We're

not done by a long shot.

There's been more talks.

But again, as you said, I firmly expected

There were Republicans to just say, well, just stay with the old budget, though.

I really didn't expect we would get this far.

So it

still remains to be seen when it will get done, but it's progress.

It's progress.

Whew, that felt good to say, it's progress.

It's progress.

All right, we got news coming up next.

And then Pat Crichtlow, mornings with Pat Crichtlow will be joining us on the other side.

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of mornings with Pat Crite low from six to nine across the network.

Pat Crite low is here checking in from Lake Wissota.

Lots of talk about the budget.

Pat Crite low tentative budget, I should say, because this isn't a done deal yet.

It's not, but it's it's pretty darn close.

And it's it's a pretty nice deal.

I will give credit to Dan Schaefer reacting to it on our show an hour ago.

saying that this is a result of fair maps, that fair maps get you a fair budget.

Now fair meaning, not great, you know.

doesn't stink.

It's fair.

And look, if you were dealing with a governor, Tim Michaels right now, oh, yeah, you wouldn't you wouldn't have that.

You'd you'd have the opposite.

You if you had a budget delay, you'd have it for the same reason you have it in Washington, D. C. Right now, because, you know, as I've said before, right, you'd have more Ron Johnson's going, can we close some more orphanages first before I support this thing?

And

smack an empty bowl

of

porridge, get away from me, child.

Cut the gruel a lot.

Yeah, come on.

That's where you have all the dysfunction in DC, where they might not make their July 4th deadline, whereas here, because of the fair maps, because you have extremist Republicans who, well, like Chris Kapping up posted yesterday, he'd have been happy with a month's long delay in this.

The rest of the Republican caucus said,

Now, why don't we make this a bipartisan thing after all?

And that way some Republican extremists can say, nope, it doesn't cut enough.

Some Democrats in very safe seats can say, I'm going to vote no, because it doesn't go far enough.

And we don't have to sit through a, you know, a weeks long or months long budget delay.

So, Pat, I want to ask you a question because while you weren't in the room for these talks this time, you have more experience in this world than we do.

We are state government adjacent in this one.

That's right.

We spoke about earlier about the conversation because the last time we had heard it was the Republicans walked away, Governor Evers walked away.

And honestly, the fact that this came down today was absolutely surprising.

So can you give any speculation, but can you give a speculation of the first steps of like someone calling up another person say, hey, we need to get this done.

We need some votes.

what are we gonna do to make this happen?

I mean, this is kind of a perfect example of compromise in 2025.

So can you shed some light on where that process would start?

The behind closed doors thing.

Yeah, a little bit.

First off, when they when when either side says, well, we're walking away, we're breaking off talks, nothing ever truly breaks away.

Because I mean, you can't get a deal until you talk to each other again.

It's it's like being on a break.

And Ross and Rachel, you know, may eventually get back together.

But who knows what happens in between times.

Sure.

So they're on a break.

But and this is the part that's unclear.

One of two things happened either.

It's a couple of good staff members on either side.

Because again, everybody knows each other in the building there by and large.

It's a big

high school sometimes seriously the clicks and everything but you know a couple of staff members will be they'll continue talking maybe when they go walk outside for a cup of coffee or you know a couple of legislators it doesn't happen as often it's usually staff

really

staffer staffer

not all staff, but so many of the staff members are just remarkable people.

Uh, I, I couldn't possibly say enough about them whip smart and they're going to be closer to the middle because they're going to be more practical by and large, not all of them.

And they're going to say, well, what if we did this and what if we did that?

And then they take it back to their bosses.

And next thing you know, they're, they're arranging just a quick meet, but.

Suddenly they're talking and they keep talking and they say, well, let's let's take the next step and start talking about the next thing and the next thing.

And then you get to the point where we are now with a joint agreement between leadership.

And now they got to take it back to their respective caucuses where guys like me, when I was in the Senate, we'd hear about it from our leader who at the time was Russ Decker.

And, you know, we'd either ask questions or, you know, some of us would stomp our little feet and say, no, I can't support this, you know, depending on the situation.

I am, I'm, thank you for that because I think that's really interesting and bad.

And a lot of us, I certainly question, you know, what happens behind closed doors.

I think that's probably a much more impressive answer than mine would be because I just envisioned two lawmakers calling each other, going, look, we're really in trouble and we're going to look like, we're going to look really bad to our constituents.

And we might have to get an actual job.

So maybe we should compromise on something.

There may have been a little bit of that, but again, by and large, they look at it as a work assignment, the same way that we all have assignments at work that have to get done.

And then you put the political applications to it later.

You're always mindful of it in the back of your mind, but...

In the case of this particular budget, you had Devon Lemahue, the Senate Republican leader, who, you know, he can count.

And he's got 18 versus 15 for Democrats.

And he could see that he could only afford to lose, you know, one senator.

And once he had two and maybe three of them saying, I'm not voting for these things because they don't cut enough funding.

Right.

That's that's when he knew it was time to bring in Senate Democratic leader Diane Husslebine and Governor Evers and say, all right, well, how do how do we do this?

It would not have been Lemmy Hughes first choice.

It would not have been Assembly Speaker Robin Voss's first choice.

They would love to see more of the cuts.

I just happen to think that they were going to be more willing to walk away and say, fine, we just won't do a budget at all.

But I think they ultimately decided it wasn't worth either the political risk.

or frankly, the hassle.

Do they want to be the ones that say, you know, that, that, you know, Steve Nos and Chris Cappiga and Hutton, you know, kept me from doing my job.

So they decided to do their job in a more bipartisan fashion than they perhaps normally would.

I want to bring something up.

And we were talking about this before the show today.

And Calvin, you brought up this concern about the taking of credit and

One thing we saw, I'm going to make a reference from the infrastructure bill.

A lot of Republicans we saw voting against the infrastructure bills showing up to big unveiling saying, look what we did.

I mean, there's obviously going to be the chance opportunity and most likely the happening of Senate and Assembly Republicans saying, we did this budget when we know full.

well that they're not anywhere in favor of it.

So is it sort of a thing of just, well, we got to let it happen.

They're going to do it.

And we'll know who was in and who was out.

And that's just part of the deal.

Yes, it is.

So what will happen?

Let's take the case of childcare.

Again, Republicans officially were putting zero dollars into childcare accounts.

And now there will be an amount that's in there, you know, 100 million or more will go toward childcare.

And they will be able to say individually back in their districts, I was always concerned about this.

And you

know, I expressed it to leadership, and we got it done.

Look what we did for you.

Yeah, yes.

And

that's that's what happens.

Yeah.

And that's how I was I was thinking of it too is from the point of view of there are probably Republicans who are on board with this, but can't say out loud that they are because they are going to get in trouble.

They're afraid of getting I mean, in the case of Robin Voss getting a recall twice, you know, there's ramifications to going against leadership.

True.

And so I, you know, I do feel bad for those Republicans who are like, this is a really good deal.

We should just take this and go home and campaign on it.

And

they have to.

And the better parallel I can draw is at the federal level here where, again, you've got Republicans there saying, this is a big mistake cutting Medicaid this much.

They're right now feeling as helpless as it gets.

But if something happens where it's not cut as badly, they're going to take the credit for it.

As a win.

Yeah, as a win.

In the meantime, they're just going to use the talking points of, well, we need fiscal responsibility and waste, fraud, and abuse, and other empty words that I don't really mean because they're being

dragged along.

If you're just joining us, we are talking to Pat Crite-Low, who is host of the Pat Crite, a Mornings of Pat Crite, I almost called it the Pat Crite-Low Show.

I know, I do that too.

I know.

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A Mornings with Pat Crite-Low every morning, six to nine here on Civic Media.

And I guess, I mean, the question is, we keep saying tentative, and there is a very much an attitude of the shoe, the other shoe dropping, but I mean, you just said when you joined us, it's pretty much there.

Yeah.

Can you see anything happening where one side stands up and says something so significant that it will send people away going, nope, we gotta redo this?

I mean, like you mentioned, both sides are gonna have people who say, well, I'm gonna vote no on this.

And it's gonna be more for show than for anything really, but can we, is there anything to look at for a possible hiccup, if you will?

Well, it's always possible.

And I loved the earlier analogy of, you know, when is this flower going to squirt water at me?

Because it does seem, it does seem too good to be true.

And I think you heard that in, in, in our voices, you know, me and Dan Schaefer and State Senator Jeff Smith, and especially Kareen Hendrickson, uh, from Nouglares, a child care provider who was crestfallen at first was happy to see all this investment, but then realized that a lot of it is only there for one year of this two year.

budget cycle and thinking, well, now there's no security.

There's no stability.

You're only funding us for a year.

So it is possible on the Democratic side that something like that could cause enough members heartburn to want to speak up and offer amendments on the Assembly floor or the Senate floor.

And then on the Republican side,

you could conceivably have some people from the far right saying absolutely not to increase funding for the UW system.

Maybe that's a bad example, but just go with me on it.

They bring in something like that and enough other Republicans agree and that amendment actually passes.

That's the kind of thing that could actually scuttle a deal like this.

It's not likely, but the odds aren't zero.

Sure.

Yeah, anything

is possible.

Anything is possible.

Oh, it's possible.

I was just going to tell you Tony on the live stream has a comment.

What provision is in this budget bill to stop the joint finance committee from withholding any future funding after the governor signs it?

Excellent question.

That is a great question.

I don't know.

For which we do not have an answer.

WBA are you

listening?

That is, well, you know, again, there were a lot of details that were put out, but there are still many more details to come.

Corrine Hendrickson couched her language saying she's going to read it more to see what's in there.

Senator Jeff Smith was looking to see if the Chippewa Valley Hospital closure money is going to carry over or not.

And in this case, what he's referring to is last week's state Supreme Court decision that

provides the possibility that the Joint Finance Committee could use their quote-unquote supplemental fund as a big old giant slush fund.

And State Senator Jeff Smith, you know, in the last hour said that's a concern of his too.

So

Much like we say about all these things you have to read the bill you have to read the full bill and Don't try to don't try to jam us Give us time to look at it all and and that comes back to all and where I began with staff There are staff in that building that are just so good at that they can go through and they can find exactly any problematic language or reassurances and give that to their bosses and Still quite possibly get that done this

week.

I think it's important that

I think that's a really important point though, Pat.

It's their staffers who read these 900 page bills.

Correct.

And I had great ones and you have to take that on faith that either your staff or the staff of your caucus leader are so good that when they hand you the bullet points that they're not trying to pull one over.

Yeah.

And you almost never, never, never see that because I mean, that's that's a huge violation of trust.

So I'm not going to tell you that I read every page of every state budget bill, but I know the people who did and I trusted them and they

Never let me down.

Yeah, we're to continue our conversation with the host of mornings with Pat Kite.

Quite low, Pat, quite low.

On the other side, we've been talking about the state budget.

Let's talk about the federal budget and who is dropping things in from the sky.

I had no idea this measure was in there.

How does that happen?

That's all on the way.

Stay with us.

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

We'll be right

back.

Good good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome to Matt Nair on air.

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

Join us.

Call her text at 855-752-4842.

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

Coming up a little bit later on today on the Todd Alba Show from two to four.

Todd will also be talking about the tentative

Wisconsin's state budget, including the deal for the universities of Wisconsin.

Todd has done a lot of work on that and followed this really, really closely.

And also they will lighten it up with a what's worse edition, the Cookout Condiments.

edition of What's Worse that's coming up later on today.

Two to four across the network on the Todd Alba show.

We are joined by another friend and colleague and host of mornings with Pat Critello.

Pat Critello is here.

We were talking about the Wisconsin state budget before we went to the break.

Pat, I wanted to talk a little bit about the federal budget.

I call it the big blob of a bill.

Because you have served in the legislature, I have a question for you.

This is from NBC News and the headline says, a mega bill mystery.

New solar and wind tax comes as surprise to Republican senators.

No one knows where this came from.

No one knows how this ended up in there.

Everybody's surprised by this.

Lisa Murkowski, everybody, all these

Republicans.

She's

concerned.

She's very concerned.

Where did that come from?

No one knows.

She said it's like it was airdropped in overnight.

How is it that these measures can show up in our budgets and no one has to take credit for it?

That shouldn't be a thing.

it should not be a thing.

And I was noting from the New York Times a half hour ago that says the so-called wraparound amendment from Senate Republican leadership will strike a tax on wind and solar energy that had surprised and alarmed the renewable energy industry.

So in other words, they got caught with their hand in their cookie jar or whatever the case may be.

And that again is the

Basically, the eternal vigilance in this process because it ain't over till it's over and it is always possible for an amendment to come in when we would be amending the state budget on the floor of the state Senate.

Some amendments would be ready ahead of time and they'd be properly typed up and look like a bill, you know, all the lines are numbered and all the legal language is in there.

And then by the end of it, it is literally scribbles on paper that will say on page 12, line four, strike.

you know, must fund and change it to click fund.

Yeah, something like that.

And it's just scribbled out.

And again, if it makes sense, you know, you vote on it because the essentially the amendment is what you say it is, you know, I amended this way.

So yeah, it starts from a very orderly process to one that is

pertinere chaos by the time it's all done.

But I don't again, I don't understand and this has happened in Wisconsin as well, where things end up in the budget that nobody takes credit for and nobody wants to be the one who admit that they put that in there.

Why isn't that required?

I don't understand.

Well, we're going back to the battle over earmarks and remember the bridge to nowhere.

Yes, however many years ago that was out of Alaska.

And there was this push by Republicans to get rid of all earmarks.

And my response to that at the time was you don't want that.

And you know, you don't want that.

You don't want to get rid of the earmarks because that's how individual members can fight for their district to get things that are in there.

I had earmarks in the state budget.

What you need is earmark transparency.

And when you don't have that.

those are literal backroom deals.

For example, Lisa Murkowski, her vote, she's still on the bubble, and it wasn't until after it was drafted as an amendment that somebody parsed the language and said, what's this thing about a non-contiguous state being exempted from cuts to rural Medicaid funding?

Oh, that means Alaska's getting this, and Hawaii, is getting this sweetheart deal.

Nobody had parsed the language.

They wouldn't have discovered it.

So you have to stay on top of every detail as it's happening.

Chris Murphy, who is a Democrat from Connecticut, actually on his Twitter feed went through this with other little hidden things in this big massive blob of a budget.

A new tax break for coal companies.

So they wanted to get rid of the tax incentives for wind and solar, but we're going to subsidize coal.

I don't know when folks are finally gonna, you know, see the current Republicans in Congress for what they are, and that would be the cigar chomping, you know, coal-burning robber barons of the late 1800s.

These are direct descendants of them.

The Progressive Era, you know, did not start on its own.

It happened because guys like those were abusing too many people for too long.

Are we going to figure out that they're trying to do the same thing again or do we have to wait until things get so bad and then we restart the progressive era from scratch?

Speaking of abuse, according to, again, Chris Murphy from Connecticut, they snuck in a $40 million bill for a statue garden.

Where?

A statue garden?

A statue garden reportedly somewhere in South Dakota.

40 million dollars for a statue.

Well, this is, well, he's got it.

He can't get on Mount Rushmore yet.

So I guess this

is where we're going to go about it.

That could be it.

And then all it is is transparency.

Go ahead and put it in there, but it's got to have a name attached.

If it's so important to you and so important to your constituents, I would think you would want to wrap yourself around it

and put your name

on it.

That's exactly how it should be.

Absolutely.

Pat Kratlow is host of Mornings with Pat Kratlow across the network.

6 to 9.

Thank you so much, Pat.

We will see you in a couple.

All righty, thank you.

I'm going to listen tomorrow for Pigeon Quest, by the way.

It's fantastic.

Oh my gosh.

It's fantastic.

Is this become like a new segment?

It's a Wednesday segment.

Oh, it's a Wednesday thing until Melissa Kay from our Wisconsin Rapid Station gets that pigeon as on her shoulder, we are going to continue her quest to get a pet rescue pigeon.

Listen to that.

If nothing else, just for Pigeon Quest, it's fantastic.

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.

Welcome.

Welcome to Matt Nair on air.

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

You can always join us, call or text.

The number is the same.

Eight

557524842.

You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream.

We live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

We got some baseball action coming up later on today.

Our broadcast starts at 535.

The Brewers at the Metz tonight.

You can listen on Terrestrial Radio on WRCE and Richland Center, WISS and Oshkosh.

WRJN here in Racine and Kenosha, WCQM in Park Falls, and our newest Milwaukee Brewers affiliate WBZH.

In Hayward, the Mets hosting the crew, our broadcast starts at 5.35.

Delighted to be joined by our next guest.

He is the president for Wisconsin for Environmental Justice.

Dean Mahler is here.

Good morning, Dean.

Thank you so much for joining us.

How are you?

Well, thank you so much for having me.

It's great to be here.

Glad to have you here.

You sent me an email after you heard our discussion with PJ Leish.

We were talking about ticks and the growing tick problem here in Wisconsin, and this is tied into climate change.

And the warmer conditions are allowing bugs that would not normally thrive here to do really well as the climate continues to warm.

So we wanted to talk about a number of different things related to the climate.

Let's talk about the extreme weather that we've been seeing, Dean.

The fires, the flooding, it just, this is the new normal, I guess.

But I guess the operative word is more.

We're going to have more of these types of events, more warming conditions.

2024 was the warmest ever.

And of course, 2025 is on track to be even warmer than that.

You know, then go back to February of last year, we had the first tornado ever occurring that month.

And you know, other economic things that are happening, you know,

homeowners insurance, double digit increases in that.

And of course, you have to remember that things that happen in Florida or California or wherever in the world, it affects our insurance rates here.

And of course, that's certainly some of the things that we're looking at here.

And of course, you know, I personally like snow and we just certainly haven't had enough of that, that's for sure.

So I mean, the ice, Lake Michigan certainly far from actually the lowest ever.

what I've been told in terms of ice cover on Lake Michigan, which is, you know, that's where we get our refrigerator effect, right?

Yeah, when we live next to the lake.

So yeah, it's it's all adding up.

That's for sure.

And it's we can see, feel and touch it.

There's no question about that.

And there's definitely, I mean, there's an environmental discussion ahead, but there's also an economic discussion.

Two winters ago, it was so bad up north with the lack of snow and ice that Senator Baldwin and Governor Evers had to put together.

I think it was $50 million in packages of aid to businesses that were affected by the lack of winter that we got.

So it's also, you know, when we want to spin that conversation, we also have to talk about the economic impact it has on businesses and people here in the state.

Right exactly and I appreciate the opportunity to discuss it in this manner in more of a complete fashion because you know we watch the local weather and of course I realize the weather whether people are maybe a little bit limited in terms of what they can tell us but they can talk about this extreme conditions but on the regular news they talk about the fact that it is caused by climate change but then you know the rest of the conversation is what causes climate change and of course that's the conversation that we're certainly trying to promote as an organization so people have a greater awareness.

of connecting the dots, if you will, that ultimately leads to the amount of CO2 we're putting in the environment, and that's caused by our burning of fossil fuel.

That's the message we want to get out there.

and repeat it over and over and over again so people understand that and start to take some action.

You know what, Dean, though, and I've run into this within my own family trying to talk to some family members about climate change and one of my in-laws essentially said, yeah, you know, I've been talking about this with my buddy and he doesn't think it's real, so I kind of agree with him.

I mean, I don't know how you, what do I come back with then to that?

I think the thing that I have come upon is that I believe the scientists and the particular scientists that I really believe in are the fossil fuel scientists that made this determination back in the 70s.

My name, James Black, Harry Shaw.

Ed Garvey were people that headed up the department at Exxon that was their scientific department and their mission was to look at the impact of their product on the environment.

And they came back with an answer.

And the answer is what we're seeing today.

And they were astonishingly accurate in terms of the modeling they did because of that work.

And of course, the industry was kind of at a crossroads then.

I mean, they had developed even a solar department.

So they were thinking about, you know, big ideas, et cetera, in terms of the next direction for their company.

But in the end, they packed it all in.

It just said, no, this is really bad for business.

I mean, if you were talking about businesses that have a my business, my background is a lot of us in business and investing and so forth.

So if you can create a business model where you have repeat business.

like cigarettes, like you need for fossil fuel.

Well, I mean, it's logical that you want to go with that path because you get a lot of repeat business.

And that's the model and the road they went down.

And the process they went through then is basically to discredit or deny that those types of things were happening.

And of course, that's the ultimate thing that we're working towards is to have accountability from the fossil fuel industry.

Now,

Let's look at this, maybe almost in a humorous fashion.

We could ask them to pay for the remediation.

And of course, I think the last time we spoke, I talked about the $16 billion study that we commissioned that was released last year, which was just remediation for the state of Wisconsin.

We can talk about that in more detail.

But of course, it would be nice if we asked them and they said, yeah, we'll pay our fair share.

You just shouldn't be all on the taxpayers.

But I think the only way we're going to get an answer out of them is in a court of law.

That's the sad reality.

So that's the mission.

We have to ask the state in a court of law to have any type of result with this.

We have a comment on the live stream who says CO2 was proven to increase heat in the 1800s.

This is long proven and established science.

And to go with what

you

said.

what you're saying, Jane, when someone says that that notion of, well, I heard it on a podcast or my friends said this, I said, okay, great, what are their qualifications for saying what they said?

Because what I personally feel like is whenever you try to encroach on someone's convenience, that's when they'll go the other way when they say, oh, fossil fuels do this, but I like my car.

And

I listen to a

podcast where they said cars are great.

I feel like if you have to challenge people's

convenience to get them to stand up and say, yeah, you're right.

And of course, you know, we're not trying to bite the hand that feeds us.

I mean, because obviously fossil fuel and the access to fossil fuel is giving us a wonderful lifestyle.

There's no question about that.

But it's time to go in a newer, different direction.

And when in this country have we ever stood in the way of new technology?

Yeah, we've always embraced it, encouraged it.

and we've even subsidized it.

And of course, I noticed in the previous segment, you were talking about the budgets and so forth.

Well, we currently, I think it's three quarters of a trillion dollars is a subsidy that the fossil fuel industry enjoys.

So I mean, they could back off on that and help the balanced budgets and so forth, but they haven't.

They have a lot of lobbyists that make sure that that stays in place.

So it's,

Yeah, a new direction in, you know, we don't make buggy whips anymore and why?

Because we don't have horses for transportation anymore.

Because things change, yes.

Things change, exactly.

I mean, you know, we didn't have, you know, we didn't go back to a time when you, if you're going to make a phone call out and about, you need to have quarters in your pocket and looking for a phone booth.

Well, that's, you know, those days are long gone.

If

you're just joining us, Dean Muller is our guest.

He's the president of Wisconsin for environmental justice, just talking about environmental concerns.

It's all tied into all of our budgets, not just the state budget, but certainly the federal budget.

You were talking, Dean, about these energy companies.

They want from what I have seen at least some of them want to get into solar They would like to get into other kinds of renewables and yet they're not getting any kind of support from the Trump administration

Yeah, this is true.

This is a certainly a sad fact and of course so we

I'm just baffled.

I don't know what to say.

I do know what to say, I guess, from the standpoint that it is new technology and we certainly don't want to stand in the way of that.

I do know that certain industries, Wall Street is certainly embracing it as opportunities for investment as far as mitigation is concerned, as far as new technologies are concerned, whether it's solar wind or whatever it might be.

geothermal, the list goes on and on of investment opportunities.

And those things are still going on.

I mean, industries are not backing away from their commitment to doing this because there is money to be made.

There is opportunities to capitalize on.

The insurance industry obviously has figured out risk.

very well, because that's what they're in the business of doing.

If they didn't do it, they'd be out of business.

They wouldn't be able to show anything on the bottom line.

So I think in the face of the pushback that is coming out of DC, which is certainly unfortunate, I think that the trend still goes on to more green energy and more green opportunities.

That's for sure.

And to get back to the economics of it all, we see a push from the administration to bring manufacturing back to America.

And then in some instances they give, it's next to impossible to make the things they want to make here.

But we could create manufacturing in this country, creating jobs in this sustainable energy field.

places where they are manufacturing solar panels, places where they are more EVs available.

There are opportunities to create those industries, those jobs, and grow the economy.

Absolutely.

I couldn't agree more.

In our organization, one of the things that we emphasized when we released the cost study, which was said that $16 billion would be the impact on the state of Wisconsin,

which is really a low ball number.

Basically it was designed to raise awareness and we recognize that 70% of that $16 billion will fall on city and county governments.

Now just think about that for a minute and the impact that that has and of course we all know that cities and county governments are struggling

struggling mightily to balance their budget.

And when you look at some of the numbers in relationship to the budgets of these individual counties and cities, irregardless of their size, it's a big impact.

Sometimes it's one for one in terms of their city.

or county budgets in terms of what the cost of remediation specifically to that particular county or city, because the cost study like goes down to each individual county, city, village, whatever, whatever.

And that's the point that we're at is talking to elected officials and taxpayers in those jurisdictions to make that point that they need to take this action.

They need to begin the litigation at that level.

It's not, we're not talking about the next Cope Conference or what we can do.

This is litigation pure and simple is what we're pushing for.

We are talking to Dean Muller.

He's the president of Wisconsin for environmental justice.

Dean, we're coming up against a break that we'll get to in just a little bit.

We're going to talk about.

city's infrastructure.

I live in the city of Milwaukee.

The roads have been a long, long standing issue in the city of Milwaukee.

We're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in order to make repairs on that.

Always climate all tied in with our infrastructure.

We'll continue this conversation on the other side.

Stay with us.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

We will be right

back.

And she starts to cry.

She takes a swing, man.

She can't hit.

She don't mean no harm.

She just don't know.

Good

morning.

Welcome back to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach, Calvinator on the board, coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can join us.

Call her text at 855-752-4842.

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

We are joined by Dean Muller, the president of Wisconsin for environmental justice.

Dean, before we went to the break, talked a little bit just about the climate and the change in climate, and it has massive impacts on cities and towns, even little towns, their infrastructure.

affects the roads.

It affects everything, doesn't it?

Absolutely.

And you alluded to the streets of the city of Milwaukee, which are a little rough these days.

They are.

Yes.

And I think a recent story that I came across that gets $821 million is what would take to fix them all up.

So three quarters of a

of a billion dollars absolutely so it would certainly cost a lot of money to repair those and of course we have a major project going on with the three rivers that in the harbor here in Milwaukee which is a half a billion dollar project where they're going to take out all of the

Well, the remediation project would remove the PCBs that are in the three rivers, Monomony KK and the Milwaukee rivers and contain it down near a deposit site down underneath the home bridge.

And that's largely paid by taxpayers, taxpayers.

And of course, the industries,

Used those those rivers is an open sewer or are long gone.

Yeah, and I think running that in you know And I can also make the point that the Wolf River was is a different story.

That's that was the paper industries But in in a court of law they were made to pay and that was a $1 billion cleanup project.

So that must

have been a long time ago.

I

know I know and It's it's it's certainly an issue of fairness.

There's no question about that.

Yeah, it's

Yeah, it's I think we share a common bond with elected officials as taxpayers.

There are a bunch of your straps and so are there.

So if we can come up with some alternate sources of revenue, like what we did during COVID, which was a big success for the country and the state of Wisconsin, in terms of the money that was pumped into this state and really helped to stimulate and get our economy back rolling again, actually had many other countries around the world.

And then we look at other sources of revenue during the opioid litigation, which was three quarters of a billion dollars paid out over 15 years to deal with a problem that affects pretty much every community in the state.

That's extra revenue.

That's mana from heaven, right?

We don't have to ask the taxpayers to pay for it.

And ask the guilty party, in that case, the pharmaceutical companies to pay for it.

And we're having these conversations with all sizes of cities and counties across the state.

And it's just a question of getting this message out there that they can file a litigation as suit.

It doesn't cost them anything to do it.

They're gonna be handled by attorneys on a contingency basis.

And why not?

Why not?

I think it's a fiduciarily responsible thing for them to do as elected officials, in my opinion.

Well, and it just must make your head explode when we were talking about the federal budget that they're kicking around.

There was something dropped in there again, where they're going to give subsidies to coal, but they are going to tax wind and solar, which is like what?

Sounds right, though.

It sounds right.

Yeah.

It's on brand.

It is on brand, isn't it?

Yeah, I know I made a statement there I thought that made a lot of sense But then of course I was once were reminded by someone that be careful Dean when you make too much sense

But when we were talking about when we're talking about renewables Dean if if we do not invest in green energy Aren't we kind of seeding any kind of leadership role that we had to other countries to do this because Just because we're not gonna invest in it doesn't mean that other countries are going to invest in it

Oh, yeah, it is a geopolitical issue.

There's no question about that.

China is certainly a leader in this.

And actually, Europe is second and we're trailing behind in third place.

It's really the way it shakes up right now in terms of the progression towards this technology.

And that does have major geopolitical implications for us.

I don't think I need to spell those out, but I mean, it is what it is.

There's no question about that.

Yeah, it is.

It is a real challenge and something that needs, do we need to address and get moving on?

And we need money to do that.

We need money to do that.

It's a costly area in terms of expenses.

So

we need money and we need partnership and compromise.

We need leaders to finally say, like, look, we can't be beholden to these lobbyists and these companies for, you know, we have to, we have to make a decision and move forward just to, you know,

save ourselves a

little bit.

And stay

competitive.

Yeah, but as long as they keep spinning the narrative that it isn't as bad as we think and we can't live without fossil fuels, it's impossible to do without, then we're going to be sitting here having this conversation all the time.

You're exactly right.

You're exactly right.

I couldn't agree more.

And I think that, you know, the moving the dial on this is going to be, you know, require some, you know, how do I want to say it?

some thought on a part of elected officials.

Again, at the local level, at the local level, since they bear the heaviest burden as far as mitigation is concerned, and they have some real challenges and some real problems.

And of course, I realize that sometimes, maybe I must be honest, all the times that futuristic long-term view is something that is difficult for us to, even as individuals or as forms of government, to take in terms of what is going to look like five and 10 years down the road.

And this has been a slow moving train wreck, a slow, steady moving train wreck.

And every day it gets a little more obvious in terms of what we're seeing.

Dean Muller is the president of Wisconsin for environmental justice.

Thank you so very much, Dean.

Thank you, Dean.

For taking some time out for us.

We will absolutely have you back on the show.

We got news coming up next.

And then when we return, audio Sorbet, we're talking ice cream.

All right.

What's the worst?

This is Matt Mair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.

I said that time may change

Good

morning.

Welcome back to Matt Nair on Air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach, Dr. Slide on the Board, coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text.

at 855-752-4842.

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

Coming up at the very end of the show, we wrap it up as we always do with this.

Shouldn't be a thing.

Today it's the you dirty rant edition.

Even better this time.

Oh, thank you.

I'm practicing trying to make that a little bit better Yep, that's coming up in just a little bit wanted to let you know that we are going out on the road It's

officially official We can officially talk about the official announcement to the official road trip.

Yes of Jane and Todd

Matt Nair on air and Greg and Greg of Matt Nair on air and the Todd Halba show hitting the road in just a couple of weeks.

We will be broadcasting from Oshkosh, from Butternut.

Can't believe a dream come true.

So excited.

And Heyward on July 16th, 17th and 18th.

We're going to be packing in a lot those

three days.

We are going to be doing a lot those three days.

We're

going to be a lot of fun.

I just have one question for you though, Jane.

As we all know, last year, Amory,

Amory,

Amory, was your favorite place you had never been.

And then you went there with Todd.

You loved it.

This year, Butternut has taken that mantle.

I guess the question is, will you be immediately looking for a new favorite place you've never been to once Butternut is

officially on?

Yeah, for

sure.

Always looking.

I can't wait.

Always

looking.

But that's one of the things we love about doing this show is learning about Wisconsin.

Absolutely.