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This is Up North News Radio.
Now, live from our late Minnesota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Breidler.
Hey, good morning.
Welcome back to Up North News Radio.
Unabashedly, Wisconsin, brought to you by Courier Newsroom and carried by our friends here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
at 706 on a Thursday morning, March 27th, where, yes, the brewer's gear is on.
Same goes for Greg Bach, who's got his brew crew t-shirt ready to go.
Meteorologist Brittany Merleau is here as well, who forgot that it was opening day of baseball season, didn't you?
Oh, she's
wearing like cardinals, terrible colors.
I'm just kidding.
Cardinals.
This is Merleau color.
Give me a break.
That's true.
It is a very good Merleau.
Is there a baseball team?
With a Merlot color with like a with a wine Well needless to say while they while they work on that let me tell you about this ours break into spring statewide text-to-win contest you need the civic media app
You're going to text us a keyword each four times a day.
It's a little different each each time at 7 a.m.
11 a.m.
1 p.m.
and 4 p.m.
And for today for this hour the prize Brewer's tickets seems apropos today.
So you're going to text us that keyword before the end of this hour.
and you'll be eligible for those brewery tickets.
Plus, every entry puts you into our grand prize drawing of a brand new Queen mattress set from Verlo that includes mattress, pillows, bamboo sheets, and more.
A little fine print here.
You will get a bounce back text message after each entry.
It gives you a chance for more entries if you decide to click a link to complete some kind of an activity like agreeing to follow a civic media newsletter or something like that.
So be sure to opt in to receiving texts from civic media for your chance to increase your odds of winning prizes.
Full contest rules over at the Civic Media website.
All right, let's look at this hour's keyword and I want to put it up on screen for our people watching on Facebook and YouTube as well.
Play.
P. L. A. Y. Play.
There we go.
I was missing the tic-tac-doe music over there.
So, play is this hour's keyword.
You text that in using the Civic Media app and be entered for your chance to win.
Mr. Bach, what did you learn as far as whether there's a Merlot-colored baseball team uniform?
I've lost him.
He's dancing to the tic-tac-doe.
It's too busy dancing, yeah.
Thank
you.
Nothing.
There are no teams with a wine-themed mascot, although
Although Luke Mathers said the diamond backs.
I'm not sure if he's referring to the Arizona diamond backs at times have had a color that is okay.
Not far off of Ms.
Merlot at all.
The only
thing I can come up with is that many teams have partnered with wine with with vineyards to create
A partnership between the team and because because who doesn't want to pop open a bottle of Yankees 20, you know, like Boy, it tastes
like a
hot day Yankee stadium everybody Yes,
although
Never mind.
We got weather to get to.
It is so gorgeous out there.
I actually went outside during the break.
I'd run outside to take a picture.
The lake is like glass.
It is
reflecting the trees perfectly over on the other side.
The sun is now coming up at the right time.
There was a little hint of light on the Western horizon at 8.30 last
night.
You saw some?
Yay.
Oh, so nice.
And so now we're going to take this whole beautiful weather moment and we're going to ruin it by telling you about the weekend.
Take us for a roller coaster ride, Brittany.
Ready?
Here we go.
OK, so good news first.
Today is just absolutely gorgeous.
It is that spring vibe.
Temperatures right now are in the low 20s north to mid 40s south.
We're looking at clear skies in the northwest.
There are still some clouds in the southwestern half of the state with some spotty sprinkles still left to roll through.
but the sun will come out even for you in the south where it's raining a little bit and up north we're going to see the sunshine all day long continuing to work on that snowfall and of course temperatures today will make it to the low to mid fifties all across the state so very mild comfortable we do start to see some storms though rolling through overnight tonight and through tomorrow morning this will mainly be into the western half southwestern half of the state and again
And like I said, that'll be gone by tomorrow morning.
Then our temperatures take a spike, especially if you live in the southern half of the state.
You could be near 80 degrees tomorrow.
Extreme warmth.
While the other side of the state northeast, we're going to be stuck into the upper forties like here in Wausau.
I'll probably only be in the upper forties on Saturday, but we are looking at rain building back in on Saturday afternoon.
It ramps up into the evening.
It flips to potentially freezing rain and then some snow, especially into our northern areas where we could see a very slippery icy mess out there.
This is Saturday night into Sunday morning, mainly north down south.
It should stay all rain at this point.
Sunday is your day down south where you're going to see rain throughout the afternoon and then at night that starts to flip over to an icy mix and potentially some late snowfall before it departs.
Now in terms of snow totals, I'm going to be honest with you.
I have no idea what's going to really, truly happen because these temperatures are right on that line of the freezing mark.
Some places I could tell you maybe you'll get six inches of snowfall, but it could mix right in with that rain and freezing rain and you'll get nothing.
So this storm is a tough one for all of us right now.
But I'll say I expect icy conditions, especially north on Saturday night.
That condition moves south on Sunday night.
and you'll probably get a little bit of light snowfall at least.
So just plan.
Plan for anything.
It's part of the adventure of seasons here.
Let's see, Rob says, good morning from Tigerton, partly cloudy, 26 degrees, having a nice sunrise.
I can confirm.
Yesterday I got old beast, a new headlight, and it runs like a beast, especially during winter storms.
He says the snow cover is slowly but surely melting, not so fast that the melt is causing flooding.
And he says, happy opening day to the three best morning people around Pat, Pat, Greg and Brittany.
There we go.
And, uh, Tony says, so what I'm hearing is where layers.
Yes.
Layers are your friend this time of year.
Absolutely.
I don't
need layers.
Hootie's always great.
It's fine.
That's the only layer you need.
I
built in layers.
Baby, it's called Taco Bell.
Thank you, Brittany.
Have a great day.
All right.
Coming up in our second half hour here, we are going to be talking to new state representative Ann Rowe and state Senator Kelder Royce.
We'll be talking a bit about next week's elections on April 1st.
She'll be voting for state Supreme Court, for state superintendent, the constitutional referendum, local offices, school referendums are on the ballot as well.
So if you want to know more about where to register, where to vote, what's on your ballot, head over to myvote.wi.gov.
and be sure you take part in these elections.
We will talk to Representative Rowe and Senator Royce coming up in the second half hour.
My guest for the remainder of this hour is Tracy Ann Mangold.
Tracy is a former official with the 8th Congressional District Republican Party in Northeast Wisconsin.
Tracy Ann, how are you?
Good morning.
I'm good.
How are you?
Very good.
Nice to have you here.
It was prompted by an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Tuesday.
The headline tensions over electing a new GOP leader boil over in the eighth congressional district.
And look, this is not the only place where this has happened.
The Michigan Republican Party has famously gone through some turmoil.
I'm sure some other county parties have gone through this as well.
But the upshot, Tracy, is that you have, how do we characterize this?
I'll tell you how the
Trump supporters characterize it as the old guard needing to be, you know, pushed aside for a new round of leaders.
But their practices, their tactics, their behavior isn't sitting well with everybody.
And some folks you included are leaving the party as a result.
Can you give us a little bit more background on what this whole dispute is about?
We have
Turning Point USA, which is a faction of Heritage Foundation that has, you know, outraised RNC left and right.
And they've been infiltrating different county parties, state level, all across the country.
And even on their website, I think it's referred to as the Mount Vernon Project, they specifically say that their goal is to remove old guard Republicans from their positions in the Republican Party.
Um, that is not a good thing.
Um, well, yeah, because now they will, they will say, well, the, they were too status quo, weren't getting things done, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
Whereas, you know, Donald Trump's tactics have surely worked, but it has also led to some interesting, uh, characters moving up into leadership positions.
And I'm not even talking about the secretary of defense, you know, using a texting app.
I'm talking how at the local level.
You've got the new 8th District Republican Chair, who is the chair of the O'Connor County Republican Party, Ken Sakura, who is, shall we say, not being universally accepted, especially by more of the traditional Republicans in the party.
Well, the problem with Ken and with, you know, we have a couple other counties in the 8th that are what we call problem counties right now.
And the issue is they don't want to follow the constitutions and the rules.
So when you go into elected office, especially if you're a county chair, every county has their own constitution, right?
And it behooves the chair to follow the constitution.
I mean, that's what they're for.
Then we have the eighth district constitution, then you have the state party constitution.
And you defer to each constitution as questions arise if you have a conflict or what have you.
Ocantos Constitution specifically says that the chair may not personally or as chair endorse a candidate for office.
Ken did not follow that.
He endorsed Tony Weed.
He actively promoted him.
Brown and Wapaka kind of follow in line with whatever Ken does.
And that's a problem.
And when they try to use our 8th District logo on press releases that counties were sending, which is not
protocol, it is not appropriate.
We emailed them and said, you cannot use district logos without prior authorization.
And they just kind of scoffed at me and our district chair at the time and said, we can do whatever the heck we want.
And when you've got that kind of mentality, they don't follow Robert's rules of order.
There's a reason they have rules within the party.
There's a reason for rules anywhere.
You have to have that sort of, that order, otherwise it's chaos.
And that's what's happening right now.
And you're seeing it.
If there's complete chaos in the eighth district, there's a lot of good counties in the eighth district.
There's a lot of good people in the Republican party.
But the bad, the ones that are, you know, overshadowing them are these trouble counties that, you know, it's just kind of petering out.
rolling into out of control,
basically.
Well, right.
I mean, it's one thing to be, you know, a maverick or to be a little rebellious.
It's another thing to completely disregard, like you said, you know, norms or even good behavior for that matter.
So we're going to continue that conversation with Tracy and Mangold in just a moment.
First, we have to take this break.
So I will let you know quickly here that the Milwaukee Bucks lost in Denver, 127 to 117.
That ends their Western road trip.
They're back at home Friday against the Knicks.
And of course, the
Brewers open the season this afternoon at Yankee Stadium.
This is Up North News Radio.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
We'll be right
back.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
Yeah, I know you thought this was Dick Dale and the Dell Tones again that we played in our last hour.
No, it's the Black Eyed Peas.
with a takeoff of it combining two elements of today's history lesson that Quentin Tarantino turned 62 today and that Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas turns 50 today.
You can catch our history lesson every weekday morning at 6.50 here on Up North News Radio.
We are talking to Tracy Ann Mangolden before we pick up that conversation just to remind her the civic media break into spring keyword for this hour.
play.
So use that Civic Media app and text the word play PLAY and you will be in the running for Brewer's tickets.
That's part of this hour's prize.
Back with Tracy and Mangold now and again a story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that prompts this conversation about you know
tension and infighting amongst a lot of Donald Trump supporters versus people who have probably been active in the party a little bit longer.
From the Journal Sentinel article, there is
looking at O'Connor County and now eighth district Republican Party chair Ken Secora, a 2018 incident in which he pleaded no contest to a charge of battering his wife is what the newspaper article says.
The spouse later said she wanted to pull back the statements and Secora said that it was a, how did he put it here?
I believe a corrupt Democrat prosecutor was the reason why this is still out there.
But Tracey Ann, the point remains that this is somebody that the eighth district is not unanimously behind and it has caused some real.
animosity between people and has really gotten in the way of something that we talk about a lot on this show.
You can be Republican, you can be Democrat, you can be fiercely independent, but are you service minded?
Do you want to serve in government or are you just looking for fame or power or whatever the case is?
And that's what I'm hearing in this story is too many people getting away from the notion of actual service.
Is that an app description?
I can give you an example.
My mother is Shirley Kaufman, longtime chair of Marinette County, former vice chair of the Eighth District years ago when Bill Ross was chair of the Eighth District.
She's been involved with the Republican Party since she was 17.
She's in her late 80s now.
And, you know, she's seen it all.
and she's been chair of Marinette gosh more times than we can count um she is no longer of course chair but this last week she sent a letter of resignation into the Marinette County Republican Party and and said she resigns um this is a woman who's given everything to the party she's seen everything um blood sweat and tears i was raised you know on that in the politics uh with my mom and my grandfather who is town of late chairman and veteran service officer so service is important in my family um
The people that are in it to latter climb, that is a problem.
But it should be a big warning sign for the Republican Party when Shirley Kaufman resigns.
When you've lost, like they said, Johnson said, when you lose Cronkite, you've lost the world.
I think it's something like that.
But when you lose Shirley Kaufman, that's a statement.
Not one person in the Republican Party up in Marinette has commented about it, has said a word to her.
I think it's emblematic of everything else that's happening.
Well, and then when you have other people on the right side of the spectrum, I'm thinking of there's a Meg Ellison, who's on the radio in Warsaw, Jessica McBride, who runs a conservative news website, and they say that they are just being savaged personally on air.
And look, we already know the comment sections can often be a dumpster fire, but there's always, even there, there's some kind of a line that most people would agree.
you don't cross, that a lot of folks are happily crossing to to make personal attacks on people with whom you're having what should be, you know, political or organizational disagreements.
And in their mind, everything's fair game.
I mean, I loved
Being secretary I loved preparing for caucuses.
I love talking to the people It becomes like a family, you know in politics regardless what party you're in you know people So it wasn't an easy decision But it was just untenable as I put in my resignation letter the name calling I was attacked verbally during a meeting because I was trying to hold people accountable.
They're pitting
uh people against other republicans to run for office and unless that person's a really horrible person or candidate or elected official you don't pit your own people against each other and that's what's happening we're seeing it on the national level we'll see it on the state local level and there's a this tone of hate you can't even disagree with somebody you're called names uh you know i was called every name in the book and we're volunteers at the end of the day that's all we are we're volunteers
And that has to be nurtured and taken care of or you're going to lose people within the party.
And that includes, again, finding room for disagreement.
We've said many a time here that I actually want to go back to fighting with Lynn Cheney or Liz Cheney and with other Republicans because the things that we fight about are tax policy, for example, or trade deals or minimum wage.
Now we're on the same side of something because it deals with basic democracy itself.
And in this case, look, we always talk about Democrats and disarray.
We joke all the time about the circular firing squad, but it's because we're having these these disagreements about policy by and large,
where
it sure sounds to me from the outside like this is more an argument about loyalty, that you're either loyal to a fault to
Donald Trump and his acolytes, and there is no room to speak up and say something like, well, even criticizing this recent text chain thing.
But it just seems so much about loyalty, rather than allowing for disagreements about how, how a Republican Party should move forward on policy and ideas.
And they're cannibalizing each other.
I mean, if you saw, you know, the back and forth, Kurt Johnson, the chair up in Kiwani County is an
excellent person.
He was one of the only ones to defend me when I was being attacked within the party.
He worked Capitol Hill, you know, he's no shrinking violet and they just came after him, but he can hold his own.
We need more people like that to stand up against this status quo.
You know, Ken is supported by Joe Gigante.
He's supported by a lot of people, Tony Weed of course,
Um, and Tony weed is not making friends with some of the counties up there.
Um, I'm
hearing
because of his
I was just going to ask you about that.
If, if, you know, what we were hearing is that the Congressman is not being invited to some of his own county party dinners, which should tell you where again, a Congressman could play a role as a, as a peacemaker and all this, uh, or could simply be leading the charge to drive out good people.
Tracy Ann.
Gold is the former Treasurer for the 8th District Republican Party.
Secretary, I'm sorry.
Tracey Ann, thank you so much.
We appreciate the visit.
All right, take care now.
I
Thank you very much.
When we come back, we're going to talk to Senator Kelder Royce and State Representative Ann Rowe.
This is Up North News Radio from Triple Falls.
I'm Pat Krightlump.
turns 56 years old today.
Happy birthday to her.
Again, it's the opening day for the Brewers.
They're in New York to play the Yankees covered starts at 130 on Civic Media stations in Richland Center, Oshkosh, Racine Kenosha, Park Falls and the newest Brewers affiliate up north WBZH in Hayward.
So tune in for Brewers baseball this afternoon.
I don't want to take too much time away from my guests.
So I'm going to just very quickly acknowledge a comment on YouTube.
for somebody goes by Babs.
I mentioned Jessica McBride earlier saying and they said Jessica McBride runs an opinion blog not a news website and she lies and attacks people every day so whatever she gets back she deserves.
I'm so sick of people who think it's okay to lie about people twist the truth and then act like the victim when people return fire and it's always people on the mag aside.
Babs I'm not disagreeing with almost everything that you said there.
Jessica McBride
probably was doing her thing before, you know, folks were on the left, which is what I would refer to as advocacy journalism.
In other words, we're still doing reporting, but you definitely know that it's from a particular point of view.
And Jessica, and I forget the name of her professional partner for the Wisconsin Right Now website, have actually done some investigations and broken some news, but you're absolutely right that at the same time buying large a lot of her opinions, let's just say I disagree with them.
and leave it at that.
But it's definitely a conversation for another day, but it is that...
division on the right and what people on the right are doing that make up part of our next conversation here as we often do on Thursdays.
We try to talk to one member of the state Senate, one member from the Assembly and from the Senate.
We've got Senator Kelder Roy's joining us from Madison, but from out of town.
She's on vacation this week.
And New State Representative Anne Rowe joins us from Jamesville as well.
Representative Rowe, good morning to you.
Thank you for being here.
Good morning.
It's a pleasure to join you.
Thank you.
Yeah, nice to have you here as well.
Senator Royz, you're hearing us okay?
You're doing well?
Absolutely.
Okay.
And Senator, let me thank you again for being part of our Protecting Justice for All event where we talked about the stakes of all of the elections, especially the state Supreme Court race.
And so let me start with you because you've said it so well, but I wanted to make sure folks on the radio heard you as well.
Look, we're not going to get 100% voter turnout.
You never do.
We get a pretty healthy turnout in Wisconsin, which means there's always somebody that you can talk to right now and try to say to them, here's why it's important to vote on Tuesday.
Kelda, why is it important to vote on Tuesday?
Well, the entire future of our state is going to be determined by the outcome of the Supreme Court election.
On the one hand,
We could be Elon Musk's plaything.
We could end up with a corrupt rubber stamp Trump judge on our Supreme Court who will read gerrymandered the state before you can snap your fingers and who would like to reinstate the 1849 abortion ban that bans all abortion.
On the other hand, if we elect Susan Crawford to the court, we could have fair maps.
We could have shared power the way that it's supposed to be in a democracy.
We could have workers' rights.
We could have voting rights.
All of that is at stake.
And we've also got, of course, the state superintendent race, which is going to determine the future of public education in the state, or whether we're going to privatize our public schools.
And a really important constitutional amendment that's going to affect all of our right to vote.
Representative Van Roe, you're newly elected, you went through a grueling campaign, and as your reward, along with all of us in Wisconsin, you get thrown right into another election season, and you see how busy it's been here, hardly gives you a chance to get oriented around the state capital before you end up talking about politics again.
I'm sure you're doing a lot of that these days.
Well, you know, I was thinking about it this morning, and actually,
I am really grateful for a lot of things, but especially in these times of just absolute chaos, and I will say downright horror, certainly at what's going on at the federal level, and certainly what I'm observing thus far across the aisle, sadly, in the assembly.
I am so grateful to have an opportunity to have a small seat off the sidelines and, you know, hoping to make a difference and
and help the people of our communities.
Even if it's with the small stuff, that's really what sold me on going after the seat was that despite the awfulness, there is an opportunity every day to help somebody out even on a small level.
And I really am grateful for that because I think I would lose my mind.
I
am so grateful.
And witnessing what goes across the aisle.
And the last two weeks on the assembly floor have been soul crushing, but at the same time, so proud of our 23 new freshman Democrats and using our voices and sticking up for our beliefs and remaining steadfast.
I hope that brings some
small degree of comfort and hope?
Well,
I'm grateful to hear you talking about the small stuff because it doesn't get mentioned enough that there are daily things that legislators help with every day.
We call it constituent services.
You're connecting people with the resources, you're getting answers to their questions, and all of those things have to be done even as you do
the big picture things.
And I'm going to take the big picture question and bring it back to Senator Roy's over here.
And I'm not looking to necessarily, you know, twist the knife, the eighth district Republicans and Republicans overall, as we saw in this last presidential campaign.
There are some real divisions there.
And it's it's being reflected in all manner of ways.
Kelder Roy's
What lessons can we glean from that in terms of, you know, what, what should voters keep in mind in terms of, I guess I'd frame it as service versus power, but maybe you look at the current divisions a little differently.
You know, we live in this country with hundreds of millions of people who are all very different.
And if you want to.
have the power to do good things, to make people's lives better, to lower costs for working families, to protect people's rights.
The reasons why I'm a Democrat.
Then you have to be willing to work with people who might not agree with you on every issue.
And the way that the Republican Party has been, you know, acquiesced to Trump's very, very extreme, you know, power grabs has corruption to the chaos in Washington.
means that they're not going to be in power for very long because they are drumming out the very people who give their party, you know, their, the life and the intellectual half, the idea of small government conservatism, you know, it's, it's gone, it's dead.
There's as a party for oligarchs, a party of corruption and incompetence and chaos.
And, and they're losing, you know, their, their best people.
who just say, I can't take it anymore.
I don't want to be part of a cult.
I'd like to have less regulation or lower taxes, all of which are valid to argue about in a democracy.
And I just think as Democrats, we have to be willing to say, hey, it's OK that you and I might disagree on this or that policy.
We believe in the big things, which are sharing power in a democracy, having free and fair elections, treating each other with respect,
trying to get things done and you live to fight another day.
Right, well and in one of those
areas where people can have an honest disagreement, Representative Rowe deals with the state budget and a state budget surplus.
And I've come at this from the standpoint of saying, look, it's a $4 billion surplus.
There are definitely people out there who have plans, if they could do it, to spend the whole $4 billion.
There are also folks on the Republican side of things that I think if they had their druthers would would give the whole $4 billion away in tax cuts.
I'm willing to concede that I think probably you first need to determine the size of the tax cut, and then you can work together on how you invest and spend all the rest.
As you head into this session, however, what's been your own guiding philosophy on how the state can craft a new budget that puts that surplus to work in the right way with or without whatever tax relief you think needs to go in there as well?
Wow.
You know, I appreciate that question.
So I look at budgets at any scale as really a reflection of priorities.
And I agree wholeheartedly with Governor Evers' proposed budget centering, you know, really heavy, heavy focus on year of the kid.
Meaning all things, you know, childcare, education, taking care of families, making sure our education, public education, you know, which is in a position of ketchup, doesn't need ketchup.
And yet the budget is prudent.
In my opinion, it is affordable.
And I'm a stickler in all of my service and all of my work.
I drill down on those numbers and make sure that we have the math to support what we're going after.
And I think the math is there.
Now, this is particularly tricky given the national federal landscape.
We all need to have our heads on swivels and be ready to pivot.
I got a question at a town board meeting the other night.
if these federal cuts go through you know you know it'll be a while right before we feel the effect and i'm like no no no no like right now we will feel the effect right now so i think the budget is nimble
You know, budgets are going to go through push and pull and negotiations of some sort.
But to Senator Roy's point, I really believe there's some strong areas in there that will bring bipartisan, or should bring bipartisan support in keeping property taxes flat.
and rewarding those municipalities and cities that keep their budgets in line and helping them, you know, with incentives from that standpoint.
So placing the trust as it should be at the town and municipal level to manage their budgets.
But every town board meeting I go to, you know, it's roads, fire and safety.
roads, fire and safety.
I
think the budget gets at that.
Again, I think it's prudent and that's surplus.
You know, you do, you get a sense of how people must spend money in their own household budgets, right?
Senator, how about you?
In terms of how this budget moves forward, you've spent an immeasurable amount of time working on crafting state budgets.
How do you see this process going forward this year?
Well, listen, I mean, the chaos and the uncertainty out of Washington DC means that our first priority needs to be making sure that we do not further debase Wisconsin's ability to
help our people to make sure that the families, the veterans, the seniors, the kids that are being hurt by Trump's attacks on our government and our public services, that we're going to help us get through this.
I think it would be incredibly irresponsible to be pushing through more tax breaks, especially because
you know Republicans have been relentlessly focused on cutting taxes for the wealthiest you know the millionaires and the billionaires and the big corporations who now pay a smaller share of taxes than they have at any point in my lifetime um and it's it's really appalling and that's all come at a great expense to our kids our public schools our local governments the core public services that have made wisconsin a great place
to live and raise a family.
And that's all in jeopardy now.
So I'm not really interested in having some kind of conversation about more tax cuts for the wealthy.
When we've got schools where kids, an entire generation of kids has not seen an inflationary increase ever.
That is shameful, shameful.
We've cut a billion dollars from public higher education, which is cutting off our future economic
success.
So until we start actually, you know, fixing these, the starvation mode that we've been putting our most important public services on, I really don't want to have more conversations about what more should we do for the wealthiest and big business in this state.
Yeah, and it bears something that you touched on and doesn't get talked about nearly enough because nobody wants to defend taxes at any level, it seems.
But the tax burden, not the tax dollars you pay, but the tax burden, the percentage of household income that goes to all taxes, the percentage of household income that goes to all taxes, that's the tax burden, is probably at the lowest it's been in our lifetimes or certainly in a very, very long time.
And yet,
that that debate is still gonna go on.
Folks like Senator Roy's are gonna do just what she said.
Make sure that these tax cuts aren't disproportionate to the wealthiest families and businesses in Wisconsin.
Senator Keldor Roy's, thank you so much for joining us, Representative Van Roe.
Great to see you again.
Hope you guys enjoy the rest of your week.
Thanks for your time.
Thanks, Pat.
All right, when we come back, we will have Luke Mather.
He's talking about what else you can find across the Civic Media Radio Network on this Thursday morning.
We'll be right back.
I'm Pat right now.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
We are marking the anniversary of Sammy Hagar joining Van Halen.
with some walk-up music appropriate for somebody as handsome and capable as Luke Mathers.
In his... Interesting... Yes, he's still handsome and capable.
In his interesting brewer's headgear... How do we describe that to one of those hats with a very wide brim and a drawstring on it?
Is this not
the baseball hat?
That is a... Luke, that is a baseball hat.
This is a baseball hat.
It says Milwaukee.
Well, it says brewers on
it.
Oh, oh, it says
war.
So it's
a baseball
hat
or it's a insurance hat.
I don't know.
Whatever you want to be.
You know what?
It's true.
That's the field.
That's where they play.
They're fine.
I'll throw.
I throw my brewers back
on here, too.
Oh, yeah.
Well, I have another pair of headphones I can put on like there.
And there you go.
We could all do things I was
like what brewer gear should I wear and I haven't had a chance to wear this one yet I got it at the stadium.
It's a fisherman's cap or
a
pocket hat
for folks listening at home that don't get the pleasure of watching us right now on the live stream.
But this, it will protect me from
the sun.
Yeah, nor should you.
Yes, it is very good for sun protection.
There's absolutely no doubt about that.
Quick reminder, you have got about five minutes left to text play, PLAY.
That is the Civic Media Break into Spring Contest keyword.
And then your next chance to win will be at 11.
Brewer's tickets are up for grabs this hour.
Other times it's a stay at Chula Vista in Wisconsin Dells.
Other times.
It's a hundred dollars cash, but get the tickets text and play this hour and then you're in the in the running for the grand prize of the Verlo mattress set as well If you will excuse me just to I want to fill in and correct something I said just before the break about the tax burden in Wisconsin And this is from the Wisconsin policy forum a nonpartisan think tank That puts these things together when we talk about the tax burden what I was thinking about that they calculated back in January
By tax burden, they mean state and local tax collections.
So they don't measure the federal part of it because they're the Wisconsin policy form.
So what are state and local tax burdens like?
And it is, in fact, at its lowest percentage of household income since 1970.
which is probably when they started measuring these things.
And it just is.
But now look, no politician is going to run and say, hey, your taxes are too low.
But that's not the point.
The point is when you're saying, oh, the taxes are strangling me.
They're really not.
They've been so much higher.
They've been a much higher percentage of household income.
We've just demonized taxes and government and public service so much that you get things like we had earlier this hour.
The infighting with the 8th District Republican Party or people just denigrating politicians overall.
It all gets me back, Mr. Mathers, to Civic Media.
and where I'm glad we have a network finally and some shows that properly note that people of all stripes can engage in public service or can talk about these things and have these disagreements.
And we've got some tremendous shows up and down the network that allow this to happen with some with guests, some with phone calls.
You've got the whole smear down there.
Yeah, we've got a little bit of everything and I think one of the the big aspects pat to to note is public service doesn't necessarily look the same for everyone
because when some people think of public service they think of just elected officials or or folks that are running for office either in their community or at the national level but public service can mean a whole lot more than that and I think it's important to be having those conversations because you don't necessarily think of your library your your city clerks the the polling officials they're like there's so many different ways
to have public service and to provide either your volunteer or your work or a number of other aspects.
And so it does look different.
We have a variety of shows for all Wisconsinites to be able to tune in, engage, listen, be informed, be entertained.
And it's really exciting.
And one of the cool aspects of Civic Media as well, we got five.
five Milwaukee Brewer stations.
So yes, public service, huge important, but today it is the kickoff of the Milwaukee Brewer 2025 season.
And I'm very excited to get to follow the crew all season long.
You can listen in southeastern Wisconsin on WRJN.
You can listen on WRCE in southwestern Wisconsin.
Oshkosh in the Fox Valley has WISS and
tremendous stations as well up in the Northwoods with our friends at Park Falls and Hayward.
And so you can listen to the Mawky Brewers, whether you're in pretty much any portion
of the state.
Your co-host has decided to join.
You just jump right in your lap and start licking you.
Yes, she's
saying play ball because that is one of her favorite pastimes as well.
And now she knows the Brewers are about to kick off their season.
I thought maybe the dog was going for the hat.
Yeah, she probably is.
No.
I
miss my dog.
I had my fantasy baseball draft last night and
it was
about three hours of auction and she was doing the same exact thing.
I was sitting here at my desk and uh, trying to figure out which players had the best value and she was, she was trying to
look my ear the entire time.
I happen to know that you work for a living and I know how hard you work.
I tried fantasy baseball for one year.
It's exhausting.
I mean fantasy football, you're, you're, you know, maybe on a weekly basis you're making some decisions like.
Every day you could torpedo yourself if you're not paying attention to your team.
And here you are.
You're such an overachiever.
I just think of that Gary Gaulman bit where he's like, you're not even trying to be a player or a coach.
You're trying to be an administrator.
Hey, I'll show up to the bat in cages too, just to get the player fulfillment.
But you know, it's fun.
I had no idea what I was doing.
I did my first season last year.
just completely no clue.
I'm learning a lot.
I didn't get last place, so really that was
my
super bowl.
That was my World Series.
I didn't end up in last, and now I'm hoping to improve upon last year's record.
Do me a favor.
If there is a prize for losing, make sure it's not doing five minutes at an open mic because we get guys doing it all the time.
I lost my fantasy football guy.
I do comedy.
I'm glad your punishment is my art.
Yeah.
Brought to you by Greg Bach and comedy club owners everywhere.
Don't do it.
I think I
would crush that punishment
though.
Challenge accepted.
All right.
Thank you, Mr. Mathers.
Have a great day.
Greg Bach is back for Matt and Air on Air.
Two short hours from now.
Be sure to tune in for that.
Thanks to all of you for joining us on Up North News Radio.
Enjoy the rest of your Thursday.
We will see you Friday morning here up north.
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