Cross Wisconsin from Civic Media.
This is Up North News Radio.
Now, live from our Lake Minnesota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News at Bright
Love.
Good morning.
Welcome back to Up North News Radio, unabashedly, Wisconsin.
enthusiastically a little bit of Idaho on the side brought to you by courier newsroom and carried by our friends here on the civic media radio network is 706 across wisconsin 606 out here in the mountain west and it's nice to have you along on this thursday april 10th coming up this hour state representative tipp maguire a member of the joint finance committee talking about the state budget joint finance committee democrats were on the road this week talking about
the more than a decade of underfunding done to our public schools.
So is a $4 billion surplus really a surplus?
It's the old thing about asking, you know, if you have $1,000 in the bank, but you got a hole in the roof, you know, do you really have $1,000 in the bank?
We'll talk about the right and wrong ways that Representative McGuire could see the state budget going.
Coming up later this hour, Luke Mathers will join us as well.
There are some changes a common to civic media.
some really nice ones.
We first told you about them yesterday that this particular show is going to be expanding to three hours from six to nine a.m.
coming up in a couple of weeks here and we'll get Luke to dish the dirt on what else is going to be changing around this place.
You know what else is going to be changing?
These chilly, chilly temperatures in the morning hours.
Meteorologist Brittany Merleau is here to say the change is coming.
It just ain't today.
No,
not today.
But it's there.
It's on the horizon.
It's on the way.
I feel like we're just being
let along here.
And at one point, you're like, welcome to forever cold.
No, no, it'll be not this next week.
But I would say the week after is where we're going to start hearing, yep, we should be at 90 by the end of the week here.
We just go boom right into instant summer.
It happens a
lot.
Yes, it is.
It really does.
Yeah, but a little a little a little bit unsettled today and we're talking about the weather, not the show, but but by all means tell us more.
Yeah, we've got like a little traffic jam of low pressure systems.
They're all kind of coming heading towards Wisconsin and sliding underneath it and moving away from us.
So what that's going to do is bring us just these cloudy, dreary skies all day long.
We've got thick fog in places like Tomahawk where visibility is near zero at times and a lot of mist throughout the state as well.
So when we go through the afternoon, some spotty showers are definitely possible more on the west side of the state versus statewide.
So just keep an eye out for that.
They won't be heavy or anything.
But temperatures today staying stuck to those low to mid forties for most of us, you will possibly scrape 50 degrees far south and west.
And then tomorrow, everybody's warming up.
The sun comes back out.
The clouds leave us alone.
We're going to climb to the mid fifties, which is where we should be for this time of year.
So very seasonal and sunny.
And then as we go into Saturday, the sun continues to shine bright.
We'll all be feeling those low to mid sixties, enjoying the weekend and then Sunday.
Far up north, your weekend is going to be ruined by a little bit of rain by Sunday afternoon and into the evening.
Far south, though, you'll stay dry, just more clouds starting to push in.
Now, Sunday still stays warm.
We will be in those low 60s south and then some 40s possibly up north where the rain is falling and that rain continues into Tuesday where it could mix with a little bit of snow.
But after that,
We do start to moderate things mild out and I do see a lot more sixties in the future.
Is this the day if you write in your diary, Dear Diary, Brittany mentioned snow today, April 10th.
And at some point we go back and we look back and when it was the last time we mentioned snow and it was April 10th.
Could this be it?
I hope so.
I just want to tell you really quick, Brittany, that I tried to employ the knowledge you give us with someone last night.
I was at the open mic at the club and this guy came up and he goes, I just can't handle all this cold and all this.
And he was going on.
I'm like, I feel for a man.
And I want to be like, it's going to get warmer this week.
And he goes, but you know what?
Some people want to say it's climate change, but it's climate manipulation.
And I go, you know what?
Yeah, you're right.
Cold sucks.
I just couldn't do it.
I'm like.
Yeah.
And he said it with such confidence.
And so he's like, he's like, yeah, I want to take climate change with now, man.
It's climate manipulation.
That's what's happening
right now.
Yes, it is.
Yes, it is.
Yes, Brittany is part of big climate manipulation.
Yes, exactly.
from the people with the lasers and yeah.
Like I have time for that, right?
No kidding.
Brittany, thank you so much.
Have a very nice day.
All right.
Again, State Representative Tim McGuire coming up in just a bit.
I was just peeking at this morning's edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel online.
And actually, before you even get to the story, I will say again.
news is worth paying for, good news is worth paying for.
And the news business has never been great about creating the model for subscriptions and online and, you know, making the revenue for what they do, which is why I'm saying you should subscribe to the new sites that you trust and have provided you with good information.
So you should be subscribing to the Milwaukee Journal or the New York Times or whatever the case may be.
It also feels good when you cancel it when you're like, okay, you've kind of fallen out of favor looking at you, Washington Post.
But anyway, back to the journal Sentinel, which I pay for.
From Dan Bice and Allison Durr, crime-related TV ads consumed $27 million of spending in the Wisconsin Supreme Court rates.
Again, just how do you even start to put that into perspective of what a whole bunch of rich people could have done?
with $27 million other than putting ads up about pedophiles and sexual assault cases and things that a state Supreme Court justice does so very little with.
And that doesn't mean that it's an invalid issue in a campaign, but to have that much focus and that much money on it tells you something.
It tells you that this is not about informing people about a candidate so much as it is about fear and using fear to manipulate voters because it works.
It wouldn't work so well if you had limits on campaign spending.
fundraising because now you've only got a precious few resources and if that's all you were doing were crime ads people would be like well I don't even know who this person is you have to do the ads that introduce yourself talk about your positions where you're from Susan Crawford talking about growing up in Chippewa Falls and things like that but when you've got more money than you could possibly count you'll put that extra money in anything that will buy you one extra vote and have it done through fear
And so the article notes that conservative advertisers outpaced the liberal advertisers.
Conservatives put $15 million into crime focused ads compared to $12 million from liberal groups that were hitting Brad Schimmel all through this time.
So again, you can see more of that in the journal Sentinel.
The other story that we've been talking about today, and I don't know that it's been much of a story elsewhere, but it's something that we
we were tipped off about yesterday saying, Hey, did you know Congressman Derek Van Orden was like screaming at a witness?
No, tell us more.
And so we looked up the on YouTube, and it's right there, the video of the House Agriculture Committee discussing the potential for cuts.
Now, again, it's Republicans who control
the House of Representatives, they control the committee, they control the agenda.
And so the title of Tuesday's hearing was something like the value of work.
Because what they didn't want to title it is we're going to make the work requirements so stringent that you can't find a job that qualifies and so you're not going to be able to afford groceries.
You couldn't fit all that on the title.
So it was about the value of work and saying that we're we're not cutting benefits.
We're just saying there should be more work requirements even though there are already work requirements for what used to be known as food stamps, the supplemental nutrition assistance program, otherwise known as SNAP.
And there was, and I think Greg still has the audio here.
So we've got a little time.
I'll play it now and then we'll do some sports after the break here.
But for folks that missed it last hour, and usually I tell you, you can go to the Civic Media website and listen back to past episodes.
But again, here's two minutes out of the whole five minute rant by Derek Van Orden, talking to a witness, a professor from Northwestern University, somebody who
knows their stuff.
And Dr. Diane Schwarzenbach works on nutrition, education and health programs.
She talks about the measured impact of increased work requirements or slashing the benefits for SNAP.
And after she was all done, Greg just sent me the actual title of it was the power of work, expanding opportunity through SNAP.
And by expanding opportunity, meaning, you know,
get out.
It doesn't matter what your particular circumstance is.
Snap is supposed to be a bridge for most people.
It is supposed to be a transition.
There are also other people whose circumstances are just what they are.
And those were all outlined to the members of Congress of people who for whatever reason involving disabilities or parenthood or a host of other circumstances.
But if you strengthen the work requirements and they can't go do the work or they only can find a minimum wage job, they're out of luck.
That's what dr. Schwasenbach testified about and then Derek van Orden used his five minutes to do this here's two minutes worth
Hey, I want to clear the air and I'm going to dispel some things if you're receiving Benefits from the federal government lawfully as an American citizen your benefits are not going to be reduced by a nickel Okay, I'm gonna say it again
If you're an American citizen that is lawfully receiving benefits from the federal government, your benefits will not be reduced by a nickel.
Write that down.
Things have changed.
And the same people that told you during the last budgetary cycle that Republicans are gonna cut Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, WIC, SNAP, they lied to you.
They lied.
openly to the American public.
They're the same people that lied to you and are fear mongering with hungry children and those most in need in our country.
And it's unacceptable and it's despicable.
This should be a nonpartisan committee.
They're lying.
I'm over it.
Stop it.
You, you're wrong.
My Democrat colleagues, there's billions and billions and billions of dollars in fraud with these programs.
Refining a program does not say getting rid of the program.
It's refining it.
Dr. Schozenbach, you said that work requirements are really good at getting people off of SNAP.
What's the purpose of SNAP?
To be on SNAP forever?
No, but we want people to leave SNAP.
Okay, so hold on.
Hey
doctor, how many years did you go to school?
A lot.
Like how many?
17.
Okay, so I dropped out of high school as a sophomore.
The advantage of being a high school dropout is what you don't have.
Like you don't get it.
The metric of success are people who are working.
Are you familiar with
the source?
But
they're not
working.
But it's dropping off.
Don't interrupt me.
And what you're talking about is perpetuating the cycle of poverty.
And you're trying to enslave Americans and keep them repressed.
And that is below the dignity of your station, ma'am.
I yield back.
We talked in the last hour of what's below the dignity of the station of a congressman is behavior like that and screaming you're wrong at somebody who has studied an issue better than you.
And as somebody like Derek Van Orden, who grew up poor with a single mom on food stamps, learning the value of work, I also learned how to treat people and how not to treat people and how just because you're not poor anymore,
doesn't give you any right to judge those who are and what their circumstances might be.
More after this on Up North Use Radio on the Civic Media Radio Network.
In today's history lesson, we told you how Frampton Comes Alive by Peter Frampton was number one on the album chart this week in 1976 and would be the number one album for 10 weeks during its phenomenal run from a guy who basically came out of thin air.
And people just loved the live album so much and turned him into a megastar.
As always, you know, an overnight success is not really overnight.
There's
years
and years of practice that go into it.
But some people are just like, where did this guy come from?
That was definitely the case with him.
Overnight success Greg Bach is gonna be proving that success again tonight with his comedy chops, I believe.
Was
it tonight you said?
Yeah, it's my
comedy
chops.
Why am I doing Peter Griffin a lot?
I don't know.
It's a default.
It's just a I don't know.
I have no idea.
Maybe I wanted to come back.
I have no idea.
Hey, better that than quagmire.
Okay.
Basically, if you can do a Seth MacFarlane voice, you can do them all.
So tonight I will be featuring, which means also known as middling.
So there'll be a host, most likely me and then a headliner, but I will be performing tonight at the Milwaukee improv, the Milwaukee improv located in Brookfield, Wisconsin.
One show, seven PM.
Come on out.
If you're living in the area, I'd love to see you.
I'd love to see you come out and support.
comedy.
Uh, there is at that club, there is a two drink minimum or two item minimum, I should say.
And so you will have to two breadsticks, please.
I'd like a half a breadstick and the other half, please, please.
Thank you.
But yeah, so come on out.
We'll have some fun.
So the company's name is Chapo Lacey.
I've seen him online a lot.
He's very, very funny.
And I was very flattered because they asked me this feature.
So there you go.
Milwaukee Improv tonight, 7 p.m.
Come on down.
Let's high five and be friends.
There
you
go.
All right.
I also want to thank folks who are commenting on the text line here.
They include John in Oshkosh and Laurie in Hayward, both wanting to make points about
the president flip-flopping on tariffs again.
And as as Joseph Pecky, are those flip-flops, Greg?
Yeah, very sticky flip-flops.
Yes, they are.
But like Joseph Pecky said, you know, in in our last hour, it's just it looks funny now.
I mean, the president has talked a couple of times now about how much people made money over the past couple of weeks.
And
The White House has been saying, and Trump's been saying, and the Treasury Secretary was saying, oh, this was all intentional.
All this misdirection.
Nobody knows what to expect next.
Wow, where am I going to go?
And this was the plan all along, and that people are making money as a result of it.
A lot of people didn't make money in the past couple of weeks here.
And it does make you wonder, Joseph Becky's words were, don't be surprised if you learn that much like there was a signal chat about war plans.
that you're gonna find at some point a signal chat with members of Congress.
And when you look at their personal wealth and how it changed over the past week, you might learn something.
I don't know that it happened.
I'm just saying I wouldn't
be surprised.
Pat, you have a grandson right there.
He's how old?
He's... He's 11.
11.
Has that 11-year-old grandson ever walked up to you and he said something and you correct him?
And he says, well, that's what I meant, man.
It's really what I wanted to do.
You know, I was just... And you just look at him and you just give him that like...
Okay, yeah, you were.
Of course you were.
That's fine.
That's how I feel right now.
I feel like we're now looking going, of course, this is what you planned all along.
You're that smart.
Yeah, go
ahead.
The 11-year-old could probably do a better job of sticking to something.
The same 11-year-old who yesterday gave us the lava chicken song.
Lava chicken.
Lava chicken.
It's tasty as
heck.
Minecraft movie and chicken jockey and who last night got to pick where we were going to dinner.
He said we can go anywhere.
We had to run some errands so we were in like the mall area of Idaho Falls and I said look all around wherever you want to have dinner.
We'll have dinner.
We'll have your brother meet us here after he gets off work and he points to the International House of Pancakes.
And so we had breakfast for dinner and thank you had his pancakes.
He requested strawberry syrup, the strawberry syrup, so much of it that it was pulled all around his scrambled eggs.
And he was eating it up.
I'm like, are you are you liking that?
And he's like, yeah.
So that's that's 11 right there.
Yeah.
And yet, I feel like I could trust him with my money more than I could certain people in high places in Washington, D.C.
these days.
I'm a little like getting to sports here, but Jackson Churio?
Still still getting it done.
Yeah,
five RBIs a Homer a double Plenty of other fireworks from the Brewers bats as they beat the Rockies again 17 to 2 That series is gonna wrap up this afternoon in Colorado and covers begins at 135 on several civic media stations around the state head over to the civic media website to learn more and then the Brewers will be off to Arizona for a series over the weekend the Milwaukee Bucks will be home Thursday
against New Orleans.
We also have our daily newsletter to tell you about.
You can sign up for it at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
You're on a bashedly Wisconsin news that today includes the first of what are going to be several installments of stories about Wisconsin road trips.
One of our favorite things to talk about and do stories about as we approach and go through the summertime are places that you might not have thought of or you might have forgotten about and would like to go back to.
So we we've got all the details on that coming up in just a little bit too.
Greg, this is also the point where I normally on my computer bring up.
We have this little content calendar that tells us who all is appearing on civic media.
Yeah.
And I don't know if it was the Wi-Fi here or what, but my other laptop here completely reset.
Like I need a password for everything.
Passwords need passwords.
My passwords need passwords, so I'm not able to call that up.
Would you, uh, half hour earlier than I normally ask you, want to tell me what's on matinee around
there today?
Absolutely.
Today it's Thursday.
So in that 10 30, we're going to have Jim Santella host of amicus, a law review on the show.
And we go over all the law news that's happening.
And there's always a lot.
So he'll be on a 10 30 be great.
Always love having him on the show.
Also check out his show nine to 11 a.m.
on Saturdays, amicus, a law review.
It's, it's a deep dive.
It's, it's, it's law school in a radio show, in my opinion.
Um,
And then at 11 20, we're going to have Brittany Merlot giving us the miserable cold weather report.
And then one more day, one more day.
And then at 11 30, we got Paul Newton doing sports.
We're going to talk about the brewers.
We're going to talk about how the great they're doing.
And I'm also going to bring up a point that no one's really talking about right now is the fact that Cubs are in first place with a healthy lead.
I know it's early, but I said this last year.
I think Craig Council may have found his footing.
And if he does, then we all have to watch out for that.
Yes, that is very true.
Later this hour, Luke Mathers is going to be here to talk about changes at Civic Media, but I'm going to tell you about one of them right now, just because it leads to this great little punchline.
And it's about our friend, Dr. Kristen Lierly.
who is getting her own show.
Saturday afternoons three o'clock on the Civic Media Stations in Green Bay and Oshkosh.
And one of the Green Bay stations did a nice little write up about Kristen getting the radio show.
You'll recall she ran against Tony Weed for Congress last year.
Tony Weed's spokesperson said something like, well, the show is just a desperate cry for attention and wants to be relevant.
To which Kristen promptly replied, yes, but at least on Saturdays at three, unlike our congressmen, people will know where I'll be.
You can catch Kristen Lively on Saturday afternoons on Civic Media.
Representative Tim McGuire is next.
You're up
north.
Brian Setsch returns 66 years old today.
You can catch her history lesson every morning at 6.50 here on Up North News Radio.
Let's welcome into the program, State Representative, Tip McGuire, who's a member of the Joint Finance Committee from the Kenosha area.
They were on the road this week hearing more from constituents about the state budget.
Representative McGuire, good morning.
How are you?
I'm doing well,
Pat.
It's good to see
you.
You as well.
It has been a while and we want to get to the budget stuff first, but first before, because it's been a while.
And I don't think I've ever asked you this very probing personal question before.
Where'd Tip come from?
Oh, well, when I was born, the speaker of the house was Bonille, and my parents were fans.
And he got his name from his first and middle name, which is Thomas Phillip.
And my first and middle name are Thaddeus Patrick, his Thaddeus Patrick.
named
after
the patron saints of Armenia and Ireland.
I'm half Armenian, half Ireland, but I have Irish, excuse me.
And so my parents just followed suit from the day I was born.
They nicknamed me Tip, just like Tip O'Neill.
Perfect.
See, it's got reasoning behind it.
That's the thing.
You know, it's not like, you know, well, I called my kid, you know, Mustang, because I passed a Chevy Mustang on the way to the hospital.
It's got some significance.
I like it very much.
They did condemn me to a life in politics, though.
That's you know what I'm good with it and a whole lot of other people are including in that district that you represent where again because of new maps the things are a little bit more competitive as a result perhaps the next state budget won't be an extreme document
But it is clearly one where Republicans are in the majority.
They're trying to craft it as much to their liking as possible.
They're on the road right now taking testimony.
Two hearings down, two to go.
But you and the other Democrats on the Joint Finance Committee decided to continue listening to constituents.
And that took you out to at least one community this week that we wanted to find out more about.
Yeah, so this past Tuesday, we visited Dodgeville.
As I'm sure you've seen, Pat, they've attempted to have pass a referendum for their local, the Dodgeville School District twice now because they are really struggling under the failure of the legislature to properly fund public education.
This has been a recurring battle now for nearly 15 years.
our schools have not received funding that they should from the state legislature.
And so we traveled down to Dodgeville to hear from people about their experience and to learn a little bit more about the challenges that they're facing in trying to fund their local schools.
And there's
really two big things that we learned while we were there.
The first is that, you know, obviously parents are very concerned about what will happen if their schools don't have the resources that they need.
you know some reports would say that they're going to increase class sizes by five kids per class size.
There's going to be a whole host of cuts potentially that could impact how the how the experience that kids have in the classroom goes and that'll impact their opportunity moving forward.
And then the second thing that we heard was was from
senior citizens and others who were concerned, who wanted to invest in their public schools, but were concerned about the increase in property taxes simply because they live on a fixed income and affordability under Donald Trump is really challenging for a lot of people and prices continue to go up.
And so in having this conversation, one of the messages we wanted to give them is that the good news is it doesn't have to be a choice between those two things.
Governor Evers has put into his budget.
He's increased special education reimbursement so that every school district in the state will be receiving more money from the state of Wisconsin.
It will help fill this.
Unfortunately, failure of the legislature to fill our promise to reimburse those rates at 60% instead were somewhere in the 30s, and that's been causing a lot of problems for a lot of school districts.
But on top of that, Governor Evers also put in nearly $2 billion of property tax relief.
into his budget because he knows that so many communities have been raising their own property taxes to pay for their public schools.
And it's become a real challenge for a lot of families.
I don't know if you know this, but over 200 school districts went to referendum since the beginning of 2024.
We have 421 school districts in the state.
That means that nearly half, if not more than half of the school districts in Wisconsin have had to go find extra revenue from their property taxpayers.
And we believe that that is something that doesn't need to happen, especially when the state has a $4.3 billion surplus and that the state can put in the resources to make sure that we're keeping property taxes low, but also that our kids have opportunity in their schools.
And to go way back, and this back to my time in the legislature, and that for the 16 years that state aid has not kept up with inflation.
And we're talking about a surplus now, but 16 years ago, there was like this $6 billion deficit.
And so state aid was what was supposed to be temporarily
decoupled from inflation.
It used to be indexed to inflation.
It was decoupled with the understanding that when the Great Recession was over and the economy improved, you would again index state aid to the inflation rate.
But of course, Republicans took over in 2011.
They've never put that indexing back in.
And state aid has fallen short.
There's this three-legged stool for funding our schools.
There's state aid.
There's local property taxes.
And there's some federal dollars.
And we already know what Elon Musk and Donald Trump are doing to that leg of the stool on the federal dollars.
And we're asking, you know, we're asking taxpayers to just balance the stool on the one leg of higher and higher property taxes.
At least, you know, you've got the governor saying, here's what we can do with the state leg of it.
But the question I always wonder tip is whether enough people understand that yet they understand if they understand the reason why we have this revolving door of referendums and who's responsible for it.
Thank goodness you're at least out there on the road telling people.
Yeah, well, it's always better to communicate, which you know because you're an expert at it.
But I'll say this, I do think that people are, they do understand that, and certainly the people in Dodgeville do.
You know, I'll note that Dodgeville is represented by Senator Howard Markline, who is the co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee.
So he's one of the most powerful Republicans in the state of Wisconsin, and one of the men who has the most opportunity to change those things, and he can do it for his home district.
Wouldn't that be nice if the people that he represents would be able to
have good public schools without having to raise their own property taxes.
So I think the more that we get the word out, I think more people will see and understand that this has been something that has been deeply and distressingly underfunded and that it's really putting pressure more on their.
their affordability, their ability to afford their home, their ability to stay in their home if they're on a fixed income long term.
And this is where I again really want to tip my cap to the Wisconsin Public Education Network because they've they've done something that we, I think a lot of folks in the legislature wish was done more easily and they finally did it.
they broke the numbers down by legislative district so that where people are living, whether Howard Markline would be a good indication, they can say here's the money you're getting, here's the money that's being skimmed off the top to go to the voucher school program and things like that.
It really is about making this as local an issue as possible for people to understand it.
So as they're hearing about this, and we certainly do have two more public hearings for the Joint Finance Committee, but as I mentioned more than once on this program,
There are plenty of ways that people can convey their feelings about what should be in the state budget to their member of the legislature.
So this is your chance as well to say for the people in your district, the people listening today, what would you like them to do?
What's your call to action to them when it comes to the state budget?
Well, the first thing I'll say is, Pat, as another man named Chip once said, all politics is local.
There
you go.
And the personal experiences of everyday people is the most powerful thing that we have, the stories that you have.
And so I'll just highlight a few things.
If you have good stories about your experience in your public schools or your support for your public schools, you should reach out to the Budget Committee.
I believe Pat has the email right there on the screen, but if you can't see it, it's budget.comments at legis.wisconsin.gov, GOV.
And if you if or you can look me up, I'm the only tip in the legislature.
You can certainly send it to me.
It's pretty easy to find me.
But I'll also say we have a number of other provisions within this budget that are incredibly important.
One of them, the governor has pushed to make Wisconsin the first state in the country that will audit health insurance companies that deny an excessive amount of claims.
And so if you or your family have had claims denied or you've been put in a difficult financial position and you feel willing to talk about that, please reach out to us.
Let us know.
There's a tremendous amount of issues in this budget.
They're very important, but honestly, Pat, it's the personal stories of people who have experienced these things that is the most powerful tool we have in persuading others and in getting the word
out.
I didn't want to interrupt all the good things you were saying that could go into the budget.
But when you mentioned that one, I wanted to jump in and say that, yes, I don't think nearly enough is being said.
And frankly, parades should be held for Governor Evers for proposing this whole notion of if you want to do business in the state of Wisconsin, if you want to be a health insurance company here, and you start jerking Wisconsin people around, there will be an audit if his proposal were to pass into law.
It seems so basic.
given what so many people have had to go through with their health insurance companies, that I am frankly surprised that we don't hear more about that.
And that of course is just one of the many provisions of the budget.
We wouldn't have time to go through them all, so I'm just gonna ask you for one or two other personal preferences of things that you're working on, things that you'd really like to see in the budget, or other legislation standalone that you're working on that you'd like to get done this session if possible.
Well, I think the things that I'm most focused on in the state budget right now are obviously public schools and making sure that Wisconsin consumers are protected.
When they contract with a health insurance company, they should get covered for the services that they're paying for.
And so I think that's a really important part of all this.
But there's also a number of things that the governor has done that impact affordability for working families.
Obviously,
Childcare continues to be a major cost for a lot of families, and the governor has once again made a push for the child care accounts program.
But there's also efforts, as I said earlier, to lower property taxes and to make the healthy school meals for all.
I'm not sure if you've seen this one, Papo, but we discovered that this could save working families with children in school up to $1,800 a year on groceries.
And given the rise in prices that we've seen across the country and that may be coming further,
I think that's really important thing that working families could benefit from.
And then lastly, obviously, if we accepted federal Medicaid dollars, we've seen study after study, state after state, this actually lowers the cost of private health insurance for regular consumers as well.
And so.
Look, if I were to tell you we had a budget that could save people money on groceries, it could save people money on their property taxes, it could save them money on childcare, and it could lower the cost of their health insurance, I think you would say that seems pretty good.
And honestly, that's what we've been pushing is to make sure that people's lives can be more affordable and that they can still have the services that they
need.
Well, that's the thing.
It's been a theme of affordability.
Now, the governor uses the phrase the year of the kid.
But he makes clear that we're talking about family affordability, families with and without kids.
But if you make life a little bit more affordable for them, that's the big help there.
Let me wrap up by saying that we do a Sunday morning newsletter that has a focus on Wisconsin politics.
We have a question of the week.
We always get great responses to it.
This week, I picked a couple of things that the governor put in his budget proposal.
Then I picked a Republican measure of providing tax relief pretty much just at the
highest brackets and said, where should that tax relief go?
Should it be at the highest brackets?
Because they pay the highest taxes, as Republicans argue, should just be an income tax cut for people making under $100,000 a year, something that the governor has proposed.
Should it be exempting so much from the income tax, like the first $1,200 of income, like the governor's proposing?
Or should it be removing the sales tax on certain items and boosting other exemptions?
And I have to say, a lot of great answers, but.
A whole lot of people said none of the above.
On their own, they wrote emails saying none of the above because this surplus needs to be invested into our schools, our kids, our families.
I know that's not a universal point of view, but the number of those responses is pleasantly surprising.
Well, yeah, that is very surprising.
I'll say the good news is, in Governor Evers budget proposal, we do vote.
We do both.
We invest a tremendous amount in our schools and our public services to make sure that we're improving education and opportunity for people across the state.
but also that we're making sure that we're trying to drive down the cost and make life more affordable for working people in every other way as well.
And the thing is, if you do, then you make it that much easier for say small businesses to grow jobs and things like that.
You don't have to just focus on, you know, all of WMC's biggest clients, for example.
We give people on Main Streets all over the state.
Representative Tip McGuire from Kenosha, member of the Joint Finance Committee.
Great to catch up with you again.
Have a really great rest of the week.
All right, you too.
It's good to see you as always.
All right, take care.
When we come back, we're going to talk to Luke Mathers all about some of the news around civic media.
This show is going to be making a change.
A couple of other changes coming down the pike as well.
We'll talk about it after this.
You're up
north.
Contrary to what you might think the sounds of Boston are not coming from this record player behind me But I did manage to shuffle through the albums and through Boston on there as instead of Hotel California like we had the past couple of days I got Pink Floyd to the wall back there as well.
Maybe that'll be tomorrow Anyway, it is this fine turntable music welcomes in Luke Mathers ever handsome ever capable Ever willing to tell us what all is new in civic media world.
Mr. Mathers.
How are you?
I'm doing well, Pat.
How are you and Greg doing?
We could not be better.
I agree.
Greg.
Greg.
There you go.
You you read that just like the hostage taker note wrote.
Yes.
There we go.
Read
this.
I am fine.
I am I am being treated well.
They treat me fairly and with love and respect.
I have the best time ever in this absolute hideaway of a place.
So Mr. Mathers.
Um, I, I just, I don't get to talk to, you know, the, the, the big guns at civic media very often, except for this visit with you every week.
So I have to ask and put you right on the spot and ask, what were you thinking?
What, what, honestly, what were you thinking of saying this show deserves a third hour, which is going to happen in a couple of weeks here and go from six to nine a.m.
Uh, did, did you know that were you part of this or did you, did you fight the good fight and say, please don't do that?
Don't do
that.
I bagged.
I bagged that we didn't do it for the listeners, but you know, the listeners fought back past the listeners.
I fought for four hours.
Listeners were especially the
ones that call me a libtard in the comment sections all morning.
Yes, exactly.
They love this.
Give us another hour to kick them.
No, we weren't necessarily listening to those listeners, but no, the
other ones.
OK, we're very excited to be taking an approach to our morning.
Line up with expanding your show to two three hours and being able to With markets across the state of Wisconsin We know that folks are listening and tuning in and trying to find information that matters to them and their community and the model that we're really looking forward to with mornings with Pat Crite low with the aforementioned
Pat Crite low there.
And working with our local markets around the state of Wisconsin to be able to bring local news as well in hits throughout their morning drive to inform them about the important excellent interviews like you just had here on the airwaves with one of the Democratic members of the Joint Finance Committee or Joint Committee on Finance.
I don't really understand that.
acronym because it's JFC, but then it's joint committee.
It's weird,
but having an excellent
conversation.
with a state rep, Tip McGuire.
And then also communities being able to have hits on what's going on at their local library or their city council or their school board.
And so we're really looking forward to presenting a listening model to our listeners across Wisconsin that is going to hopefully deliver to them the real news and great conversations that they're looking for.
more local, more state news.
Look, the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania gives us plenty of material, but even today we...
We did not do a lot on the tariff flip-flopping because where else are you going to hear about a particular Wisconsin member of Congress and what he's up to?
So whether it's taking it to that congressional district level, the regional level, the local level, this definitely gives us an opportunity to do more of that.
And frankly, with a third hour,
to have more folks on, not just about news, but about Wisconsin features.
We don't get nearly enough time to talk about the stories that Up North News does that are about weekend road trips and events and people and food and all of that.
So to get a little bit of extra time to do that is gonna be great.
Greg's gonna help us wrangle up some more guests to talk about arts, entertainment, comedy, sports, whatever the case may be.
So I am really excited and really honored that
the folks at the World HQ there thought that the show was worthy of a third hour.
So thank you.
Yeah, we're really excited about it, Pat.
Congratulations.
And and hopefully the listeners will continue to be able to tune in, listen to excellent programming like mornings with right low.
The new time for Matt and Aaron air with Greg Bach from nine to 11.
What?
You didn't like the way that?
No, thank you.
Thank you.
yeah come on it's like uh it's great you gotta you gotta include it as well um but we're really looking forward to uh being able to have the lineup for um
the listener across the state of Wisconsin.
Because again, a lot of the stories that we're hearing aren't just isolated to one particular community.
It's communities are facing these things like in Dodgeville, where you're just talking about the school referendums.
That is a serious concern for folks not just in Dodgeville.
There are communities across the state of Wisconsin.
that are facing these issues.
And if we're not talking about them and we're only talking about national politics or what's going on at 1600.
Anybody can do
that.
Yeah, exactly.
Anybody can do that.
And so we're really excited here at Civic.
Right.
It's where we're finding this niche.
It's what makes, you know, Greg and Jane so fun to listen to.
And Todd Alba, who will be heard in the mid-afternoons, you know, just all kinds of nice things happening in roughly two weeks from now.
We're just we're kind of going to spring it on you when the time is right.
You know, you just want to stay tuned.
Don't don't turn off the radio dial.
Just keep a side and then never
turn that off.
I
need to get a new board.
I need a board look here that will allow me to work with my voice.
I just feel like get a big big dude.
turn us off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off
off off off off off off off off off
off off off off off off off off off
off off off off off off off
off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off
off off off off off off off off
off
off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off
off off off
off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off
Those torpedo bats made all the difference for New York.
If they didn't have those torpedo bats, maybe, maybe the brewers would be like,
bam, bam,
bam, even doing better.
It seemed like they had them in Colorado last night, 17 to two.
17 to
two.
Yeah.
At least we're finally winning a series in Colorado.
It's
been seven years for that.
Mr. Mathers, thank you for the update as always.
Always
a
pleasure.
Greg is back.
in two hours for Matt and Aaron there and look forward to hearing all of that.
You can hear it on the Civic Media app as well.
Thank you for joining me out here for one more day out here in the Mountain West before we head back home.
So enjoy the rest of your Thursday.
We'll see you out west and up north tomorrow morning, 6am.
