Cross Wisconsin on Civic Media.
You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglo powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglo.
Well, good morning.
It is 7 0 6.
Nice to have you here up north on this Monday, May 5th, 2025.
Congressional candidate Laura Benjamin is coming up later this hour.
And then in our second hour, we will have a guest from the Sierra Club.
talking about a project that aims to set a world record, even as they use that project to demonstrate public opposition to the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline up north.
And Nick Ramos from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign will be here in our next hour as well to talk about the group's upcoming 30th anniversary of exposing the influence of money in politics.
We'll hear from Jane McNair as well.
Greg Bach is still here from Radio Park.
Dr. Kristen Lyrely is here.
Up North News reporter Selena Heller
races back into the screen just in time.
And joining the program now is multi-award-winning meteorologist, journalist, and broadcaster extraordinaire, Brittany Merlot.
Brittany, good morning.
Good
morning.
I can
barely hear you through the sound all those awards are making that you've got there.
Yeah,
it was.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It was pretty amazing.
Like, and it wasn't just like it was like almost three in a row.
Like you just kept winning.
And so for the folks who don't, we have said before we went to our broadcasting awards ceremony this past Saturday and Brittany won five awards, three, three of them.
Number one, taking home the hardware that's kids say.
Yes.
And then not for, not for just giving the highs and lows here.
We're talking for, she does all kinds of reporting for us too.
But you want to give one example, Brittany, of what, what, what got an award?
Yeah, so one of them was for best feature.
It was for EAA, world's busiest airport.
And of course, I talked about pilots flying in and the difficulty and traffic and how the weather affects it, you know, difference between VFR and IFR and just how they land.
And there's so many of them landing there and the dangers between it, but also the fun and even if severe weather rolling through and the dangers with their planes flipping over and also them camping out there.
And it was just a bunch of ways to handle the weather safely.
So that was
Super fun to do.
Of course, that was the fun story, but well, yeah, we
remember you camping there that whole time and the bad weather and they saw that for everything you went through and you went through a lot that you got an award out of this.
Yeah.
Although to
be fair, she looked like she was having a blast, right?
She
did.
Yes.
Very much so.
That's a great event.
So many people come for that and it's cool to see from all over the world.
I met a girl from Paris there.
I mean, it's amazing what happens in
Ashkosh, small little Ashkosh.
You gotta love it.
Yeah.
Uh, uh, Rob from Tigerton says, the award winning Brittany Merlo.
Congratulations on your accomplishments.
Uh, says good morning from Sean O, where he is right now, sunny and 47 at the Sean O Medical Center for my colonoscopy.
Had a great weekend mowing lawn Saturday and a Gatorade in the woods on Sunday.
And then the prep all went well.
And I have to say hi to my, uh, five friends before my seven, seven, 15 appointments.
So
Rob, good,
good on you for doing all the,
all
the problems.
maintenance.
You're going to do great Rob.
Yeah.
I just heard over the weekend one of my friends had it and how just smooth it was like quick easy out.
She was like no big deal.
So there you
go Rob.
It's not it's not so yeah by by all means people get your get your checkups stay on top of things unless
you do your sleep studies
sleep study then I don't know.
It is hard to believe that Thursday and Friday we're so icky compared to how things are now which is just glorious Brittany.
I know.
Gosh, just yesterday, having the sun on your face felt so refreshing and rejuvenating, honestly, and we've got that on tap for the entire week.
We have...
an omega block which is like a big high pressure system that's going to lift all this warmth into the central states and we're going to get some of that here for us in dry pattern the entire week where we only have a small chance for sprinkles right now kind of southeast by the lake and then that goes away by noon and we don't see another chance of rain really until Saturday that's when a cold front moves through and that'll push some rain through quick but otherwise
This week is fantastic.
Today's highs, we're gonna be into the mid-70s, far northwest, but if you're by Lake Michigan and farther south, you're gonna be into those mid-50s because you've got that lake breeze and of course a few more clouds from those spotty sprinkles.
Otherwise tomorrow, oh my gosh, we're gonna be feeling 80 degrees potentially in parts northwest in the state and even far southeast with a little bit of a lake breeze still going on, you're gonna hit 70 degrees.
So it's gonna be sunny.
warm summer feeling.
I mean, let's celebrate the weather.
Oh
yeah.
I mean, and Kristen was saying in northern Minnesota, they were in the low 80s.
yesterday in
some places.
I didn't want to make you
jealous.
Well, there was even quite a range of temperatures around Wisconsin this morning.
You had, you know, 30s and 40s, but you also got some 50s that are out there already working their way through.
So it's just, it's just been wonderful.
Brittany, thank you for the update for on the weather.
You do have to weigh in though, a very controversial, I mean, no fisticuffs might break out here over the pronunciation.
of
that
thing that you you lie in in your backyard you might string it between two trees you know
oh gosh this is the worst i never know how to say it and i always question it is it the hammock the hammock yes the hammock no it was the hammock you said it
right
the first time
what did you say the second time hammock
All
right,
so I
went
and found a website with a few other words where we have these kinds of battles.
How
about that thing that you clip to save money on at the grocery store?
Take a few pennies off your grocery item.
What are you clipping there?
Is that a coupon or coupon, Brittany?
So Brittany's with coupon.
Okay.
Okay.
Uh, that, that, uh, the thing that you stick your mail in and then you lick it and put a stamp on it, that is, that
is what
an envelope.
Anybody, are there any envelopes around here?
Or is that just at
the Oscars?
The envelope, please.
Okay.
Uh, the computer, uh, D A T A
data.
That
data.
Oh, no, it's
data.
I'm sorry.
It's
a fruit that fruit that begins with an A. Is it an apricot or an apricot?
Apricot.
Apricot.
Apricot.
No, I'm sorry.
Again, apricot.
You guys come
on.
It's a female relative married to your uncle is
your
aunt.
Did you say aunt
first?
Do you say aunt?
I say aunt or aunt?
Or Brittany, do you say
aunt?
No, you did
the little moving picture thing.
Is that a GIF or a GIF?
It's a GIF.
Good question.
It's a gif.
Get out of my face.
It stands for the first word's graphic.
The first word's graphic.
So it should be gif.
Exactly.
Thank you.
Last one, that lovely sea below Florida with all the islands in it is called the
Caribbean.
Americans love to say Caribbean.
That is wrong.
And you will be mocked down there.
You will be mocked in the Caribbean if
you
ever say Caribbean.
Trust me.
Just think about the song.
Caribbean Queen, right?
Yes.
It's not
Caribbean Queen.
Brittany, when you want to get
a drink of water in public and you find a place where you can get a drink of water in public, what do you get your drinks?
What is
that machine called?
What is that thing called?
Where you get a drink of water?
A fountain.
Oh,
okay.
She's from Illinois.
You can't hold that against
her.
What's that?
I say water fountain.
See, and I've always said drinking fountain.
You're all girls.
And Kristen's from Bubbler Country.
Bubbler.
Bubbler.
Mm-hmm.
I like that.
You know, there's so many spirited political debates out there, and I'm
glad we got away
from
them.
From just a little
bit.
Bringing you the important topics this morning on Monday.
Are you listening, WBA?
Uh, Tony might have the best last one in this day and age.
How do you, how do you pronounce the name of this country?
If you,
if you're pronouncing it Merca
limitations, we're going to get free the program for you.
That executive order is coming later this week.
Yes.
Changing the
pronunciation.
Yes.
Would not be a bit surprised.
Thank you,
Brittany.
Appreciate it so much.
All right.
Good to see you.
We're going to be talking to Selena in just a little bit about stories that she's working on for Up North News Radio.
And well, but let's just get into one of them now, Selena.
A performer from, is from the Eau Claire area?
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay, and let's talk a bit about inclusiveness part of what prompted this is you're talking to a performer But you're talking this performer and one of the questions deals with the fact that the LGBTQ caucus in the Legislature is now larger than it's ever been before and so this drag show performer Obviously sees that there's some positives along with the negatives of all the ongoing attacks from the right wing
Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on, of course, in that community.
But Travis, who's known in the drag world as Chloe Wold, I went to Travis's house as he was getting ready for a performance in the evening.
And it was just really cool chatting with him as he was getting ready.
He's a very popular performer in the area.
And as well as the whole drag community here, they're seeing more support.
And Travis was raising money for a queer prom that was a couple of weeks ago.
for high school students raised $6,000 from tips, from bingo nights and drag shows and everything.
So there's just seeing a lot of support here in the area and I was really thankful for that.
So that was really cool.
All right.
So here's the story that Selena filed for Up North News that you can see on our social media feeds.
We're just like everyone else.
We're normal people who work normal jobs and live in the community and have families and do the same things that everyone else does or not these like
scary monsters at the media wants to betray us out sometimes.
As Travis of Eau Claire transforms into alter ego Chloe Wold to perform in a drag show, we talk about a lot of things.
How he raises money for a queer prom for students, being a business owner, gay marriage, spreading positivity and better representation in Madison.
The LGBTQ plus caucus has doubled in size to 12 members.
I mean, it's just good to be seen represented period.
Again, when I was a kid growing up and
which wasn't that long ago.
It just felt like it wasn't that my parents avoided it.
It just, we didn't talk about a lot of it.
So I just didn't have exposure to what queer life could look like.
With a larger LGBTQ caucus in the Capitol, that means that those stories are being heard by people who can really relate to them and can take those stories forward onto the floor of the Assembly and the Senate.
Not just vote in support of this community, but really try to advance a message and a policy.
that is best for a community that is under attack.
As the world evolves and people understand that there's so much fluidity within gender expression and sexuality expression.
And just people are becoming more open-minded to things that were everywhere.
And I think that that's really great that people are becoming more accepting of themselves.
We're in a time right now where this representation is particularly important.
We're not going anywhere.
We're here.
And we're going to fight the good fight.
And we should note that was a state representative Christian Phelps who you also heard in there from the Eau Claire area Selena
And yeah, he's the vice chair of the caucus in his first year there.
So It's just kind of evolved Christian said there's more representation from all over the state because of fair maps all from they have members from all the way from Ashland down to Racine So lots of representation and just a nice climate
Um, fun fact of the five representatives from Northeast Wisconsin for our member of the community.
How about that?
That is something.
I mean, again, again, that was not how you would have described the Northeast Wisconsin, you know, districts under the old maps
by
any stretch of the imagination.
So no.
All right.
Well, thanks for that report, Celia.
Appreciate that very much.
And still ahead, we're going to be talking to candidate for Congress, Laura Benjamin.
who is one of three Democrats looking to unseat Derek Van Orden in the third congressional district race.
So that's coming up in just about 15 minutes or so here.
And then coming up in our next hour.
This is a Great Lakes Awareness Day across the country, and we'll have a guest from the Sierra Club about a project that is designed to set a world record as part of an effort to demonstrate public opposition to the Enbridge Line 5 oil pipeline up north.
And we'll talk to Nick Ramos of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign about their upcoming 30-year anniversary.
In sports at 7.19, Freddie Peralta pitched six sharp innings and helped the Brewers beat the Cubs for nothing on Sunday to salvage one game from the series.
The Brewers line up finally remembering how to string together.
some hits and score some runs.
Coming up next is a three game series at home against the Houston Astros.
Pre game starts at 6 0 5 this evening.
Thanks for spending part of your mornings here up north on the Civic Media Radio Network.
a reminder that you can sign up for our newsletter.
Find out what Selena Heller and the rest of the Up North News team is working on.
Head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com and click subscribe and the banner at the top of the homepage.
In today's newsletter, Christina Loree puts that together for us and it includes an article on UW Madison history trivia.
UW Madison has been a part of several historical milestones and there's a link to a quiz all about that.
And on the Up North News social media sites,
You've probably heard a lot recently about the so-called real ID, a new kind of identification card that's supposed to be more secure, and you're gonna need it if you're traveling real soon.
So learn more about getting a real ID here in Wisconsin.
There's also a story up in case you wondered, is this one of those April Fool's things or is it true?
It is true.
There is that new flavor of Pringles out that we've talked about, beer can chicken.
beer can chicken flavored Pringles made with Miller light.
So I don't know if it's are you tasting the Miller light or are you tasting a Miller light can for the beer can chicken but one way
or
another Miller light and beer can chicken Pringles.
Are we?
Where are we curious enough to try?
Greg's just shaking his head like no.
We don't have to do all the things.
Okay.
Combine everything.
We just tried the hot dog chips from quick trip.
The hot dog chips.
Yep.
Roller dog, actually.
Roller dog flavored
chips.
Respect.
All right.
And then we had I went all over town to find the other dill pickle balls like cheese balls, but they're dill pickle.
Okay, all right.
Now let's we're talking.
Now we're
very pickley.
No, actually, no, we don't have to combine everything into a different
pan.
Let's not get hasty here.
Oh yeah, now it works for you.
Okay.
I mean, I feel like we just come up with like a word generator food generator and just put up random things
there.
Give it a try.
I mean, why not?
Right?
We've tried everything else out there.
There is a new story to talk about from Republican lawmakers who want to change state law to keep appointees from staying in their jobs beyond the expiration of their terms.
Kristen, this is so interesting that now they
they want people to leave their posts after their term is over, after they spent more than a quarter million dollars of taxpayer money to defend people staying past their term when it worked for them.
I am shocked by this.
Sorry, Casper.
Yeah, I'm kind of speechless.
How did we do it before that?
Like, what was...
Did that happen before they did that?
Your inability to process this thing is just wonderful.
Like, I don't.
Because I stand.
When he first decided that he was not going to leave, was that a thing?
Because I did not know that that was a
thing.
That was them finding a loophole in the law and saying, yes, you've been
confirmed by the state senate for let's say a four-year term in the case of Fred Preen who was serving on the Department of Natural Resources board as a Scott Walker appointee and his term was up and Governor Evers nominated somebody and again
When we talk about in this era, you know, tearing down norms, norms versus rules, there's some things you think you wouldn't have to spell out.
Like your term is over, goodbye.
And Republican legislators found a loophole that said, well, if we never get around to confirming Tony Evers' pick, then Fred Brenn can just stay on the board.
And a then conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court said, yeah, you can do that.
But now that it's starting to work the other way with like Megan Wolf and the Wisconsin Elections Commission, now all of a sudden they're saying, you know, I think these term dates should mean something.
You should have to step down.
But again, it got started by them finding a loophole, breaking the norm.
Remember, this is a legislature that still has not confirmed dozens and dozens of Tony Evers picks.
because, again, taking advantage of a loophole, well, if we never confirm them, they can start their job.
And if any time we want to fire them, we then schedule their confirmation vote and reject it.
And that is not at all the original intent.
And you know that the moment they can end that practice when it suits them, they will.
So I just noticed it was curious that they've now filed this bill to essentially end the practice that
they created.
I think that that is the biggest loss that we've seen in the last decade and a half across the country really is this lack of respect for norms because you can't legislate every little tiny thing and you shouldn't because we need the flexibility to be able to be nimble in difficult situations.
But this whole violation of norms has completely thrown government on its head.
It's made people very obviously uncomfortable and
We don't know how to function in this new world.
No, we do not.
And so we take note of it, and we'll see what is the form that it takes when it passes and whether Governor Evers signs it into law or not, again, depending on poison pills and other things that might be added to the law.
Kristen, you had your son, Abon, the Dr. Kristen Lyrely show over the weekend.
What do you have for next weekend's episode?
Another son?
Well, not really.
It's Justin Schumacher.
He is the chair of the Little Town of Freedom.
He's also the director of Parks for Out of Game County.
And he talks about what it's like to be the town chair for a town of 6,000 people, the different things that he has initiated within the town.
They went from kind of this old boy, like this is how you do it.
You call the town chair if your ditch is clogged to having a town administrator and
instituting some of these norms so that it functions more like a city than like a small town.
It's kind of a great conversation.
We talk about the role of government.
We talk about how government is not a business.
And you see a lot of these little bright lights all over the state.
Justin Schumacher just happens to be one in freedom.
And that's Saturdays at three o'clock.
on Civic Media Stations in Green Bay and Oshkosh and then of course on the Civic Media app and you can get it as a podcast as well so thanks for all of that thanks for so we'll see you Friday morning when you come on back over here I hope
I'll be around
all right enjoy the week up there up north Selena thank you for all your stories and everything you're working on this week and and whiskers I can't even say so cats are so fickle yeah
do
what
you want
to do all right well when we come back congressional candidate Laura Benjamin talks about
Deciding to get into the race becoming the third Democrat hoping to unseat incumbent Republican Derek Van Orden from the heart of America's up north live from Lake Wissota Thanks for making this the place to spend a part of your mornings.
I'm Pac right low and this is the civic media radio network
Welcome back again the brewers take on the Astros coverage begins at 605 on several civic media stations and find more information at the civic media website civicmedia.us and of course you can head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com anytime to see what we're working on
over at Up North News.
That includes plenty of coverage of what your members of Congress are doing or not doing, which would include Derrick Van Orden and the Third Congressional District, where there are now three different Democrats who have announced that they would like to be the one-to-one seat Derrick Van Orden in 2026.
It is a long way off, and yet not one, not two, but three candidates are in the race already, including our next guest, Laura Benjamin from the Eau Claire area.
Laura, good morning.
How are you?
Hey, I'm good Pat.
Thanks for having me.
It's it's just you know every day I'm kind of waking up to whatever the new news is about what's happening with our rights in the Constitution and even Trump over the weekend saying
that
maybe his job isn't to defend it so I'm giving up every day ready to go here.
That's great.
Well again
it's easy to see why people are motivated that even in the first hundred days of Trump and this new Congress it has people worked up and I think people want to know that there's already folks out there that are you know fighting on their behalf and would like to do so being elected even though you know the next election is still you know a year and a half away but Laura give us a little information about your your background and then we'll get into the reasons why you're running.
Sure.
So my background is I come from the entrepreneurship world, my brand of marketing and communications company.
I'm sort of a politician.
I mean, I was on city council for about eight months before I had to duck out from a four week bout of pneumonia.
But I'm not really a talker.
I'm more of a doer.
And I think people are gonna recognize that from what I'm doing now, you know, I was the kid back in high school and college that when we were doing group work, everyone wanted me in their class because, or in their group, because I was the one that when the record met the road, I would buckle down and I would figure out how to get things done.
I've kind of started doing that already.
I mean, I didn't realize it at the time, but back in January, when I think a lot of us were trying to figure out what we could do, I started writing policy proposal.
I was working both
with the Eau Claire Dems on some some policies that we brought to the 13th congressional district convention and also writing policies that I thought I was going to help a progressive candidate I use in their run for office what it turns out that that was was me right actually all of the policy proposals that you'll see on my website at lawabentureforcongress.com are things that I started developing four or five months
ago.
As you know, there are three candidates in the race already here.
So talk a bit.
Tell me a little bit more about what you see in yourself, what others see in you that they may not see in others or may not think they'll see in other candidates that may appear for this race.
Well, like I said, I'm someone that likes to take action.
In the entrepreneurship world, when you see an opportunity or you see a way that you can fix something, make it more efficient, make it work better, you're rewarded for that.
And that's, I think, a unique skill that I bring to this race.
I would say to people to don't listen to just what I say, watch what I do.
I've been
in the race now for about two weeks out of I think we've got like 66 to go and I've already been to River Falls I've been down till across multiple times of course here in Eau Claire I've been to Dunn County Democrat meeting I've been over to Stevens Point multiple times I've been marching in protests in Eau Claire and in Stevens Point I've organized a town hall meeting in which I was able to listen to constituents and I was also
one of the organizers of the the sit-in that we held at Derek Van Orton's office where we delivered a letter asking him to join a bipartisan effort and look into the abuses of the CCAP prison to denounce ICE and their behavior taking people off the street and without without any sort of due process, exporting them to another country and putting them in these conditions and asking him to reaffirm his constitutional oath.
So I think
People, if they look at what I'm doing, they'll see that I'm a person that takes action.
And while I have a great idea of what America can look like, and we need that vision, we need some of that leadership, I think that what I bring to the table is the level of action that you're not going to see maybe elsewhere.
Now the the three candidates in the race so far all from the Eau Claire area in a sprawling district down from La Crosse all the way down to the southwestern corner of Wisconsin up through central Wisconsin parts of that as well and Obviously, it's a district that is
very rural in places, even though it has these population centers of Eau Claire Lacrosse and Stevens Point.
So talk to me as one of three different candidates who are hoping to get that part of the district, you would still have to appeal to a broad swath of territory that, you know, all three of you are not necessarily living in on a daily basis.
So tell us about the connections that you would hope to make with the rural parts of the Third Congressional District.
Well, thanks.
I'm going to work my hardest to get into doing town halls, listening sessions, and office hours in every one of the 19 counties in our district.
I think what I have that's a little bit different is a pretty simple vision.
I think that to some degree both parties are failing the American people and they're noticing that.
They're noticing that the Republicans are doing things to whittle down rights and to provide tax benefits to the wealthiest of Americans and to corporate interests.
And we have some Democrats that are on board with that or maybe like try to play both sides of that.
And I think that the vision that we need to move forward with is one that says, look, America needs to work for everyday Americans.
What I mean by that is that people should be able to get up in the morning, go to a job.
They work that job, their shift, they're done for the day.
They don't have to work a side hustle in order to afford a place to live or to afford to feed their families.
They know that their kids are going to be taken care of because daycare is affordable or free.
We did this in the 1940s and 50s where the equivalent of a half hours day of work was what it cost to have daycare during some periods back in that era.
to be able to think about saving for the future, to not have crazy student loan debts.
Count that at 5%.
We shouldn't be letting private businesses profit off of our students.
And then at the end of the day, you've got time to spend with your family and you can look forward to your future retirement and your kids being able to go to college because it's either low cost or
perhaps Free State College if we can get the tax code right.
So all of these things I think are realistic visions for most working people in the in the Third Congressional District and again benefit to retirees and other folks that are that are looking for a better a better future.
So you're keeping this is Laura Benjamin a candidate for Congress in the Third Congressional District you're keeping an eye on the the economic issues the things that affect people at their kitchen tables as we like to say and
Unfortunately, the folks who are supporters of Donald Trump and Derek Van Orden and others have learned how to use social issues, wedge issues, culture war issues to divide folks or to take the eye off the economic ball.
So let's focus first on your own priorities and background and then we'll draw that distinction between who's fighting for them from an economic issue and
You know, the degree to which culture war issues should even play a role in this race.
You've got a very impressive section on your website, Laura Benjamin, for congress.com, about making sure that all people are entitled to human race, marriage equality, bodily autonomy, health care, civil liberties for communities of color, LGBTQ.
Do you have concerns that that's going to be more of a wedge issue than something that should unite us more?
Well, I think about what Lyndon Johnson said where he he said essentially, you know if you can give people someone to to other someone to look down upon Then it makes it a lot easier to take advantage of them to pick their pocket
And I
think that we've seen that happen for the last about 45 50 years You know, we had this this great economic growth in our country from about the late 1940s through the 1970s and then
Really, what started happening is the conservative coalition and Reaganomics started dismantling all of that.
We busted up unions.
We gave tax breaks to people that didn't need them.
And we basically forced people into this situation of, oh, we're going to have trickle down economics.
We're going to give the money to the folks that are at the top and let that trickle down.
So, yeah, I talk about it in terms of economics.
Economics and social issues, I don't think are distinct.
There's a lot of reasons that you want to be inclusive in your society, and they have both sides of that, where it is to our economic benefit.
To do that, if people of diverse backgrounds feel secure in what they're doing, they're able to participate in society.
They're able to have jobs.
They're able to have families.
These are not mutually exclusive or far-left radical ideas.
And so, yes, I think the Democratic Party really needs to carve out its niche as
a party that says we care about families and we aren't leaving anyone behind.
It doesn't matter if you're black or brown or Hispanic.
It doesn't matter if you're queer or trans.
You have a place in America and we need to make sure that those people are counted for.
Which you're saying for you know the the community at large but to what degree do you expect this campaign to become highly personal about your own race as well.
We've seen
how, how ugly, you know, this can get how, you know, how, how Republicans like to, to run.
And at one point too, does the focus come off the kitchen table and into, you know, personal questions of candidates?
I guess you'd have to clarify what you mean by that.
I think that if I'm able to bring a platform and reasonable arguments to the table and I'm able to show people what a future could look like for the Third Congressional District in all of America, my hope is that they're going to see that as the biggest positive and choose to move forward with me as the candidate.
talking to Laura Benjamin who's again website is Laura Benjamin for congress.com plenty on Facebook as well for all of the issues you also list campaign finance reform near the very top and this again is one of those where those of us who are on the inside you know who pay attention a lot to politics know the urgency but campaign finance reform does not usually rise to the top of other people's to-do lists
Tell folks the importance of making more of that issue than maybe they might normally put in their everyday lives.
Sure.
I mean, if there was one policy I'd work on like bar none.
So I was at a young Democratic Party meeting last week and I and Grant who I spoke with there asked me what policy I'd work on first.
And it's tax reform.
We can get into that another time.
But campaign finance reform I do think is very important because look, if you've got
billionaires that can dump money into packs and don't money into candidates and they use that money to to blanket the the airwaves and the internet with with attack ads and other things that are drowning out any sort of rational or rational argument as to why someone should be elected to a position.
What is someone that makes
$50,000 a year supposed to do in order to support their candidate like what like what impact is there $10 or $15 or $20 donation to have at least how does it feel like it has to them right because of course like
when you run a small dollar donation campaign, those small things add up.
And I think that that is exactly what we need in the Democratic Party is to focus on people supporting the candidates that they believe in.
But it does feel like this overwhelming obstacle for people that are just trying to get a fair shake in America to have these huge money interests that are dumping tons of money into elections, trying to make the outcome that they want.
Obviously doesn't work every time we saw that with Susan Crawford, but certainly doesn't doesn't help and it puts their thumb on the scale.
In terms of tax reform and tax fairness, we know that the 2017 Trump era tax plan has to be replaced in some way shape or form.
We've now seen, you know, the effort to cut literally trillions of dollars in services, primarily to fund tax cuts for the very wealthy.
To what degree is that a centerpiece of your own messaging of what Derek Van Orden and others will be voting for in this Congress?
You know, Laura, hold that, hold that thought for just a moment.
I didn't, I wasn't looking at the clock.
I forgot that I'm up against the break.
Can you hang on for just a second and we'll pick up on that?
All right, my apologies.
We're just having a great conversation here with Laura Benjamin, candidate for Congress in the third congressional district.
And we will continue here live from Chippewa Falls on the Civic Media Radio Network in just a bit.
you
All right, it's a 752 and the host of this program is gonna try to pay better attention to the clock when I had to rudely interrupt Laura Benjamin candidate for Congress We were talking about tax reform and again much like campaign finance reform It makes people's eyes glaze over but it's important which is why we keep bringing it up And so Laura we know that this Congress is is you know all set to do something to try to replicate the 2017 tax bill
And I was asking to what degree is what's happening in the here and now going to be part of your day-to-day messaging as a candidate.
Yeah.
So as I, excuse me, as I told Grant at the young Democratic meeting last week, I really see tax reform as being part and parcel to all of what's going on right now in our society.
Right now we have a tax system.
Bear with me because it's not as boring as it sounds.
We have a tax system that taxes two things, labor and capital gains.
Labor is the amount of work that you do.
So you go to a job and then you've got a bracket of taxes where, you know, if you make under a certain amount, you pay 10% in taxes up to 37% if you're in the highest income bracket.
and then capital gains where if you sell an asset, you pay a 15 or 20% tax depending on how long or how large that asset is.
what you're not hearing about is how there's essentially a glitch that the richest Americans use in order to dodge those taxes.
I'm not even going to get into the corporate situation because you know what I heard from Maggie Dawn over the weekend that there's a 1.9% tax rate when you know at its peak we've seen it you know much much higher than that.
We'll talk about that later.
I'm talking about personal taxes.
The wealthiest Americans use an infinite money glitch
to avoid paying taxes for most of their lives.
If you have a billion dollars, you want to borrow half of that.
So you borrow 500.
million dollars.
Now you've got this loan that the bank wants to give you because they're going to get a great interest rate off of that.
They're going to take a sliver of that, let's say, $50 million to live for a while, just a paltry sum.
And they're going to take that money, the rest of that, that $450 million, and they're going to start to buy assets.
They're going to buy other businesses.
They're going to buy other things.
Still no income here because it's all been borrowed.
Now as they accumulate assets, their net worth goes up.
Suddenly they're worth 1.5 billion or 2 billion.
They've started paying down that debt with the money that they've borrowed itself.
And so now they've paid for their living.
They've bought more assets.
They've grown their net worth.
They owe maybe 300 million dollars, but they have 2 billion now.
So they've grown their net worth by 700 million dollars.
Well, now they look at that and say, oh, I've got 700 million more dollars I could borrow off of.
They put another loan out.
They pay off the first.
they roll that forward, still no taxable event.
So we really need to look at what's going on in the system, how we tax wealthy people, and how we make sure that if those gains happen, even if they're not recognized for the richest Americans.
I'm not talking about regular people in their retirement or their home values.
I'm talking about the richest people that have like these 50, 100 million plus net worths.
Those are the people that when their net worths increase, we need to figure out a way to capture some of that revenue back.
in the system because otherwise they're even trying to eliminate the estate tax so that they will have that go back into the pockets of everyday Americans after they pass on.
So that's where I think a big, big part of where I want to throw pieces.
Laura Benjamin is a candidate for Congress in the Third Congressional District.
Again, three candidates in the race at this point, including Rebecca Cook, who ran last year against Eric Van Orden and jumped in the race right away.
Again, this year has already raised well north of a million dollars, but we also know that one of the things that some folks
Again, depending on where you are in the district, I wondered if she was running as too much of a moderate and away from the party.
There's fear that other candidates will run as too liberal and away from the moderate voters of the district.
I don't know where the happy middle is in there, Laura, but I would like you to describe yourself in your own terms, given that
Any candidate that gets in here, any candidate that gets in this race, they're going to be measured by, well, are you running toward the middle or are you running as an unabashed liberal that hopes to attract a few more moderate votes?
How do you see yourself?
Well, so someone over the weekend told me that they don't see an AOC type candidate working, working in the third congressional district.
And, and, and, you know, I don't think that I'm lockstep with AOC, but I do think I'm on the more progressive side of things.
But I think if you look at my policies, it's progressivism that's based in economic sense.
And so I, and I think that this works.
And the reason I think this works is I see that.
Bernie Sanders and ANC are going all over this country They're going to places like Iowa and in Utah these very very red parts of the country and they're pulling crowds of 35,000 people plus people that want to listen to a message of economic hope and also of social change and This kind of quality of life.
This isn't far left crazy stuff.
This is like common sense and so
You know, you can probably try to put a label on me.
You can say I'm a progressive or you can say I'm whatever.
But people are ready for a shake up.
They're showing, they're telling us all the time.
You saw it in the last election where people voted for AOC and also voted for Donald Trump on the same ballot.
And the reason that they said that they did that is because they trusted that both of those candidates were going to work to change the system.
They were outsiders.
They were willing to tell it like it is and they were willing to get to work.
And that's what I'm here to do.
Laura Benjamin again Laura Benjamin for Congress calm and look on social media as well for her candidate Information and running in the third congressional district Laura great to talk to you and get an introduction to your campaign I'm sure there will be many more conversations ahead safe travels to you
Thanks so much for having me
Pat.
All right, nice to see you.
And again, coming up in our next hour, we will be talking about the Sierra Club, marking Great Lakes Awareness Day, and a world record campaign that is designed to call attention to opposition to the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline.
And also we'll talk about the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and its upcoming 30th anniversary.
Greg Bach is back one hour from now for Matt and Air on Air and has this outstanding
lineup
ahead.
We've got Beyond the Cheese coming back to you because it's Monday.
It's going to be happening at 10 o'clock with Mitchell Hoyt, who is the founder and runner of Skinny Sticks, which is a maple syrup company right here in Wisconsin.
So we're looking forward to having that 10.06 and then Beyond the Cheese at 10.50.
And then maybe tomorrow, Pat Krylo shows up.
Who knows?
Anything can happen.
Anything can
happen Tuesday.
Indeed.
All right, Greg's back in an hour.
Have a good day.
I'll talk
to you a little
bit later.
Sam will be here on the board.
Brittany Merlo will be back with a forecast.
Remember, you can follow my team from Up North News all day long at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
And of course, right here, mornings on the Civic Media Radio Network.
