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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Hey, good morning.
It is 7 0 6.
Nice to have you here up north on this Tuesday morning, June 24th.
2025, Brittany Olson, Brittany Olson, Brittany Merleau coming up, Parker Olson over in Madison Studio A2 and coming up this hour, Corinne Hendrickson from Nuclearis, a childcare provider who has been leading the fight to
build public awareness of the crisis of affordable childcare here in Wisconsin to the point where Governor Evers has also been a strong ally and is now drawing a red line when it comes to the state budget in terms of support for childcare providers as a way to help working parents and the economy and the labor shortage and all of that and more.
All coming up.
Then in our eight o'clock hour, we'll talk to Chad Holmes from 98 nine WXCO in wasa and we'll visit with Dan Schaefer from the recombobulation area and civic media politics editor We'll have some of the other days new stories to pass along including Wisconsin connections to the big bloated boondoggle of a budget bill that Trump and Republicans are working on out in Washington DC the impact that is being felt here with layoffs at Wisconsin Public Radio and Senator Ron Johnson saying well
we may be going to war with Iran, but that just has me even more driven to cut Medicaid.
So we've got those stories and more coming up along the way here.
Let's see, first off, I've got, let's see, from Alicia.
Oh, just wants to do the introduction.
The one, the only, Brittany Merleau.
Well, there she is, as introduced by Alicia on YouTube.
Brittany, good morning.
How are you?
Thank you, Alicia.
I'm pretty good this morning.
How are you guys doing?
We're
good here.
I talked about how it's glorious to have the window open.
It's just great.
It is what 64 here now in Chippewa Falls.
However, I am reminded by Dave in New Berlin on the text line.
Good morning, Pat.
The front hasn't made it to my area yet.
It's partly cloudy and 76 in New Berlin, 74 at work in Milwaukee.
But I assume it's coming statewide that we're all everybody's going to get some relief.
from the heat.
We're trying.
By tomorrow, I think the entire state's going to have some relief, but that front is just draped right now.
It's kind of sitting from La Crosse, Tomah, all the way to about Green Bay and into the Fox Valley and areas from there in south.
You're looking at chances of more scattered showers and storms sparking up again by midday and becoming widespread as we go into tomorrow as the front wants to lift more north.
bringing heavier rain rates further north by tomorrow.
So what we've got going on today, still dealing with some damage in central Wisconsin and into the Fox Valley this morning, winds yesterday gusted from 50 to 70 miles per hour.
It ripped trees down, covering roads onto cars.
It even heavy rainfall kind of made some roofs fall in.
into Madison area too.
So we saw anything from one and a half inches to three and a half inches of rain in Touma, two and a half into Madison.
So still trying to dry things out with more rain on the way.
So potential for more flash flooding as we go through this afternoon and evening, especially south where that front is still sitting and along the state line.
Some of these storms are going to be strong, but they shouldn't be so severe.
Yesterday was probably the worst of it, but we do still have a little bit of a risk as we go through today.
Now, in terms of rainfall rates, I think a good quarter of an inch to a half an inch will be in these storms.
Some places could get heavy again with another inch or two, especially west and especially south.
Otherwise today highs will hit the mid 70s pretty much statewide low 80s for south far south and then that relief tomorrow mid 50s to mid 70s.
Wow.
And those those derecho straight line wins in North Dakota and northern Minnesota.
I was looking at video from Bemidji, Minnesota and the number of trees down is just staggering.
what that system had done.
Rob says, good morning from Tigerton.
It's cloudy in 69.
Yesterday, Tigerton had to high of 90 degrees for a third straight 90 degree day before the storms came in the afternoon.
Yesterday, I got four mowing jobs done in Tigerton before the thunder and lightning.
I want to thank my mechanic, Todd, for getting my truck fixed.
He said, Tigerton had only two tenths of an inch of rain, missed the really bad storms.
A semi-truck was blown over on Highway 10 near Amherst.
Power lines were down by Lake Collins Park near Amherst.
And thank you, Brittany, for always keeping us up to date on the weather and the local news in Central Wisconsin from an award-winning news anchor and reporter.
And Tony reports that, hey, up in Ashland, it's chilly there too, 59 degrees and Alicia.
It looks grumpy outside, but it is so nice and cool.
And that's a good way of putting it.
The sky did look a little grumpy a little earlier here, you know?
Yes.
I'm going to have to use that all day.
Thank you, Alicia.
The sky is grumpy.
It's like there's a Stevie Ray Vaughn song that starts, the sky is crying.
We got to get a new version.
The sky is grumpy with Brittany Merleau.
All right.
We will look forward to that.
Thank you, Brittany.
We'll get an update next hour.
Sounds good.
All right.
Hey, along the way, as some of the other folks have been doing, you can jump on to social media and you can join us that way.
Follow us on social media on the Facebook and YouTube pages for Up North News or for Civic Media.
And you can follow me on social media as well.
I've got a Facebook page that's called Mornings with Pat Crichtlow.
So just go to facebook.com slash mornings with Pat Crichtlow.
And you can also follow me at Pat Crichtlow on Twitter, Instagram.
and TikTok, but again, you can text us through the Civic Media app as well.
And when we've got those phones ready to rock and roll again with the remodeling being done in Madison Studio A2, we'll get that up and going for you as well.
But in the meantime, I mean, Parker stands by in Madison A2 to look at your voice notes, listen to your voice notes.
You can do those through the Civic Media app as well as we learned last week when Tony put his kids up there and we could, you know, hear directly from people that want to make intros.
Well, look, you had Alicia there on YouTube saying the one, the only Brittany Merleau.
I feel like people should get on those voice notes and just make generic introductions.
I
just want to
hear you going.
And now here's Brittany Merleau with the weather or something along those lines.
That brings some more life to the show.
I like that.
What are you saying?
I'm saying that I'm really tired still, Pat.
I'm sorry.
It's not you with me.
Bringing more life to the show, I'm sure is what you meant.
Absolutely.
So again, use that voice note feature on the Civic Media app and send us letters or sometimes send us encouragement and notes to wake up, if you will.
All right.
Also, Up North News has newsletter seven days a week now, our Monday through Friday edition with news and features, a Saturday sports edition.
a Sunday politics edition that I put together in all cases, head over to upnorthnewswi.com to learn more and get signed up for one, two, or all three of those newsletters.
A lot of things happening with civic media today.
We've got on the Todd Alba show this afternoon, Alex Madorski of the Nature Conservancy talking about the Nelson Knowles Stewardship Update.
We talked about that before where, you know, the stewardship program
puts land into conservation so that you know we don't end up some day like other places that are thoroughly overdeveloped and nobody says hey did we not think at some point not to overbuild to set some stuff aside.
But of course we have Republicans in the legislature who have said no, no, no, we've we've concerned enough land We don't need to do anything more than that Some folks are trying to find a nice middle ground between the parties and we may be at that point So listen to Todd show later this afternoon to find out more about that You can also get local news updates on the web because besides having a newsroom with statewide reach
Just like us at Up North News, our friends at Civic Media have you covered with local news updates that you can get from each individual station.
You go to civicmedia.us and then from there, find your local Civic Media radio station or a local Civic Media station, if you will.
And then when you go to that local stations page, you'll see something called Daily News Roundup.
that you can listen to right there.
You can also sign up for email versions of their daily update while you're there as well.
So head over to civicmedia.us to learn more.
Tony on YouTube, but what if we tried overbuilding and mined the state and the national lands?
I think Tom Tiffany is testing that out.
Yes, I believe he is.
And if you needed no other reason to be supportive of stewardship and land conservation, let me just remind you that, again, Tom Tiffany is still a member of Congress.
So you might want to try to keep Northern Wisconsin as Northern Wisconsin.
In Washington DC, you've got Republicans considering Donald Trump's big bloated boondoggle of a budget bill, which we've talked extensively about the potential cuts to Medicaid and other vital programs, but the reductions in federal spending are impacting folks in many different ways.
For example, support for public radio and TV.
You know, the thing that makes sure that it's not just
corporations that get to determine what our news and entertainment will be.
But Wisconsin Public Radio announced, according to an article by Henry Redmond and the Wisconsin Examiner, that it is laying off at least 15 staff members and canceling four radio programs as the station faces budget shortages.
and the looming prospect of cuts to federal funding.
The canceled programs included the nationally syndicated to the best of our knowledge, the arts and culture show beta, the health show Zorba Pastor on your health, and the local University of the Air.
Republicans have been considering a proposal to rescind the money
previously allocated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes those federal funds to local stations across the country.
Earlier this month, the House of Representatives voted to take $1.1 billion away from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Senate has until mid-July to pass its own version of the provision about 4%.
4% of Wisconsin Public Radio's budget comes from federal funds through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the rest of that story by Henry Redmond.
Head over to WisconsinExaminer.com Now there are all kinds of ways that the budget debate and the war with Iran are making headlines.
It's not often that people would necessarily conflate the two, but
leave it to Ron Johnson to do so.
Johnson saying that the prospect of war with Iran, according to a story in the website, Raw Story, makes him just that much more determined to cut Medicaid.
The actual headline from Raw Story, Ron Johnson, Iran strike strengthens my resolve.
to pass a bill cutting Medicaid.
Talking to is one of his favorite media mouthpieces, Maria Bartiromo.
He talked about how dedicated he is to passing something that could strip healthcare away from more than 10 million Americans.
Bartiromo said, does this change anything for you knowing that we are now looking at a world where our adversaries are on the march?
Bartiromo said, talking about Iran.
Johnson said, no, if anything, it just strengthens my resolve.
I mean, how do we expect to defend this nation if we're mortgaging its future, if we're bankrupting it?
Okay, the thing to keep in mind there is that, again, Ron Johnson does not actually care about the deficit and bankrupting the nation.
or he would have been a no vote for the 2017 tax bill, the one that blew a $2 trillion hole in the budget, and he's now supporting something.
Well, he's not supporting this bill yet because it may put another $3 to $4 trillion into the deficit, but he was willing to change his mind eight years ago.
He may be willing to do so again.
This isn't about saving the nation from bankruptcy.
It's about cutting tens of millions of people off the axis to their healthcare because he believes that again corporations should be making those decisions for you.
Setting the prices that you pay, the choices that you get, the legal rights that you have, the things that you can watch on TV and radio and that there are enough benevolent billionaires out there that you should just trust the business world to make all of these choices for you.
especially something like, you know, the healthcare that could save your life.
A local update is next for some of you.
The rest will be back here at 730, where we'll talk to Corinne Hendrickson about Governor Evers and childcare next Europe
North.
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The Brewers lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates last night, five to four.
Christian Yelich had a game tying home run in the fifth inning, but the Pirates got to go ahead triple in the sixth and hung on in the past seven games.
Christian Yelich is 16 for 30.
14 runs batted in so I mean he's just been on a tear lately.
Freddie Peralta will take the mound tonight for game two of the Brewer's series with the Pirates.
6-0-5 the pregame on stations in Richland Center.
Oshkosh we're seeing Kenosha Park Falls and Hayward and again
Then there's the game Wednesday afternoon, Jacob Mizorowski taking the mound against Pittsburgh's Paul Skeens.
That's going to be a great game.
I mean, Dan Hagen would drive down from Rhinelander to see that game tomorrow afternoon if he could.
He can't because he's a very dedicated News Watch 12 employee up there in Rhinelander.
But if he could get
away.
I think I'm coming down to the illness path.
You don't sound good today.
You don't look good at all.
Right.
Well, that's too far.
That's a former news anchor.
bridge too far.
No, no, the hair and face look fabulous.
But
anyway, how
are
you?
I'm doing well.
You know, that will be a great game tomorrow.
This Mizorovsky guy is a phenom.
He's had
some sort of record, right?
With his first two starts.
Yep.
Yep.
I mean, when you start your career, your major league career with 11 no hit innings.
Right.
That's
all right.
That's more.
More wins
than hits.
Two wins.
One hit allowed in these two starts.
Just crazy.
So I'm really...
Hoping tomorrow lives up to the billing because it would be so exciting to watch if it does
so well Pat speaking of baseball.
Okay.
I got a great story for you today Unfortunately, we're gonna dial down the skill level to approximately zero
because
I was involved with a game yesterday So if you're not familiar, there is a phenomenon in a small town called Lake Tomahawk every summer and it began for the season yesterday It's called snowshoe baseball.
So yes
The players are in snow shoes.
It really involves more of a softball than a baseball.
But people are running around playing softball, more or less, in snow shoes.
A lot of falls, a lot of waking up with wood chips in between your teeth.
Sorry.
Which orthopedist is sponsoring this thing?
Right, you know, there's probably a few injuries.
A lot of people who shouldn't be doing that
sort of sport or
playing it, but it's it's an absolute blast every single year.
And I recommend anyone to check it out.
And so you've you've been playing this.
Right.
So this is an annual tradition that NewsWatch 12 kicks off the season with the Lake Tomahawk snow hawks.
And they're going to be playing every Monday throughout the summer at 7 30 p.m.
But if you want to get a pie, this is, you know, some people coat just for the pie.
If you want to get a pie, you got to get there early because the pie will quickly sell out.
There's pies from all of the local civic organizations, and this place is famous for its pie and its baseball.
Well, how cool is this?
I mean, that's, that is, I would never have thought.
to combine those things.
I feel like the guy that, you know, the first time you saw Reese's, wait, you combine peanut butter with chocolate?
Are you kidding me?
Snow shoes and baseball.
All right.
Yeah, it's
an absolute, absolute blast.
All right.
How did you beat the heat over the weekend?
Were you making the most of it outside?
Were you hiding inside in the AC?
You know, I saw a lot of people outside at lakes, so I think humanity is healing, nature is healing.
We're getting back to what we should be doing.
But yeah, the local lakes were packed.
A lot of kids enjoying the water.
There's always that one guy who's just sitting in a lawn chair.
doesn't move for hours.
I don't know how his skin is still uh onto his body but
uh SPF 2000 will do that for you I guess it's yeah perhaps or it's just all leather at this point and you know it doesn't matter so
and then uh also god bless the world for air conditioning doesn't do it two eggs I beat the heat
Oh, I know.
I've got a friend who is staying at a place temporarily that does not have air conditioning.
And he was talking about having like two fans blowing, you know, overnight to try to keep cool.
But I reminded him that, and again, this is not necessarily an old man thing, but I mean, air conditioning has only been like
Shall we say ubiquitous for not that terribly long?
I'm old enough to remember when at best you had one little wall unit for your entire house, you know and we had a lot of fans, you know and That was half the fun as a kid to grow up a lot of fans because you could talk into the fan like this Yeah, I was
gonna say people are so I like when people say like oh it was way back water back
is way better back then.
I wouldn't
say better.
No, but different.
Yeah.
I mean, there are a lot of great things about, um, many years ago, like, Oh, I wish I was a frontiersman.
You don't have a air conditioning then.
You're
probably
going to die at four, you know, so maybe think about that one a little bit.
A little
dysentery on the Oregon Trail there.
Oh, geez.
Exactly.
What I only say is that if you're great, great, great grandmother, you know, churning butter outside that sod house of hers, if you'd have given her a microwave oven, she'd have used it.
She wouldn't be like, oh no, I don't need that.
She would have loved having a refrigerator.
So, you know, it's just a reminder to appreciate our little.
modern conveniences, you know, like, like air conditioning.
Absolutely.
And have you heard of the phrase, like survivor bias?
Like,
the
reason why, like, it seems somewhat great is, you know, most people didn't make it out of childhood and probably until the, at least the 20th century, you know, so.
We got it pretty good right now is all I'm trying to say.
Yes, exactly.
Let's see.
Also on the text line here, Jim from Brookfield says, my family saw the Snowshoe baseball game in Lake Tomahawk in 2021.
We enjoyed the pie.
The game was a hoot.
My daughters laughed the entire game.
I mean, look at that.
You're making memories that are still around all these years later.
Absolutely.
Yeah, it's...
One person called me a clown yesterday, um, because, you know, we just kind of try some antics.
I'm often more chatting with the people on the stands and actually playing.
I borrowed someone's lawn chair to go into right field because no one can hit it in the right field.
You
know, so yeah, there are a lot of kids and family there.
So good family fun.
All right.
So you're doing it again next Monday.
Okay.
So here's the plan is
10 seconds to tell me
the snow Hawks play every Monday, NewsWatch 12 only plays the first Monday.
Ah, I got you.
Okay.
Uh, but fun stuff to see up in that area.
Dan Hagan from WJFW and Ryan Lander.
Thank you, sir.
All right.
Coming up next, we're going to talk childcare with Corinne Hendrickson and then later Dan Schaefer from the recombobulation area.
Thank you for spending some time here as part of your mornings powered by Up North News.
More live from Chip Will Falls after the Midwest Farm Report here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Tomorrow on the program, it's our Wednesday series of visits with all kinds of civic media friends, Earl Ingram in Milwaukee, Todd Alba in Madison, there's Melissa Kay in Wisconsin Rapids, James Kelly in Chippewa Falls, all scattered throughout the show on your Wednesday mornings, powered by Up North News here on the Civic Media Radio Network, where at 7.35, we're going to be visiting with Corinne Hendrickson in just a moment, a childcare provider from the Nuglarus area about what to me was
surprising news, and that was Governor Evers essentially drawing the first red line of the state budget cycle saying that if the state budget bill that Republicans in the legislature send him does not contain funding for the child care accounts program, he signed in the budget.
You know, there's a lot that they can send him that he can fix with his partial veto powers, but you can't fix zero.
And so he wants to make sure that Republicans and the legislature take this issue seriously.
He gets it.
More people in the legislature, more people out in the general public get it because of the work of so many providers and their allies and folks like Kareen Hendrickson who joins us now from Nouglaris.
Green, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning.
I am actually feeling optimistic for once.
I understand that.
Were you as surprised as I was?
to hear the language from the governor.
I was hoping for it.
We kind of thought that maybe what that was what was happening last week when the Joint Finance Committee did not meet on Thursday because egg
and
Department of Corrections didn't seem like they would be the problem.
It would be us and that we heard that they walked away the night before the Republicans walked away.
So we were cautiously optimistic that it was us that was the sticking point.
But then to have that confirmed yesterday was pretty amazing because child care has fought really hard and long to be.
expected and we are seeing normally as less than and seen as babysitters and we went from not even being part of a conversation six seven years ago during campaigns and things till like now the governor is gonna veto if we don't get funded.
It's amazing.
It really is.
It's tremendous recognition of how childcare counts has worked in Wisconsin.
So and I apologize if we've got a bit of a weak connection but we are hearing you
just fine on this.
I know that last week when joint finance canceled, I saw photos of childcare providers who had gone to the Capitol and were standing outside this closed room because the meeting had been canceled, but it just spoke to the dedication of providers and parents and allies willing to go to the Capitol time after time after time to make their case.
It really shows how passionate and how necessary this issue is for a lot of families.
Oh, definitely.
And we thank our allies and we stand strong with our allies.
We are really pushing for that 60% some sufficient for K-12.
Because honestly, what's happening because the schools are underfunded for special education, when we notice that a child has something going on and maybe needs some extra support and we call the school, it's really hard to get them that support in the program at our place.
It's also if we don't have people who know what they're doing and educators, the teachers don't know how to support kids or how to refer kids.
kids because of the turn over, then they don't get what they need either.
And these kids then we end up expelling them.
We're struggling to keep them in our programs and they are not getting the support they need each other five, six, seven or eight, which costs all of us even that much more.
in the Republican caucus it seems and I don't want to get too in the weeds about you know political things like this but you do have in that caucus you have what I guess you would call social conservatives who frankly would rather a parent usually the mom stay home and then you also have a Republican caucus made up of what are very much you know your pro-business types who
clearly understand the importance of a healthy childcare sector to the economy overall.
So as they discuss among themselves, do you feel like progress is being made with people who maybe consider themselves conservatives, but they understand, you know, the economic aspect of this problem?
Yeah, I think there is that weird, like we support small businesses, but yet you're going to shut down 1000 small businesses in our state by not funding childcare.
They talk about not wanting to, you know, have handouts for people or businesses, but yet we have handouts for agribusiness manufacturers, pretty much every single industry that exists besides childcare.
We don't want to give money to people, but then.
boss says we want to give money directly to parents.
And so they're just full of contradictions.
And I think they're trying to my opinion, I think they're trying really hard to justify it to themselves.
Honestly, their decisions.
Well, look, look, whatever justifies supporting it, however they get there, would be helpful because again, Governor Evers wanted $480 million into childcare accounts.
And we don't know what ultimately is going to happen from this.
But we know that some people read zero because they were trying like you said,
They were trying different kinds of tax credits and things like that.
And I know we've covered this previously, but these tax credits, which seems to be the only tool that some conservatives know, they just don't work.
They're too convoluted for parents to use, much less providers, right?
Oh, absolutely not.
Tax credits.
I had to laugh when I looked at the joint finance committee and their tax cuts and how it's going to save the average family $259 a year.
That's less than a week of childcare.
So, you know, tax credits don't work and they don't work because first off, they're not actually increasing revenue for our programs.
They're not able to give us the ability to pay people better.
And they don't, you know, once a year, getting back a little tiny amount off your taxes isn't going to do anything.
And
you know, it kind of goes along with that same hope of you give money to and it trickles down to other people.
Well, that doesn't work.
Tax credits have always been sort of a neoliberal way to compromise.
And we tried it for 40 years.
It's not working.
Let's do something new.
And one of the things that has also been suggested on the Republican side of things is, again, that they love tax credits, and they love talking about deregulation.
But
deregulation in terms of well we'll just expand class sizes or we'll reduce some of the requirements you know the quote unquote the red tape for providers again those did not exactly seem popular when they were first proposed because they they don't not only don't get at the heart of the problem it almost sounds like they'd make some of these problems worse.
Oh, absolutely would make things worse.
We can't find teachers.
We can't keep family child care because the workload is too heavy and too hard for such a small amount of pay, $13 an hour.
And you're telling me I don't earn that, that I need to take on five or six babies in order to earn my $13 an hour.
You're just going to increase burnout.
You're also going to hurt those kids' development.
If we want a strong society, if we want kids who are ready to go into the world when they turn 18 and become military or next business owners or work for a variety of different people,
We need kids who are actually intelligent and can use their brains and critically think.
And when you put too many in a classroom with a teacher who cannot meet their needs, you're going to do the opposite.
And you're going to cost us that much more as time goes on.
got on the the text line from Tim in Wales talking about part of the reason childcare counts works is that you know the the assistance is given to the childcare provider which is a good reminder for me to take a step back for folks on the childcare counts program itself how does it work it was funded by federal pandemic aid the governor now wants you know instead state funds to go into childcare counts so that's what would change about the money coming in the door how does the
you go out the door from child care accounts, how does it work?
Yeah, so what happens is actually this is the third.
go around in the budget that the governor has tried to put state money in in order to directly fund child care so we can pay our employees better and family child care stay open.
And so every single program that's regulated in the state is actually able to apply every single month and we receive an amount for our operational costs and we receive an amount for our per child.
And it's based on our quality rating indicator scale.
So if we participate in Youngstar and it's based on the number of children their ages, we do get more.
for younger children and our teachers while full time or part time.
And every single month we get that money and then we're able to offset the cost to our parents.
For tuition, for example, most of us are sending out letters to our parents right now telling them that as of August 1st or September 1st, when this funding is gone, our rates are going to go up because we need to offset that loss of revenue.
And we're doing that to help ourselves so that parents have a way of understanding what's going on, but then also to help educate
the Republicans who consistently are saying and accusing us of pocketing this money and not using it to offset those costs for parents.
So if, let's say in October, November, they decide to actually do something for childcare and put investment in, then we can reduce that tuition back down as well.
So it's really one of those things that they just keep basically lying about us and accusing us of doing underhanded things.
It makes me wonder why they would assume that about other people.
So now we wait to see what they do in terms of putting something into the budget that they would eventually send to Governor Evers.
And again, the governor bringing this up indicates to a lot of folks that negotiations are going on and that Republicans are coming off of the number zero for going into childcare counts.
But that still leaves a lot of room for Republicans to put
not zero dollars in there, but not nearly enough as well to maintain the program.
So when we hint at the potential for progress in negotiations, that's no reason to let off the gas in terms of trying to persuade legislators about the value of it, right?
Oh, absolutely not.
We told everyone it's working.
This tells us that what we're doing, the pressure that we're giving is working because for the Republicans to walk away from the negotiating table and for the Joint Finance Committee to not meet indicates to me that within the Republican caucus they don't agree and that there is some that are feeling the pressure and may want to actually
um, invest in child care a hearing that didn't go specific not
knowing what
the votes to cancel.
And so that tells me to continue contacting our programs.
If you're closing breaks my heart and if you don't want to you already are, um, you and say exactly why it is parents need to be cont their employers know to like
come to work and I'm going to need a raise and get those employers to also contact those representatives.
Yeah, because we have spoken in the past about, you know, a study showing just how many child care providers, perhaps one in four, would close their doors if state support for all these centers ends in June.
And that was a survey of child care providers commissioned by the Department of Children and Families.
It was produced by the Institute for the Research on Poverty at UW Madison.
So I mean, the
These are the actual voices of people who can either be part of the solution or can, you know, things can go south real quick if a lot of these places close their door.
It's not about a profit margin.
Karina, it's about survivability.
Oh, absolutely.
And for th that we were okay before we were struggling.
We were al with young children who are to either open their or go work for a group cent know, so that their child i and they can earn a little we leave.
And so we've al this revolving door and it our children.
It's hurting
Corrine Hendrickson is a family childcare provider in the Nuglaris area.
Chris Hamburg Boyle gets on Facebook to say, thank you, Corrine, for your knowledgeable, persistent, and caring advocacy for children.
You and Brooke are greatly appreciated.
She connects the dots for children, families, businesses, and public schools.
I couldn't agree more.
Corrine, thank you so much on short notice for taking time and commenting on the governor's comments.
We really appreciate it.
All right, there we go, Karine Hendrickson.
A little bit of a delay on that, but we definitely got the message through loud and clear.
And that was the important part here is that advocacy works.
It doesn't always work right away.
It doesn't work every time, but it's in that category of you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
And if you don't want to watch childcare centers,
go out of business left and right.
You look for ways to support them in a way that is good for the state economy.
A local update is next for some of you and then in our next hour we'll be together after the eight o'clock news to talk to Chad Holmes and then at 830 Dan Schaefer from the Reconbobulation Area.
Live from Lake Wissota, I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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.
Who can ever get enough Todd Alba?
Well, he's going to be part of Matt and Air on Air coming up at 9.30.
He and I alternate on Tuesdays at 9.30, appearing with Jane and Greg.
So you can catch Todd on Jane and Greg's show today at 9.30.
And then on Todd's show, at about 3.30 today, Alex Modorsky of the Nature Conservancy will be talking about the Nells Nolson Stewardship Program to conserve land in Wisconsin and prevent overdevelopment.
Let's continue the conversation here about
childcare for a moment and we get a follow-up text from Tim in Wales who says, thank you.
I had no idea how the program works.
I don't think the majority do.
I think if more people knew how the program works, it would have more support, how they get the funds, how the funds can be used, how they are tracked, do all families get the use of the funds or is it set by income?
And the short answer to that is that this is assistance for the providers.
Here's an interesting way to think about it and if we
hadn't had a bit of a technical delay, I would have asked Karine about this directly.
But look at it this way.
State aid goes to fund our education, our K through 12 public schools, now voucher schools to a very high price tag as well.
But we pay taxes, the taxes go in part to the education of our children from kindergarten through 12th grade.
And then there's also state support for technical colleges, the UW system and more.
What we're doing is evolving the system to say education doesn't start on the first day of kindergarten.
If you've got quality childcare that allows parents to be in the workforce if they choose to, and you're educating those kids in a safe environment, then why wouldn't some of our tax dollars go there instead to the providers so that they can keep prices reasonable for the parents?
Think of it as, you know, the parents paying the childcare center is much like we pay property taxes for our part of K through 12 education.
So here's where I think you can get Republicans interested in this.
What if the alternative to quality childcare centers was expanding public education, public schools, what conservatives like to call government schools?
Well, we don't have that for childcare right now.
What if we did?
if we started instead of K-12 it was say you know birth to 12 or something like that and you went to you know the local elementary school for your child care and your state tax dollars went there that would be one way to go but conservatives wouldn't like that what would they say they'd say the private sector should do this the marketplace should be doing this well that's what we have right now so
If you don't want every public school in the childcare business, then you should want the private sector.
You should want these parents, these community members who want to care for our children and who aren't part of a government system, but support them with our tax dollars so that our kids are getting good quality care, safety, education.
from, you know, from the time they're very small until the time that they're out there in the workforce.
And so simply expanding the model that says we are going to, we together are going to care for our children, all of our children, and make sure that they have the best learning environment possible.
That's good economic sense.
So that's going to appeal to the, the pro business conservatives in Republican caucuses.
Now, unfortunately, there is a real divide in there in that room.
You'll have your pro-business conservatives, but you'll also have your social conservatives who will say, well, this just encourages all women, usually, to abandon their kids in childcare so that they can go work and they shouldn't be so selfish and they should stay home with the kids.
Well, that's a decision that you can make.
That's a mindset that you can have.
But as an elected official, in terms of what's good for
all families in Wisconsin, what's good for the economy writ large, you're gonna have to take a look at this issue and see if your social conservative policies are the kinds of things that you can impose on everybody else in the state, the kinds of things you can impose on the state economy, or do you merely state your case and say, you know, this is what we'd like to do, let's find the things that encourage at least one parent to stay home, okay?
Now we're talking about nutrition assistance.
Now we're talking about health care.
Now we're talking about affordable taxes for the middle class, not just for the highest tax brackets.
There are so many ways to be pro-family and fiscally conservative and even socially conservative that don't cross some kind of a line of dictating how many kids you can have or have to have.
It brings us back to that Sean Duffy piece from the New York Times yesterday, is you can encourage big families if you want, but if as a government, you're not willing to provide ways that make a large family an attractive outcome for a couple, then those are just empty words that you're saying.
So take our tax dollars and do the best you can with them from cradle to grave.
whether it's good childcare, affordable schools, or making sure you don't take away people's Medicaid when they're disabled, or their Medicare when they're finally ready to retire.
That's really all we want is a well-rounded budget, both at the federal level and at the state level.
And that involves much more than tax credits or red tape, you know?
And the red tape one really gets to me because we hear that all the time.
Oh, we got to get rid of the red tape for the business community.
You got to get rid of the red tape for the business community.
But look what they're doing with Medicaid.
How are they going to cut?
They say, well, we're not cutting.
We're just making sure that only eligible people get it through all these additional work requirements, all these reporting requirements.
In other words, all this red tape.
Similarly,
they may come back and say, you know what, we're going to put a whole bunch of money into child care accounts, but we're going to put so much red tape into it, like reporting requirements and other benchmarks that many daycare providers decide not to take advantage of it because it's not worth all the hassle.
The people that tell you that they're against deregulation and red tape sure know how to use it.
when they want to for their own partisan purposes.
So we'll follow how this goes with the state budget debate as it continues to evolve in Madison.
Coming up after the eight o'clock news, we'll be talking to Chad Holmes from 98.9 WXCO and Dan Schafer, Civic Media's political editor and founder of the Reconpopulation Area.
That's all coming up next on this Wednesday morning, powered by Up North News, live from Lake Wissota on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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