Is Perfect the Enemy of ‘Good Enough’? (Hour 3)

Across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglo powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglo.

Well, hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 6.06 on this Tuesday morning, July 1st.

2025 it's another beautiful morning to have you here up north live from Lake Wissota from wherever you're spending your mornings listening across the civic media radio network through the app on social media however you got here we appreciate it because you've you've made it to July you've made it to the second half of 2025 and I've got a question for you did you ever have to hit the ground running sooner than expected

and later realized you still haven't had your first sip of coffee, much less the day's first cup.

That was the experience here, sitting down at my desk with my cup of coffee, said, got here a couple of minutes early, that was good.

See what's going on in the world, might be a slow news day.

Oh wait, there's an announcement from Governor Tony Evers and legislative Republicans, they have reached a budget deal.

And they clearly reached something detailed late yesterday.

because not only was the governor's press release ready to go out at exactly five o'clock this morning, so was the news piece from the Associated Press, so was the news piece from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, so the details were out there in what we call an embargoed group of reporters.

who were able to put that out at 5am, give us the details and we're going to review it all.

And as I reviewed some of it and got closer to the top of the hour here, I was like, I have not had any coffee yet.

But we're on news caffeine at the moment here.

So we'll tell you more about what is in the deal.

And then at 830, Dan Schaefer will be here from the recombobulation area with his usual weekly appearance.

And I guess the way we'll put it to him is

You know that saying you know, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the very good Is this very good is is this good enough for you know for not just legislators But for supporters for allies like I would think for example of Korean Hendrickson who's been an advocate for child care Now there's a very detailed child care provision in this bill

Is it going to be good enough?

It's going to be better than what Republicans would have given if, say, Tim Michaels were in the governor's office right now.

That number would be $0.

But the number that's in there, is it going to work?

We will see.

Tony writes on YouTube, I wonder what you're going to talk about today, Pat Sloan, Tuesday, nothing happening in Madison.

And then he goes on to wonder about this budget deal.

I wonder how many Democratic votes they are getting in the Assembly and Senate.

Well, Tony, I think I have an answer for that one based on personal experience.

I think that because the governor reached this deal with Republican leaders, it will mean a whole lot of Democrats will also vote for it and say, hey, they want to be able to say, we voted for a bipartisan deal.

It will allow a handful of Democrats in, say, tougher districts, if they want to, to vote no and be able to go home and say, I didn't vote for that because it wasn't good enough for, you know, for whatever reason.

Meanwhile, on the Republican side.

it looked like there were going to be one or two or three holdouts among senate republicans and then it would need democratic votes to pass but now not only will those one or two or three republicans vote no but probably a handful of others to say that there aren't enough cuts in there there aren't enough favors to the wealthy for them to support it so it's probably going to pass now it's not across the finish line yet the joint finance committee of the legislature will

bring it up today, vote on it, then send it to, and I don't know who's getting it first.

I'm gonna say it's, you know, could go to the full assembly first, where amendments are added, and then it goes to the full Senate, where amendments are added, or vice versa, and then once the amendments are added, it's gotta go back to the other house, and so there's still the possibility of surprises in there, but at the moment, based on what the leaders have all agreed to,

We may be avoiding a long budget, budget less crisis here in the state of Wisconsin.

We can't say the same thing out in Washington, D.C.

where, and let's bring in Parker Olson and Madison Studio A2 where at about 558 was it Parker?

I was like, holy cow, I've been working on all this state stuff.

I don't, I haven't looked at the national.

Is there even a federal deal?

Is there?

And don't you worry, Pat.

Parker was right away very reassuring.

Don't you worry.

It's as dysfunctional as ever and he's absolutely right.

Several senators I guess stepped outside a couple hours back to look at the sunrise and then crawl back into their holes and try to negotiate with each other again and it is it is very clear there that you have people like Ron Johnson and others who will not support something unless there are

very drastic cuts to Medicaid, but you have more Republicans saying these cuts are too drastic.

And I don't know if the tension's there for this thing to pass or not.

So it's really

annoying because I feel like a lot of Democrats are just trying to show off this thing sucks.

Well,

and

that's why

the the

in

Republicans just like nah.

the president has said over and over, we want this done by July 4th.

We want this done by July 4th.

There's nothing special about July 4th.

What he's saying is, get this thing to my desk.

Let's get this out of here before people figure out what's in it.

And as people are figuring out what's in it, they're like, this is awful.

It's truly an awful bill.

It is a massive redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the upper class.

It is going to make so many people's lives miserable or harmful.

And so they're, they are trying so hard to, to put lipstick on this pig and the pig just won't sit still.

And so I don't know if they're going to get it done or not.

So we'll, so we have a deal in Madison.

We may not be close to a deal in Washington, DC.

We'll monitor both.

We'll give you all the latest updates.

Uh, what's, what's new in, in Madison world down there, Mr. Olson.

Oh, boy.

You know what, Pat?

I have reached the point in my life that I had a dream about sleeping in.

I woke up today.

RIP to Parker's Youth.

It died in the middle of 2025.

I

woke up today thinking that it was like six o'clock and I had slept in far too long.

Oh, no, no.

It was 405 as per usual.

Yes.

Yeah.

So that's

where I'm at.

But

I

saw a

little bit of a sunrise today.

It was very nice and clear today, so I got a little

bit of

a sunrise.

Not the sun, but starting

to see a little bit.

Remember, we talked in great detail about that about a week, week and a half ago with, I forgot about that destination that you found.

The civil twilight versus nautical twilight versus sunrise, you know, and, you know, we're usually having, you know, breakfast at a little before five AM and, and you can kind of sort of see the lake, you know, as the sun is getting set to come up and it's gorgeous because it's not sunrise yet, but it's also not winter.

We're not looking at a frozen lake.

So, you know.

All things in moderation.

Tony's got news for you, he writes on YouTube.

Waking up after seven, never again.

It's quite possible.

Yeah, probably not.

Alicia, good morning, writes in on YouTube that there was an event they had at the Appleton Library last night with storytellers on how the Trump package is going to affect people in the Fox Valley.

And so it's those kinds of events, those kinds of stories.

that are truly making an impact on folks who don't normally follow this.

People who there's an estimate of like one third to one fourth of all or one fourth to one third of all Americans still know nothing about what's in the bill.

And of the Americans that know what's in the bill out in Washington DC, they oppose it by a two to one margin.

So, I mean, information is the enemy for the Ron Johnson's of the world right now.

Never heard that before.

Well, it is.

That's exactly what it is.

So we try to spread that information here.

If you would like to...

Join the comment parade on YouTube or on Facebook.

Just head over to the up North news Facebook or YouTube pages or the civic media Facebook or YouTube pages and put down a question or a comment there.

You can also follow my Facebook page Facebook.com slash mornings with Pat Crite low.

You can also find me on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

So I got to admit I am

I am shirking.

I have not been posting like original stuff on Instagram or TikTok, nearly to the degree that I would like to.

I see you on Twitter now in them though.

Every now, well, I'm finally moving back to Twitter.

And by the way, it is under protest.

I do not like going back.

Oh, no one's happy to be on Twitter.

No, I mean, it's honest to goodness.

I mean, it still has this base of where you can share information, but you're weeding past, you know,

Maga stuff that you didn't invite into your feed, you know, Nazis and porn and probably Nazi porn.

I don't know.

Yeah.

And it's just, it's just a dumpster fire.

Let

me tell you a

secret.

Let me tell you a secret, Pat.

Use the following tab.

Only look at the people that you follow.

I know, but I also, again, I don't want to miss like some new point of view or something.

And it's, it's always a balancing act.

Like, okay, is it worth it to find

some new sources of information, or do I really have to watch, you know, this person fail at sword swallowing?

Yeah, that is a pretty good chunk of it.

People put up just vile clips and it's like, what are you, and by the way, I'm not asking for these.

This isn't like Facebook, like.

You know you're asking for failed source following on Facebook my mom called me yesterday, and she said Patrick I'm gonna make fun of me again, and I said well stop giving me reason to and Here's here's her latest like a loving she's she's she is not a fan of Let's say tattoos

all

right, okay, and But she says my Facebook feed it's just all these tattoos pictures

Mom, you're clicking on them to look at them to be disgusted by them.

And so they keep feeding you more.

So I had to teach her the algorithm and how it worked.

And I think I was helpful.

You know, I'm sure I'm sure you are.

I believe.

Yes.

Because my wife has got it down to a science.

It is it is funny stuff and cute baby animals.

And that's that's it.

I mean, she is a level, you know, she's expert level at the algorithm.

Others, not so much.

And you try to do that with Twitter as well, but Elon Musk has got that thing set up for just, nope, here's some more garbage for you.

Hope you enjoy.

So anyway, so I'm putting stuff back there, but I'm still trying to put stuff on blue sky as well.

And yeah, I'd love to get more.

video content on tiktok and instagram and i know that that'll happen once these two budget deals are done we can go back into like video explainers and things like that so it's just uh it's just a busy very busy time

Yeah, we're doing things like you know putting together that new Sunday morning politics newsletter that you can sign up for it's called Sunday mornings with pack right now You can click subscribe at the top of our homepage up north news wi.com And subscribe to one of our three different newsletters that got you covered seven days a week Now that there is a budget deal Everybody's gonna be watching governor Tony Evers who said he was not gonna make any announcement on whether he will run for a third term next year

until after the budget is done.

It's not done yet but it's getting closer and so it led to our question of the week in this issue two days ago saying

Who's gonna be the Republican nominee for governor next year?

Whatever evers decides and I know there's over a year to go until the primary But what do you think and we give you some options because Tim Michaels is apparently interested Eric Hovde is apparently interested Josh showman the Washington County executive is is already committed to running But maybe it'll be some other politician or maybe it'll be some other rich guy

who thinks that, you know, like a Ron Johnson, you can just waltz into office with a big old checkbook.

So we ask what you think, and that's what you get in our Question of the Week by signing up for our daily newsletter.

Hey, from the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wastoda, let me thank you for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Kratlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

All right, I'm going to tell you about some stuff on civic media and some stuff on Up North News.

Then we're going to cover some more of the latest on the budget battle in Washington, DC.

And then after the next break and the Midwest Farm Report, I will stop teasing you and give you some of the details in the state.

budget agreement reached by Governor Evers and legislative Republicans yesterday.

So coming up later today on Civic Media, Matt Nair on Air follows this fine program from 9 to 11 a.m.

and the only guest they've got listed so far is me.

I'll be on with Jane and Greg at 9.30.

Yeah, boy.

Tune in anyway, folks, because it's a good show otherwise with Jane and with Greg.

Of course, they'll have this shouldn't be a thing at 10.50 as well.

Let's see, on the Todd Alba show at, let's see, oh, no, no, no, no, nope, sorry, did not update that appropriately.

On the Maggie Dawn show, I think Jim Santel's gonna be the guest host today.

See, now I'm doubting myself, now I gotta go look, so.

Forgive me.

I thought I thought I had this all updated, but nope.

I got to scroll down a little bit here and on the Honey Todd all the show today is what's worse segment cookout condiments Okay, Jim Santel is indeed the guest host on the Maggie Dawn show guest co-host I should say at four o'clock and at 5 30 they will talk to Kristen Crowell executive director of fair share America Holding the stop the billionaire giveaway national bus tour

And on Nightlight with Pete Schwabba at 6.30 tonight, Sturgeon Spirits Distillery founder Carl Loewenstein will be in the studio.

So that's some of what you'll find across the Civic Media radio network throughout the course of the day.

In our daily newsletter at Up North News, it is cherry picking season.

We have information on what to know.

where to go and how to enjoy the tart kind of cherries that grow very well here in Wisconsin Springs.

On our website UpNorthNewsWI.com there's an article there about all of the some of the best 4th of July fireworks shows.

going on around Wisconsin.

And there is also on social media, you can hear from a couple of Chippewa County farmers during a visit recently from Senator Tammy Baldwin, talking about President Trump's trade war and its impact on all things agricultural in Wisconsin.

So that's just a few of the things you'll find over at UpNorth News on social media and our website, upnorthnewswi.com.

So

In Washington right now, again, as the Senate now stretches into a third day of voting on all kinds of amendments, your first thought might be, well, is this just a Democratic delaying trick?

Are they just throwing all these amendments out there that Republicans won't support?

No, no, I mean, that's part of it, yes, yes.

But there are also these Republican amendments trying to massage the bill one way or the other to

get enough Republican votes to get this thing across the finish line.

The problem is that Republicans can only afford to lose, I think, three votes.

And there are definitely two no votes already.

And Ron Johnson might be a no vote if, you know, they don't close more orphanages or make more cuts to Medicaid or something like that.

But others are saying these cuts, you know, are going to kill us Republicans next year in the midterms.

Meanwhile, back over in the House of Representatives, Republicans there, remember it too passed by the narrowest of margins.

Now they're watching the Senate tear parts of it down, remake parts of it.

And so they have new reason to threaten to hold out when the bill comes back to them for approval.

Not the least of which is the $3.3 trillion of new debt.

Keep in mind that that is

That is after all of the cuts to Medicaid and food assistance and the Affordable Care Act and other programs.

That's just how much more Republicans want to provide in tax cuts to the very wealthy is that they're gonna make all these cuts to programs the rest of us use and they're still gonna add three trillion more

onto the deficit.

The bill would raise the federal debt limit by five trillion dollars.

All of these Republicans who have been talking about we can't afford this and we can't afford that for years are about to approve a bill that would raise the federal debt limit by five trillion dollars.

It has truly removed any credibility from Republicans who say, well, we can't afford this.

You can afford

tax cuts for the super wealthy if you want to you're willing to put that on the nation's credit card.

So you really have lost any high ground when it comes to fiscal conservatism.

Now overnight senators voted to strip a provision out of the bill that would have effectively blocked states from passing their own laws on artificial intelligence for the next decade.

The vote was 99 to one.

So if anybody over on the house side thinks they're putting that one back in No, no, they're not Elon Musk who of course is now had a falling out with Republicans has called for the formation of a new party He is threatening to primary Republicans who vote for the bill the way that is currently written Do I think he'll follow through on that?

No, why?

Because a big favorite of SpaceX has been put into the budget bill and I think a lot of this is performative

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska got some kind of a sweetheart deal for rural health care spending in the bill.

The Senate parliamentarian said it's not germane to the bill and has to come out.

So maybe she won't vote for it now.

And so amendment after amendment is coming up again to try to form something that can get the barest amount of Republican votes.

What would you do in the real world?

What would the rest of us do in the real world?

We talked to Democrats and we'd say okay, what can we do together?

To write a budget where you get some of what you want I get some of what I want and we get this all done That's how most normal workplaces would go but we're talking about the United States Congress not a normal workplace

Thank you for spending some time here as part of your mornings powered by UpNorth News.

We will have more on the state budget deal next.

Live from Chippewa Falls after the Midwest Farm Report, I'm Pat Crightlow.

Tomorrow on the program.

Oh, it's it's gonna be a fun one.

It's Wednesday, so we catch up with all kinds of our civic media friends.

We will have Melissa Baldoff in with climate check.

We will have James Kelly, Jimmy Koska, Earl Ingram, and of course, Melissa Kay with Pigeon Quest.

There will surely be an update.

All of that tomorrow here on these mornings powered by Up North News.

There is a feature on the civic media app.

that you should be making use of.

It's called the voice note feature.

Go to any station on the Civic Media app and use the voice note button to leave us a short audio message with a question or a comment.

We might play it on air.

You can use, of course, the regular ways, the comments sections in Facebook and YouTube or the text line, again, through the Civic Media app, which leads me to this comment when we were talking about Twitter before.

from Jim and Appleton, try substack, Pat.

That's becoming similar to Twitter before Elon.

And I got that from somebody in the comment section as well.

Oh yeah, it was Mary here saying that I enjoy substack.

Well, I too have a substack and in a perfect world, that was gonna be my daily show notes, which I was then gonna outsource to Parker.

And he would put them together, but that hasn't happened yet.

So it's on our list.

It's on that ever expanding to do list Parker.

It's on your advice.

Yeah.

First things first.

We've got some short term work to do.

But yes, I should have mentioned substack as well.

All right, I'm going to talk a bit about the state budget deal.

It is not going to be unfortunately my smoothest explanation because again, it's a comprehensive deal.

It was reached at some point yesterday, but a deal was reached to embargo the news until 5am.

And so the governor put out very detailed press release at 5 a.m.

The journal Sentinel put out the details at 5 a.m.

The Associated Press put out the details at 5 a.m.

And so I'm bouncing between these and so forgive any redundancy and people will go well What are you doing it for then?

I mean who wants to hear about the state budget?

You know, can't can't you talk about the brewers?

How the brewers do you haven't mentioned them at all?

Well

The brewers didn't play last night.

The brewers are headed to New York.

They are now there to take on the Mets.

Coverage begins at 5.35 tonight, tomorrow, and Thursday on several Civic Media radio stations.

Again, head to the Civic Media website to learn more about the brewers.

So lacking a brewers game, let's talk about where your state tax dollars go, where those fees go that you pay for various things, and how they come back out to you in one form or another.

The, the, the governor, a Democrat, Tony Evers, the Republicans who control the state legislature have hammered out a two year deal.

Every state budget is a two year thing here.

And so the previous deal expired yesterday.

Today is the first day of the new fiscal year.

Happy fiscal new year, everybody.

And so there will be a new budget in place eventually, hopefully in the meantime, the old budget will continue that in this new deal.

there will be income tax cuts, there will be increased funding for the UW system, there will be an increase in spendable funds for K-12 schools, and there will be money put into childcare, not nearly as much as advocates were hoping, and maybe not entirely in the form they were hoping,

But again, more than the zero dollars they would get if the Republican legislature had a Republican in the governor's office.

So let's start with the tax cuts.

There will be, and again, keep in mind, there's a $4 billion surplus to work with here.

So there's room for everybody to get a little bit of something.

So off the top, $1.3 billion in income tax cuts, largely targeting the middle class.

In all, more than one and a half million people in Wisconsin will have their taxes cut on average.

Again, this is on average $180 per year.

Again, depending on your bracket.

The deal would also expand the state's second lowest income tax bracket.

I wouldn't even call that a bracket.

It is so big.

I don't have it in front of me, but it's something like $60,000 to $400,000.

It's a big bracket.

It's going to make it even bigger.

It will move, if you are age 67 and over, the first $24,000 of income will be tax-free.

It is also going to eliminate the sales tax on your electric bills.

That'll save taxpayers about $150 million over the next two years.

Over at higher education, the universities of Wisconsin would see a quarter billion dollar increase over two years, $256 million.

That is the largest funding increase to the UW system in about two decades.

Now again, 256 million is not the 855 million that the Board of Regents had asked for.

It's also not the cut of $87 million that Republicans were proposing.

Republicans got out of the deal the imposition of a minimum workload requirement for faculty, as well as an independent study on the future sustainability of the UW system.

There will be $200 million additional put into transportation projects, though there were not a lot of details on that.

Childcare will get $330 million over two years.

Now, that doesn't sound like a far cry from what the governor and childcare advocates were hoping for, but they did divvy it up a bit.

About one third of that $330 million will go to direct.

payments to child care providers, similar to the child care accounts program.

But then others, other parts of the money will be used in different ways to support child care.

And I'll get to those details in just a little bit.

We've have been in touch with the Korean Hendrickson from Nucleus, who is reviewing the details and will give us some reaction, perhaps as early as 720.

Funding for special education.

is going to increase in a big way.

And let me jump over to the governor's press release because it really provides some good details on that.

And that this is the part where you forgive me for the scrolling, but I wanted to see if we could find it.

Here we go.

It is the largest percentage increase in special education reimbursement in state history.

which by the way, only recently came from like 30% reimbursement up to like 35% reimbursement.

And yet voucher schools get a 90% reimbursement on their special education costs.

Well, we're not going to 90%, but the new budget does call for 42% in the first year of the budget, 45% in the second year of the budget.

The governor says it's the highest reimbursement rate in 30 years.

There's also 30 million for his mental health services and schools initiative that is going to be happening.

Let's see, I've got, while I'm at the governor's press release here, let's look a bit more at the childcare.

There is 66 million to fund a new childcare program that will support providers by helping four year olds prepare for the classroom.

There will be,

$2 million designed to help providers build capacity to be able to cut childcare waiting lists.

There will be $123 million to increase rates under the Wisconsin Shares childcare subsidy program to help lower out-of-pocket childcare costs for working families across the state.

And then there will be another pilot program to support expanding capacity across the childcare industry.

That, again, is the kind of thing Republicans were looking for was, you know, how do we make it so that each provider can watch more kits?

And childcare providers said, well,

Without assistance and building that capacity, all you're saying is, you know, throw more kids in the room and hope for the best.

And that, that could be a safety concern.

So again, in this case, there will be more to be done to help providers build up the infrastructure to be able to have more kids, uh, under their care.

Let's see, we've also got, oh, I did mention the proposal to eliminate the sales tax on utility bills.

That was the governor's idea that Republicans are going along with.

And let's see, all told the governor is saying that since taking office, he has now presided over $12.5 billion in tax cuts.

It includes eliminating retirement income tax for many retirees.

Oh, here's a here's something.

Creating a film tax credit and establishing a state film office in the Department of Tourism, which will allocate up to five million in film production and investment tax credits for each fiscal year.

So that's something I've heard other people talk about is why why we don't have a film credit here that can bring in a lot of business.

And so that is also part of the deal.

Let's see from

Scott and Madison on the text line just cut to the chase.

What will be the surplus at the end of the two years on the new budget?

That it does not say here.

And I know that the heroes at the Legislative Fiscal Bureau and as a former senator, I'm not engaging in hyperbole.

The heroes at the Legislative Fiscal Bureau are surely going to continue crunching these numbers and we'll find out if there's a surplus at the end of this thing or not.

I don't think that they'll, I think that there will be a surplus.

I don't think Republicans would have gone along with spending the whole thing down.

And that's not just out of fiscal conservatism.

That's also out of a sense of they want to have a little pot of money to hand to the next governor in case a Republican wins the governor's race next year.

So let's see it.

Also on, let's take a look at two, Alicia just puts, it's enormous.

I hope she means.

I don't know if she means the utility bills.

She says, I like that we won't have a sales tax on our electric bills.

And Tony of course wants more sports talk.

Okay, so that's where we sit with all of that is a deal that as the governor says secures the largest increase to special education reimbursement rate in state history, the largest increase to the UW system in more than two decades, over 330 million to support Wisconsin's childcare industry.

And then also,

I was about to say big cuts in taxes.

It's not up for me to say if that's a big cut in income taxes, but it will have more than one and a half billion dollars of the surplus applied toward income tax cuts that is said to be.

targeted toward the middle class, but again, I would have to see the details on that for all of that to be able to comment further.

And so I've got, I had to send some early morning texts out to legislators, some of whom are not exactly early birds.

But let's see, from State Representative Jodi Emerson, she responded.

I'm amazed.

She said she'll be on the road at that point, which makes sense because joint finance is going to be taking this up today and then the assembly and the Senate will take it up over the next couple of days.

And again, probably get this all passed.

There will be, again, all kinds of amendments that will be offered.

I would describe the amendment process as maybe a little less friendly in the legislature compared to in Washington D.C.

because, again, they've worked out this deal.

They don't want to, if they monkey with it too much, well, then you've got to send it back to the other house and, you know, what if they're not there?

I mean, the assembly could vote on this first.

and they could adjourn for the session and then the Senate would have to like take it or leave it.

Do you wanna look like the bad guys or are you gonna get this thing done?

So we've got some time yet to see and then the governor still has like 10 days to apply any partial vetoes.

Now it does say in the news report that the governor has pledged not to veto any of the things that are part of the deal.

So it is still possible that some of these amendments that will come on there

are things that he may not like and can strike with his veto pen.

And again, the legislature, if they want to override it, get the votes and override it.

If not, that's what the partial veto is there for.

So those are the details.

We'll talk about them again with Dan Schaefer coming up at 830 from the Reconbobulation area about whether this is good enough to attract plenty of Democratic votes as well as Republican votes and put this whole state budget deal behind us.

Today's history lesson is next as we always do.

Mornings up north and live on the Civic Media Radio Network.

This is Demi Lovato.

There

are those songs that are like the songs of the summer and you hear them like on a loop throughout the summer and then not so much afterwards.

And that was definitely the case with this one.

Cool for the summer by Demi Lovato.

This was the song of the summer 10 years ago.

Can't believe that song is 10 years old already.

Yes.

Yeah, exactly.

So Demi Lovato, cool for the summer, released this day in 2015.

On today's history lesson, and we've got a lot of stuff here today, the British North America Act took effect this day in 1867.

What did that mean?

It created the modern nation of Canada.

Happy Canada Day to all of our friends up north.

Okay.

I'm

sorry.

Yeah, it's Canada's Independence Day today.

The first ever Tour de France bicycle race was held this day in 1903.

On this day in 1966, Bob Dylan released the first double album of the rock and roll era, Blonde en Blonde.

On this day in 1956, the family-friendly Steve Allen show didn't want Elvis Presley shaking his legendary pelvis.

And so he sang Hound Dog to a basset hound.

Both Elvis and the dog were dressed up in formal wear.

Oh, I love that

story.

Elvis was humiliated and yet it expanded his audience and

you know, show that you can have a little fun, you know, take a little poke at yourself now and then.

Whether you like it or not, that's show business.

So on this day in 1967 was the peak of Scott McKenzie's record, San Francisco.

This is all that summer of love, that groovy stuff from 1967.

It reached its peak of number four on the singles chart this day in 1967, galvanizing the flower power movement.

Lot of birthdays today.

Let's start with a landmark one.

Debbie Harry is 80 years old today.

Debbie Harry, born this day in 1945.

Liv Tyler is 48 years old today.

Pam Anderson is 58 years old today.

Happy birthday to Fred Schneider of the B-52s.

He is 74 years old today.

Yes, we've got we got we got the variety here today.

We got it in big time.

Dan Ackroyd is 73 years old today.

Jamie Farr from Mash.

Klinger is 91 years old today.

I would love to tell you that Diana Princess of Wales turned 64 today and sadly passed away far too young at the age of 36 back in 1997.

She was born this day in 1961.

Happy birthday to Victor Willis.

You may not know him by name, but you know the village people, you know the lead singer, the policeman, that would be Victor Willis.

This day in 1987, WFAN in New York City was launched as the world's first

All sports radio station for better or for worse.

I mean, look, I'm not not going to cast stones, but I've heard some sports talk stations.

They're quite good.

You know, they're entertaining.

And I've heard some that, you know, would be better off just saying at the bar, you know, put one bar stool to the other.

Yeah.

Sports talk can kind of venture into what I will call.

Twitter like

yes.

Yes.

That is a that is a very good way to put it Happy birthday to Missy Elliott.

She is 54 years old today

On this

day in 2006 the most popular Taylor in America was Taylor Hicks

because he had just won American Idol season five and his first hit single Do I Make You Proud hit number one.

And I don't know if I've heard from Taylor Hicks ever since.

I don't think I know that name at all.

No.

Well,

it certainly answers that doesn't it.

All right.

Uh, zip codes were introduced for mail in the United States this day in 1963, which is why this is also National Postal Workers Day.

So thank the folks at the post office who do so much to get us the mail on time every day safely through rain, through snow, through all of that.

Yeah, this is American Zoo Day.

So, you know, is it really?

Yeah, almost.

Pat, I am

currently reading an article right now in the CapTimes about how the Henry Violet Zoo in Madison is finally naming its flamingos.

Oh, gosh, it's you and the flamingos again.

Yeah, it is.

You are becoming to flamingos what Melissa K is to pigeons over here.

You're going to adopt one, aren't you?

I mean, it'll stay at the zoo, but you're going to adopt one.

You're going to get to name it.

This could happen.

You're not allowed to have them as pets.

I

do

know that.

You know, agree to disagree.

Sure.

Um, yeah.

So American zoo day and this of course is national grilling month.

Like you needed to tell anybody that I

don't

need.

I don't need that on my calendar.

I

just need a, I need some Johnson Vils and some Kraut and some.

Kingsford and I am good to go.

Coming up yet this morning, we will be talking to Lincoln County Dairy from Hans Brighton Moser.

We'll congratulate the Trump administration for figuring out that you can't grow bananas and cocoa beans and coffee here in the U.S.

And maybe the trade war shouldn't reflect that.

Dan Schaefer coming along as well on these mornings powered by UpNorth News.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio

Network.

Cross Wisconsin on Civic Media.

You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.

Good morning.

It is 7 0 6.

Nice to have you here up north on this Tuesday morning.

We made it to July.

July 1st, 2025, Parker Olson standing by in Madison Studio A2, Brittany Merlot is off today.

Coming up this hour, we will talk to Lincoln County dairy farmer Hans Breitenmoser.

And it was not a great week last week for farmers, only, what, two and a half, three and a half days of field work because of all the rain.

But in other news related to food and farming, you know, there is still this trade war.

that President Trump has, you know, waged on other nations.

These are far from done deals.

We just haven't heard much about them lately.

But apparently the Trump administration has just figured out that maybe these across-the-board tariffs aren't working because the whole point was to bring things back to America, you know, bring certain crops back, bring manufacturing back, things like that.

There are certain things you can't grow in this country that we get elsewhere and so we'll talk about that that brilliant revelation on the on the half of Trump's

egg secretary coming up.

Let's see, no Brittany here, but I'm sure we've got notes from Rob and Tigerton.

Sure enough, they're on YouTube.

Good morning from Tigerton.

Lots of sun and 63 degrees, another busy day, mowing lawns in the Tigerton area, getting plenty of sun too.

I've got to go see the eye doctor July 16th in Wittenberg.

Mowing.

He mows lawn and plows snow at the Tigerton Post Office and in the winter he always thinks of the postal workers because we mentioned today is National Postal Workers Day.

He said yesterday I heard Debbie Harry's song The Tide is High from 1980 on the radio and you have to have Kristen Lyrely singing that song sometime.

All right we will do that.

Debbie Harry turns 80 years old today.

We were talking in the last hour about the

Newly announced budget deal for the state budget that Governor Evers and legislative Republicans reached yesterday We went through some of the details that Cassandra writes on YouTube.

This is better than I was expecting I never thought they'd give money to child care and that's true there will be some some

significant funding to child care, not exactly what the governor wants, but we've reached out to Karine Hendrickson from Nouglaris who's been a leading advocate for child care support in the state budget and she is going to join us in just over 10 minutes to give us her reaction to the child care portion of the budget and also tells what questions remain to be answered.

I mean, there are still other details that have to be announced on this state budget plan.

And we'll review those again in our next hour with Dan Schaefer from the Recombobulation Area, who will join us at about 8.30 to talk about what's going on there.

We'll talk a little bit more about the state budget deal in just a moment, but first I wanted to remind you that you can sign up for our daily newsletter over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.

And of course, you can follow us on our website as well.

One of the website feature articles this week is about

swimming in the summertime and some common Wisconsin lake hazards.

After all, with attempts that were pushing 90 recently and will be again this week, a trip to the lake might sound like the perfect time to cool off, but you'll find in our article some advice on protecting kids from drowning hazards, avoiding E. Coli contaminated waters, lower the chance of parasites causing swimmer's itch,

And how to spot that blue green algae, which can be harmful to humans and especially to pets.

Search for lake hazards on our website to find the article and make sure to check out the link at the bottom of the article to one of our top weekend road trip stories, seven great places to see waterfalls around Wisconsin.

Parker, you ever in all your swimming and beach time ever get swimmers itch?

I am not much of a swimmer at all bad actually.

So no, can't

say I had the

itch.

I haven't, I had it like two times as a, as a kid, maybe at ages, you know, nine and 10 or something like that.

And I don't even know what they do it for these days, but back, back then it was something called, was it Calamine Lotion?

Something like that.

And you had to pour some of that into a bath and you had to just lay in there for the longest time.

And even then it still didn't work.

You were just itching and scratching like crazy.

And I'm surprised, you know,

You keep yelling at you, don't itch, don't itch.

They should put like the cone of shame, you know,

on your

hands to stop you from doing that.

Anyway, so to avoid swimmers itch, read that article and some tips about making sure that you are swimming safely.

Also on our website, 10 Wisconsin homes that have been featured on HGTV.

So take a look at that.

So we went through some of the details of the state budget in our last hour and I realized

Hold on, back to the comment section here, Alicia.

I got Swimmer's Itch from a hotel pool.

I got one reaction to that, Alicia.

Ew.

To get Swimmer's Itch from a hotel pool tells me they didn't do a good job of cleaning that pool and I'm just gonna leave it at that.

All right, back to the state budget deal.

Again, the governor announced not just the increase in funding for the UW system and for childcare, but I neglected to give details on

What the governor says is a nearly $1.4 billion increase in spendable revenue for K-12 schools across the state.

And that word spendable is very important because in the last budget and prior to that, Republicans had this great little budget trick that they would play.

They would say, we are giving, I'll just grab a number here, a billion dollars.

Knocked my microphone.

We're giving a billion dollars to schools.

Well, they weren't really.

They were giving a billion dollars that was supposed to go to schools, but schools have the state-imposed revenue limits.

They can't exceed the limits.

So the money comes into schools on paper and goes right back out the schools to property tax relief.

And that's fine.

Just call it property tax relief.

But you know, don't say, oh yeah, we gave all this money to schools when it was not spendable money for the schools.

This does have a $1.4 billion increase in spendable revenue.

It's an increase in what's called categorical aid.

Oh Pat, what's categorical aid?

Okay, there's base state aid that everybody gets, and then there's categories of additional aid for things like special education, transportation, libraries, things like that.

All vary from school district to school district, but those categorical aids are just another form of state support for our local schools.

And the net increase in all those categorical aids, according to the governor,

is five times larger than the increase in the last budget.

And it is a 60% increase above what Republicans on the Budget Committee had previously approved.

There is also this big increase.

in special education reimbursement.

Local school districts will receive 42% reimbursement in the first year, 45% reimbursement in the second year of the budget for their special education costs.

It is the highest reimbursement rate in 30 years and a larger increase for special education than the last three state budgets combined.

There's also

$2 million in operations for the Department of Public Instruction after Republican lawmakers had previously voted to cut 10% of the agency's operating costs through the state budget process.

So there's a lot there for K-12.

There's a lot more for the UW system.

And again, bear in mind, Republicans wanted to cut funding for the UW system, even with a $4 billion surplus, because they wanted to

Punish universities for being woke.

And remember, what's our definition of woke on this morning program?

Woke means, you know, don't be a bigot.

Don't be a racist.

Don't be a misogynist.

Don't be a jerk.

That's the definition of woke.

I don't know why people seem to be against that, but that's all it is folks, bottom line.

Anyway, there will be an increase to the UW system, an increase of $256 million over the next two years.

That includes over $100 million to help stabilize the system after recent campus closures and layoffs and program cuts and consolidations in order to ensure that UW campuses remain hubs for the workforce and for the local economies all across the state.

There will be $54 million to retain and recruit faculty and staff in high demand fields to make sure that the UW stays competitive and a world-class institution.

There will be $94 million to increase wages for UW system workers, including faculty and staff.

Recall how in the last budget cycle, Republicans held pay raises hostage until diversity, equity, and inclusion positions.

could be eliminated or repurposed, I guess you'd say.

There's 7 million there to provide 24-7 virtual telehealth mental health services to nearly all students across UW System campuses.

So that's 7 million for mental health care for UW and I believe it was 30 million for mental health initiatives at K-12 is again a recognition that mental health care

for our kids overall, you know, including as they're going to college is in dire need.

For whatever reason you want to lay out there, our students and our children are in need of services that they're currently not getting in the classroom or getting at home.

And so it's nice to see that that is being recognized and supported.

And then there's all kinds of capital projects in here for the UW system.

A lot of this is normally handled by the State Building Commission.

But I think Republicans and the governor said well as long as we're at the negotiating table Let's let's bang some of these things out and that would include Replacing in addition at Polk Learning Commons at UW Oshkosh Finish construction of the Prairie Springs Science Center at UW La Crosse and demolish Crawley Hall, which lacks fire suppression

There will be money to renovate the Health Sciences and Northwest Quadrant Complex at UW-Milwaukee to transform former hospital buildings into a Health Sciences Hub.

They will renovate and put a new addition on DeJope Residence Hall at UW-Madison.

There will be a renovation and building in addition to Century Hall at UW-Stevens Point, renovations at UW-Milwaukee's Sandberg Hall East Tower, a new addition at the UW-Stout Recreation Complex, a dining hall renovation at UW-Madison, a demolition and relocation of a humanities building at UW-Madison, and also money for UW-Madison's Science Hall.

which was originally built in 1887 and will undergo a renovation to restore the building's historic character, it says, while improving accessibility, addressing maintenance issues and adding an atrium.

These are investments in our education.

These are the things that are going to keep people here, keep our best and brightest here.

Far too many people decide to go to college somewhere else and then they settle down somewhere else and we lose them.

If we don't make investments like that, we continue to lose them.

The amount of people in flow coming in, people like me, who came from Minnesota, went to UW Eau Claire, married a cute farmer's daughter from Manitowoc and settled here, that number's a lot lower.

We need to be improving that number, but you're not going to do it if you're punishing education and higher education in the state.

So again, you have to tip your cap.

to Governor Tony Evers for dragging some Republicans kicking and screaming toward the realization that we're paying these tax dollars.

Let's make the investments that are going to grow the economy.

And you do that by attracting our young people, attracting our best and brightest, attracting people from other states and not continually trying to drive them away.

All right, we've got two guests to squeeze in in our next segment.

Some of you will get a local update.

Others are going to visit quickly with Dan Hagen from NewsWatch12 and Rhinelander and Karine Hendrickson to talk about childcare counts and support for it in the next state budget.

Live from Lake Wissota, I'm Pat Crichtlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

The Milwaukee Brewers were off yesterday.

They are in New York to take on the Mets three night games tonight, tomorrow and Thursday evening.

Pre-game starts at 535 on several stations across the Civic Media radio network, so tune in there as the Brewers are two games back in the Cubs and hoping to make some moves this week.

All right, we will visit with Dan Hagen from NewsWatch 12, WJFW, and Rhinelander in just a bit, and then we'll hold him over the break to visit with Hans Breitenmoser as well, coming up after 730's Midwest Farm Report.

But first, let's check in with Karine Hendrickson from Nuglaris, a child care provider, a leading voice on making sure that state and federal funds don't run dry to support child care providers.

The pandemic relief funding is running out and folks were looking for state support.

Republicans didn't want to give it, but Karine, it's in there.

$110 million broken up in a few different ways.

And I know that you've only just seen

parts of this budget deal.

But thanks for joining us.

And what are your very first impressions until you learn more?

So I am happy we got $110 million.

That is huge.

However, the fact that it's only for the first year is decimating.

And it's going to be a huge problem next year.

And the reason for that is it continues the status quo.

So we still are not going to be able to hire your teachers, we're not going to be able to raise wages, we're not going to be able to make the improvements that we need it.

And that's why we asked for more.

And secondly, this money will run out then in June of 2026.

The way our legislative calendar runs is that next March, they gavel out to go campaign, which means there is a zero chance of us getting any dollars until they come back in January.

And it will be facing the exact same thing we are right now, only we'll be more tired.

The few chats I've had this morning with some people is many of them were thinking about retiring for family childcare and we're going to hold on for like two, three more years if we got the funding.

However, now that it's only one year, they will be done next year.

I talked to people who have young children of their own in family childcare and they were going to try and stick it out.

It would have stayed once their youngest went to school.

They will now be done next summer.

So all we're doing is pushing it down the road a year.

I wonder if, and I have no information that tells me one way or the other, but I wonder if in doing this...

like you noted, they will gavel out probably in March of 2026 and go campaign.

But they're going to have to campaign on the issue of childcare funding that just ran out.

And I wonder if that actually doesn't increase the pressure that somewhere between next January and next March, they throw another supplemental amount in there.

Again, it's not nearly the stability of putting the budget in.

But it does seem like an interesting opportunity to pressure some of these lawmakers early next year as well.

Yeah, it would be an interesting opportunity.

However, it's been five years of this and we're all really, really tired.

I don't know how many of us are just going to decide between now and then we're done because we can't keep going at this rate.

Especially if you know we work really hard to get people into office that said that they would do these things for us and that they would fight for this.

And then to have it be so short-sighted that it ends like with no choice chance.

So the next ask now is to have that saddle legislation passed to get the rest of the money in.

And some of the other things that I saw in the press release, some good things, they're increasing the subsidy so that

It's up to the legal requirement right now based off of this year's rates.

However, when our rates go up, we'll be back in compliance.

So they didn't add enough to actually make it go forward to get into compliance and remain in compliance.

They did it in order to backfill to then say we're in compliance right now.

Another really good thing I saw was that they're going to be adding, in addition to the Young Star bonus for children on subsidy, if you are higher rated, there will also be a separate bonus for children that are

infants and toddlers so that we would get a little bit more for them and that's a good thing because we can't charge enough for those infants and toddlers and that might help with some of that infant toddler squeaks that we're feeling.

So those are some good things I saw.

I have a couple questions about the 4k school readiness piece.

If it's at the .6 full-time equivalent that the schools have, we can't compete with that.

If free all-day school, .6 for us.

parents aren't going to be able to pay us the difference, especially since we're not getting the stabilization funding that we need in order to reduce our tuition.

So that's really not probably going to do what's intended to do.

I have some major concerns about the ratios changing pilot programs and the devils and the details.

I have asked, I got a little bit of clarification from the Department of Children and Families, but they know about what we do.

They haven't seen the language, so they don't actually know.

Same thing, 16 year olds.

Counting as a teacher in a classroom is also very, very, very concerning.

Kareen Hendrickson with a first look at reaction to the budget deal that was reached yesterday.

Obviously more to learn and then more to react to.

But Kareen, thanks for a first pass at it.

We really appreciate your time.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks for having me.

All right.

Have a great day.

Hey, let's bring in Dan Hagen now from WGFW News Watch 12 in Rhinelander.

And we'll visit a little bit more when Hans Brayton Moser is here after the break as well.

How's Mr. Hagen today?

Mr. Hagen is doing well.

Life is good here in Rhinelander.

I just wanted to share a little bit from Nicolay College.

Nicolay College is the community college, the technical college here in Rhinelander.

And we did a story with them about how they could be affected

by this one big beautiful bill.

So in the house version of the bill, they have changed the language for Pell Grants and that Pell Grants would only be applicable to people who are attending college full-time.

And many, probably most, nearly all of the students at Nicollet College are attending part-time because they have jobs and families and that sort of thing.

So that is just one thing that we're looking out for right now because that would be pretty much most of their students.

Yeah, and I recall seeing that there was a lot of controversy about the Pell Grant language and I was just looking quick to see if I've seen any update on it and I have not yet.

What I have seen is that they've actually stopped voting in the Senate.

They're just doing a pointless roll call.

Still trying to get the vote of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski because their first, you know, little sweetheart deal fell through so they're trying something else.

must be a nice gig to have, you know, if you can get it, trying to get your arm twisted, you know, for a budget deal.

But, you know, you got to watch out for the Pell Grant recipients there, and I don't know if they're going to do that.

Dan, hang around, thanks for your patience.

I know you're dying to get out there and go, is it snowshoeing?

You had snowshoeing softball before.

So roller skiing, but Borgobind is

only 200 days away, so I got to stay trained.

Of course you do.

All right, so he's going to be back after the break, along with Lincoln County dairy farmer Hans Brighton Moser.

That's all coming up next year on these mornings, powered by Up North News on the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Pat Kratlow.

Tomorrow on the program, we'll have State Representative Angela Stroud on Republicans supporting lead water line removal in Superior, if, if they can stick taxpayers with the bill instead of a private utility.

We'll also have our climate check with Melissa Baldoff.

You're gonna love this one.

I think Han should come back for this one.

Solar panels in farm fields.

Oh, you heard us talk about this with John and Gordy yesterday.

Solar panels in farm fields.

on electric powered tractors so that the cows can stay under the shade of the panel as it slowly rotates through the field where they're grazing.

That's in climate check tomorrow with Melissa Baldoff.

We will also have our weekly visits with our civic media friends Earl Ingram in Southeast Wisconsin, James Kelly in Northwest Wisconsin, Jimmy Cusca in Southwest Wisconsin, and of course Parker and I will have Melissa Kaye

in Wisconsin Rapids with the latest on her... Pigeon Quest!

I just want to see Parker standing by with the Pigeon Quest button, and he was... I've always got Pigeon Quest ready.

That's it.

That's so good.

Dan Hagen joins us from NewsWatch 12 in Rhinelander, Hans Bright and Moser, Lincoln County dairy farmer from the Merrill area.

Gentlemen, how are you?

Good, I'm right.

All right.

Good morning, Dan.

Good morning, Dan.

Hans, how about you?

I know the official crop report said there was three and a half days of field work available last week because of the rain, obviously, a lot less in some parts.

How are things up by you?

Well, pretty wet.

Now we've had a couple of dry days here and we're actually going to start chopping our second crop this morning here in the next few hours.

So yeah,

the second crop got chopped here in the field across the street from yesterday.

And I've already marveled previously at, you know, just how big and how fast, you know, this

this equipment is getting.

I swear that thing was moving at least 30 maybe 35 miles an hour down the field.

And I you know, you think of bailing hay and you think of just very slowly working your way down shopping and not

not this stuff.

Boy, we got we got we got like something out of transformers working the fields out here.

And Dan, you're following stories up in Rhinelander, not the least of which are some in in in Hansa's Lincoln County.

And, you know, there's a nursing home there we've talked about that may or may not be for sale.

But then in Taylor County, not too far away, there's also some kind of drilling project going on over there.

What's the latest out of Taylor County?

Yeah, that's right.

So Greenlight Metals is this Canadian company and they are on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

They have a subsidiary based in Wisconsin and they have started drilling in Taylor County at what's called the Bend deposit that's near Medford.

And there is a lot of gold and copper at that deposit.

The issue that is, however, it's using like non-ferrous metallic mining.

And more or less this releases a ton of sulfuric

acid.

So there's a reason why there is a moratorium on this kind of mining for a long time that moratorium has been lifted.

So this kind of exploratory drilling is the first step toward opening a mine.

Potentially so.

And it was a mining moratorium that Tom Tiffany was a very instrumental in lifting and exposing this area to all of those harms from, you know, that exact kind of drilling and not just creating a mine.

But, I mean, just the experimental drilling itself has potential to cause harm to the groundwater.

So it's why people are concerned even about the test drilling that's going on right there.

And Dan, of course, is following that out of Rhinelander.

Hans, I know you're following things with the Pinecrest Nursing Home sale.

We were talking about the county board maybe putting it up for sale.

This is not yet a done deal.

Well, I don't know.

I mean it ain't over till it's over.

The county board here in Lincoln County sold the nursing home once before and then that deal fell through after the fact the county board voted again in favor to sell here to a different company more recently.

And that vote went through as a simple majority vote.

Now, some people are saying that there should have been a two-thirds vote to make that happen since it happened outside the regular budget process.

But the people in Lincoln County are just concerned about losing our nursing home and losing control of our nursing home when we ran it ourselves or when we partnered with North Central Health Care to run the operations there.

We at least had some control over it.

And my argument

Again, selling it, one of them, is that once it's sold, we simply lose all control.

And the company that has purchased it now, they've got about 340 of these facilities all over the United States.

And my argument was, look.

even if the people who own this company now are super and they're going to treat residents well and treat employees well and so forth and so on.

I said, this is big business and there's no guarantees.

I mean, we could see a different ownership.

have the thing bought out by a different company in a couple years from now and have the wheels really fall off.

So it's confusing to me as to why the county board is choosing to try and sell a nursing home that's a five-star facility that's been doing great financially the last couple years.

It's taking care of our residents and keeping the promise that we've had, the deal that we've had for 70 years in Lincoln County.

If you work hard and you do the right thing, we'll have a place for you when you get old.

So I can see why Dan and everybody at NewsWatch12 is following a story like this, Dan.

It's got real human impact.

And again, that whole notion of, you know,

the benevolent corporation that will always be benevolent or or will it be?

I'm, I'm sure Dan, you get reaction every time you do a story about this about this.

Yeah, no,

certainly.

And I just want to ask you one thing, Hans, you know, you said it's doing well financially, but you know, we keep hearing that it's losing the county million plus dollars every year.

So what do you mean by it's doing good financially?

Well, it's been self-sustaining for the last, oh, I don't know, like year, year and a half, two years.

When I was on the county board years ago, it was, you know, there was tax levy dollars that needed to keep it afloat.

There's no doubt about that.

And we partnered with North Central to help improve efficiencies and so forth.

North Central Health Care is a consortium that Lincoln County works with already.

And so it seemed like a good fit.

And things turned around.

It took a little while, but things turned around.

But what I find interesting too, Dan, is that when...

through a survey that was done in Lincoln County when people were asked, would you be willing to help support the nursing home if need be?

The resounding answer was yes.

So people in Lincoln County are looking at their nursing home and saying, yeah, even if it costs us a couple bucks, we're willing to keep this thing afloat because we see it as important and we understand that

if we no longer have control over it, we might not have a nursing home at all.

And what does that mean for us in terms of when you're elderly parents or what have you have to go to a nursing home, do you wanna place them two hours from your house?

What does that look like?

We've got an ideal situation here, but what we also have, I think, is a majority of county board supervisors who came into their role as county board supervisors with sort of this...

hell bent philosophical notion that if, you know, government shouldn't be involved in anything.

And they've been unwilling to look past that and look at the facts here on the ground with our particular situation and see that we've got something special here that we should be hanging on to.

And in doing so, you know, we create the economy that goes along with it.

You know, we can, you know, there's 200 people roughly that work at Pinecrest Nursing Home.

Incorporation Incorporated decides that these dots on their little balance sheets and spreadsheets aren't working out very well from their perch on Wall Street.

And they say, yep, it's time to pull the pin in Merrill.

200 people lose their jobs and we don't have anything to say about it.

To me, it's just poor management.

And Pat, you can cut me off if you'd like, but I think the argument from the other side, I heard from Ken Wickham, a county board chair is, you know, this has been an issue for a long time.

A lot of these county board members were up for reelection.

They got reelected even though their stance on Pinecrest was clear.

So what would you make of that argument that they were elected?

They can make decisions for the people.

Well, I mean, I agree with that to a point.

Um, and, and I'm not, you know, having, again, having been on the county board for 10 years, I don't think that, um, you know, the, the board should rush to referendum for every 98 said detail.

Yes, you have to put your big boy pants on and make some decisions for your constituents.

But one of the things with pinecrest is it's such a big deal.

It's such a big deal in our community.

And so many people, uh, asked so often just

put it to a referendum, so we can get the input from the people that are impacted from it.

And the board refused to take it to a referendum.

I think if they would have gone to a referendum, they would have found out that people want this thing, and they're willing to support it, and they want to keep it alive.

So I agree with what Ken said.

Yes, there was an election.

But there's also plenty of evidence to suggest that this is something that people wanted more input on.

You often hear that when it appears that the elected officials are acting more on their own ideological behalf than on the will of the majority of their constituents.

But again, they're the ones that have to make the decision whether to have that referendum or not.

So obviously, Dan's got a lot to follow.

And I'm glad you were here to ask some questions of Hans about that.

Dan, here's a question or comment for you on the text line from Jim in Brookfield.

Hey, Dan.

sounds like a true case of Berkey fever to be roller skiing in July.

Good luck reaching the magic number of 20 Berkeys for the purple bib again from Jim in Northfield because Dan mentioned he's going to go roller skiing after this segment.

Well I appreciate that Jim.

I will tell you my father is a birch leger as it's called that means 20 Berkeys he's done about 27.

I will be on my 11th and 11th or 12th and you know you gotta gotta keep

staying active.

I just was notified I got dropped away.

If I've been in wave two for a year, but my time was too slow, so I got bumped down to wave three.

The goal is to get back up.

So putting in the work now.

That's why you lift those weights now, you know, gotta be ready for it.

Dan Hagen, you can follow what he's doing over at NewsWatch 12 in Rhinelander.

The man's got to get his roller skis on.

Thanks for sticking around a little bit longer, Dan.

We appreciate it.

Of course.

Good to see you, Pat.

Good to see you, Hans.

All right.

Take care now.

Hans, I wanted to take a moment with you to talk about the president's trade war, which is still ongoing, even though we don't talk about it quite so much.

But specifically this, from the US Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, has told the Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration may consider granting tariff exemptions for goods that are difficult to produce domestically in the United States, like cocoa beans or coffee.

Currently, these products are subject to comprehensive tariffs

which have led Democrats to criticize Republicans for driving up consumer costs.

In an interview, Rollin says, everything is still under discussion at this stage.

I believe that for certain products we cannot produce domestically.

It's important to fully understand the situation and develop a comprehensive strategy that supports all of these goals.

Do you feel congratulations are in place and in order for the Trump White House for discovering.

the 1920s era song, yes, we have no bananas.

We cannot grow bananas or cocoa beans or coffee here in the US.

So why put on a tariff designed to bring products back here when they were never here in the first place?

I think it's great that it only took them five and a half months to figure this out.

Yeah, yeah, so I mean that just gives me an abundance of hope that because if that's if it's five and a half months is all that took then I can hardly wait to see what the next five and a half months will

bring

Again, it was supposed to be 90 deals in 90 days with 90 nations out there.

Well,

I think what we've seen is 90 changes of mines and 90 flips and flops and five months of chaos, leaving our trade partners confused, leaving our farmers confused, leaving the farm service agency confused.

you know, leaving the markets confused.

And again, like we had one farmer from Chippewa County saying, you know, is it America first or America alone?

And it's tough to tell sometimes.

Hans Bright and Moser, thank you for your time as well.

Get out in that field.

Good luck to you.

Thank you very much,

Pat.

All right.

We'll continue things on here with a local update for some of you.

Others will be back here and then in our next hour, Dan Schaefer and Chad Holmes all across the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Pat Krightlohn.

you

Coming up one hour from now we will talk to State Senator Jeff Smith from Eau Claire County about the budget deal that was reached late yesterday between Governor Tony Evers and legislative Republicans and whether it's a good deal for the Chippewa Valley and whether it's something that he feels like he can support.

Again Senator Jeff Smith one hour from now on our mornings powered by Up North News and a reminder you can sign up for our newsletters upnorthnewswi.com and

There's of course our Sunday morning politics newsletter where I gave a little budget update on Sunday as to the status of things.

I'm sure that next Sunday will be all about reaction to this budget deal, assuming that it all passes and goes through by the end of this week.

We also have a question of the week, and this week it is, who do you think will be the Republican nominee for governor next year?

Now the primary is still well over a year away.

It's in August of next year, but we have one announced candidate, Josh Shulman, the Washington County executive.

You have two people you remember.

You know them, you love them.

They're interested in running for governor again, maybe.

Tim Michaels and Eric Hovde.

Will it be one of those three?

Will it be some other person who's currently in elected office like Congressman Tom Tiffany or our fifth choice?

Will it be just some other rich guy that assumes he can come in with this checkbook and run for governor?

So that's our question of the week.

You can get that fresh on Sunday mornings by signing up for our Sunday mornings newsletter at upnorthnewswi.com.

And remember, if you can't listen to us live, take us along with you on demand through Spotify or Apple.

We would love to have you as a subscriber.

It doesn't mean you have to listen to it every day, but it's just nice to have you think of us amongst all the other podcasts that you're subscribing to that you might want to catch one of ours.

So again, head over to Spotify and subscribe.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has put out a notice that tomorrow it is going to release a decision on the 1849 law that some folks believe constitutes a statewide abortion ban.

You'll recall that three years ago when the U.S.

Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade and when a radical set of right-wing justices threw the issue back to the states, all 50 states had to look at what was on the books 50 years earlier right before Roe v. Wade codified a woman's right to control her reproductive health.

Well, in Wisconsin, part of that was a law from 1849.

in some very arcane language, legalese for 1849, which is even more arcane than legalese from the present day.

And I recall reading through it at first and thinking, this isn't an abortion ban.

This is, you know, this is about a feticide.

And I hate to say it, and I know it's a delicate subject, but there have been, you know,

where a pregnant woman was beaten by somebody hoping to induce an abortion.

And that this law is about that.

But some people construed as an abortion man.

Abortion was not on anybody's radar in 1849, not in the way it is right now with so much political zealotry.

And sure enough, once it got into a court challenge, a Dane County judge looked at it and said, that's exactly right.

This is not an abortion ban.

This is a feticide law.

But it's been appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and tomorrow they're going to release their determination of the status of that 1849 law.

They heard oral arguments back in November.

So the state budget deal is the big news of today.

The 1849 law decision by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin is going to be the big news tomorrow.

Coming up on our website today, upnorthnewswi.com will be an article about

What happens when the state budget is late?

Now, again, there was a deal reached late yesterday, but the new budget was supposed to start today.

Today is the start of the new fiscal year.

What happens?

Well, in Wisconsin, it's a little bit different than in other states.

There are some states that go into partial shutdowns.

There are some states where government operations are stripped down to the very basics and non-essential state workers are furloughed.

That's not necessarily the case here.

And the article will include comments from State Senator Kelder Royce.

I interviewed her yesterday afternoon when I was filling in for Todd Alba on his conveniently named Todd Alba show.

And she talked to us about the things that needed to be in a budget deal, which of course included childcare, UW funding, and making up for years of underfunding public schools.

she feared that there would be a budget deal.

Otherwise, where she said, quote, it would continue this horrible cycle where our schools get shortchanged and then property taxpayers have to raise their own taxes to make up the difference to keep our school doors open.

And it's even to the point where there is a Wisconsin Homeowners Alliance that's been running TV ads.

to say, you know, put pressure on your legislators to support a state funding increase because otherwise local property taxes have to go up.

And it seems like more folks are starting to realize that.

And that's probably what has led to the budget deal that was announced yesterday.

And we're going to talk to Dan Schaefer much more about that coming up.

One other budget detail that I'm going to be looking at deals with

crime victims and the funding that goes to support them, because the Joint Finance Committee last week approved $20 million in grants for organizations that serve crime victims, $20 million.

The State Department of Justice was asking for about $67 million to make up for continued cuts in federal funding that help out with crime victims.

There's a lot that's done there to help pay for a broad range of services for crime victims.

There's domestic violence shelters.

There are crisis hotlines.

There are programs that help crime victims figure out how things are gonna work in the court system.

And sometimes the money comes from fines and fees when people are convicted of federal charges, but that federal funding has been unstable.

And so Attorney General Josh Call was hoping for 67 million, joint finance said 20 million.

He was blasting them at that decision on Monday.

I have not seen whether

The funding for crime victims is improved in this budget deal that came out yesterday.

I'll take a look during the eight o'clock news and we'll see if we can't shine a little light on that portion of a very big budget deal that was reached yesterday.

All right, Dan Schaffer is coming up in our next hour along with Chad Holmes.

First, a reminder, sign up for those newsletters.

Plurl, head to our homepage upnorthnewswi.com.

I'm Pat Krightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Live, across Wisconsin on Civic Media, 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 806.

Nice to have you here up north on this Tuesday morning, first day of July, 2025.

Parker Olson's over in Madison Studio, a two chat homes standing by in Wausau.

Coming up this hour, we will talk to Dan Schaefer, political editor for Civic Media and founder of the Recombobulation Area, all about the budget deal agreed to late yesterday by Governor Tony Evers and legislative Republicans.

We'll look at.

Who got what they wanted who got half a loaf who got so much less than half a loaf They're not gonna want to support this thing will it pass when all is said and done all of that with Dan Schaefer those of you hanging around till 850 we will be talking to state senator Jeff Smith of Eau Claire for his reaction on the budget deal as well so Stick around for all of that.

Brittany Merleau is off today be listening throughout the course of the day for your local weather updates on your favorite civic media station

Coming up later across the Civic Media Radio Network, Matt Nair on air is next from 9-11.

I will be joining Jane Matt Nair and Greg Bach coming up at 9.30 this morning.

Then there's Todd Alba from 2-4.

Maggie Dawn from 4-6.

Former U.S.

Attorney Jim Santel will be the guest co-host, and I suspect...

they'll be talking about the U.S.

Supreme Court and the flood of recent decisions at the end of the Supreme Court's term.

And then on Night Light with Pete Schwabba from 6 to 8 this evening, coming up at 6.30 tonight, Pete will be talking to Sturgeon Spirits Distillery founder, Carl Loewenstein.

So all that across the Civic Media Radio Network.

Reminder, sign up for our newsletters, upnorthnewswi.com, including today's episode all about cherry picking season.

Information on what to know, where to go, and how to enjoy the tart kinds of cherries that grow well in Wisconsin Springs.

Again, sign up at upnorthnewswi.com.

808 right now, let's check in with Chad Holmes from 98.9, WXCO, and of course Parker Olson standing by in Madison as well.

Either one of you into either cherry picking, strawberries, any of the other apples, you do any of the pick your own stuff?

No.

No.

I did do apple picking last year, visiting a daughter in Michigan.

And some of these apple orchards, I mean, they,

They clearly have become like recreation areas.

They know, bring the whole family.

There's all this stuff for the kids to do.

There was like food trucks and things like that.

So some of them have figured out to turn it into a real business.

Whereas the maybe two times that I went berry picking as a kid, I mean, you just, you were a farm worker.

That was it.

You got, you're all scratched up and dirty at the end of it.

And you go, was this really worth it?

I don't know.

It's a it's a different thing now and much more enjoyable and you can read about it on the website.

All right.

Having established that you're you're not men of the land when it comes to picking and growing fruit like that.

Let's turn instead to that state budget deal, Chad, which I know we're only just now starting to find out about.

But the very fact that there was a deal that was worked out, I have to say I'm I'm a little bit surprised.

And I don't know

Maybe this is as close to a win-win as they all thought that they could get, and that's not a bad thing.

No, and I've been listening to you.

I've been looking at the releases coming out as well this morning, and I was saying in the last hour during our local segments about...

This is a little different than what we're seeing right now in Washington because we do have Tony Evers and I think that Without having the governor then this would have been a disaster of a budget I think it's fairly obvious what the Republicans were hoping to accomplish here But again, it just shows how vitally important it is it is to have at least one of the seats at this table being filled by Somebody from the other party other than the Republicans because comparing what's happening

what happened in in Madison and what's continuing to happen in Madison to what is going on right now in Washington DC.

It's only a question of how bad it's going to be in Washington.

Like you said earlier, it's like, I thought it was a great line.

You said, well, you know, you got Ron Johnson here, trying to decide how many orphanages you're going to close down.

I mean, I either thought that was a perfect way of putting it because the discussions in Washington aren't about, you know, trying to moderate it.

It's trying to make it even worse.

But one real one.

One issue that I kind of discussed as well that is concerning, and I think you probably know it as well as anyone because you've dealt with state budgets is the good aspects of having the universities of Wisconsin getting the bump and having some childcare money being put in and special education and the K-12 and all that stuff.

And then of course the $1.3 billion in tax cuts, $180 average as you mentioned to most of the folks.

Let's for for arguments sake say in a couple of years that the economy slows down because of all the Goofiness as being put down the line in Washington or for whatever reason because there's cycles the first thing that they're gonna look at is not Eliminating that that hundred and eighty dollar average tax cut for people.

It's about oh, we got a cut education.

We have to cut child care funding.

We have to cut here because

Now, the next time you come back, if you say, hey, we want to go back to the levels that we had before because we have a hole in the budget.

No, that's a massive tax increase.

Yeah.

I

mean, that's the language of it.

That's the thing that concerns me that, hey, things are.

pretty good you know in terms of because like you said you had some major problems you know putting together a budget because it was all about where do we cut where do we cut here is about where do we put the the money we'll spread

it around

a little bit it's not going to be this way forever and it's like in the future I you know where the first things are going to look for

Cut, cut, cut.

That's right.

And one of them that we have not discussed at all, and Dan Hagen told me about it when we were talking last hour off air from NewsWatch 12 and Rhinelander, would be Pell Grants.

And the mega bill that came out of the house would cut help to a program that provides financial assistance in the form of Pell Grants for college to six million low and middle income students.

uh, and so they want to, here's that word, tighten eligibility rules.

And it's all, you know, talking about, you know, cutting waste, fraud and abuse.

No, you're just making it that much tougher to, um, have people from, you know, poorer families go to college.

Jay Rothman of the universities of Wisconsin is quoted in Politico as saying that the 13 campuses here have roughly 31,600

Pell Grant recipients, and I know that because I was one back in the day, the House bill would require students to increase their course load from 24 credit hours a year to 30 to be eligible for the maximum amount of the grant.

And as Dan Hagen was telling me, he's hearing from a lot of people who, they're not full-time students, but you know, they're doing the right thing, trying to further their education.

But if the Republicans tighten the rules,

they're not gonna further their education and they're not going to get the better paying jobs.

And again, you've got Republicans all the time love about fighting red tape.

They sure love tying red tape around people, especially if you're in a lower tax bracket.

You know, one thing that I was actually thinking about when you talk about, again, that when you hear about, we're just trying to tighten up in terms of taking away that fraud and abuse and all that.

One thing that I think we can agree on that we have seen over the last six months,

is the fact that the folks that talk constantly about all this waste, fraud and abuse within the system, whether the federal level, the state level, the local level, they're blowing smoke.

I think that one thing we have found, if there was massive waste, fraud and abuse, they would have been talking about it at the top of the mountain.

I think that's actually a positive that this system is not, I mean,

We always make the caveat, hey, well, we're not saying all of it, but boy, it is a minuscule amount within our budget.

And I think people should be proud of the fact that in a lot of ways, it shows that the government does work.

Here's the thing about illustrating how empty that phrase is.