For A Smart Guy, Sen. Howard Marklein Is Acting Dumb (Hour 1)

Live from the Civic Media World Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba Show.

And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd

Alba.

and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Tom Albault, along with our outstanding producer, Mr. Aaron Zombers, on the board.

It is now six minutes past the hour of two o'clock on this Monday, May 12th, 2025.

It is a great day to be a Wisconsinite.

Glad to have you along here.

Start of the work week back to school.

Well, some colleges not necessarily back to school.

Big Badger graduation here in Madison over the weekend.

Town filled with all kinds of

Families of grads, it was a beautiful day for graduation at Camp Randall and some of the indoor events for the baccalaureate, not baccalaureate, but the graduate degrees, doctors and masters and whatnot.

Beautiful day today here at the World Headquarters of Civic Media, downtown Madison on State Street, Zomers, how are you?

Doing well, it is a very nice day indeed.

And yeah, it's... Are you feeling better last

week you were under the weather?

Yes, I took

some time.

You chilled this weekend.

I was maybe going to go back to Manitowoc, visit

my

family, you know, Mother's Day and all that, but I just needed more time to sleep and sit around and recover because whatever it was that got me the weekend before last really took me out.

You look better.

You look and sound better after a weekend of rest.

Good.

I'm happy to hear that.

Friday went down.

My favorite youngest godson, Alexander, was in town to see his mom.

And boy, I mean...

She's Salvadoran.

So there's Salvadorans that they always have Mother's Day on May 10th.

So she got a twofer.

She got a Salvadoran Mother's Day on the 10th, and she got a, you know, American Mother's Day on the 11th.

She got a two.

And she had Alex in town, so that was great.

Met Alice Curtin-Forsie on down to our friends down at Bailey's Run Winery.

Vineyard Winery down in New Glyris.

Beautiful day.

Great music.

Had some good fun.

Great time as had by all.

Took in the farmers market here on the capital square on on Saturday that was that was good Although no, I was hunting for morale mushrooms on the capital square none to be had they were that's unfortunate Yeah, but such as life got some rhubarb though and then headed up well went to Kopke's Greenhouse our friends dug down in Kopke's greenhouse just in the town of Dunn I was told because I keep saying Oregon

And I guess it properly is in the town of Dunn just outside of the city of Oregon.

So I went down, it was packed.

They're doing great business down there at Kopkes Greenhouse in the town of Dunn in Dane County.

Got a few plans for mom, although I did not get the full array because they were just so busy.

And so I got a few, went up to Rachel and center, we planted some plants, you know what mom wanted?

I said, what do you want to do this weekend?

She was a little indignant.

But she said, well, you know, I like to watch that Brewers movie you keep talking about, you know, because I just have been outside the story of the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers, of course, which we've talked about a lot and it's streaming free right now at Roku and the Roku channel.

All my talk, everything we've done around the movie, I hadn't sat and watched it with her.

So we dialed up the Roku channel right there on easy as pie.

And we watched that and she she gave it two thumbs up.

She said it's very well done and think what a great gift that is for the families and all of us.

Yes,

absolutely.

I can't imagine anyone not liking the movie unless they hate fun and themselves and

the

world.

No, it's it did.

And it's just Kelly Call, one of the producers have said, I think Sean Hannish, producer, director said it as well.

They've seen it, whatever, 50 times.

And this is my sixth or seventh.

And you see something different every time.

And it was just, this time it was really, really towards the end, the very end of the movie that really just, I don't know, it just got me.

So, it might be the Brewer's games right now that are bringing some of us to tears.

Brewer's did not have a great weekend down at Tampa Bay.

We'll try to get back on track against Cleveland.

I believe the pre-game show today is somewhere on or about 4.30 this afternoon.

So, so be aware of that.

And then Sunday, a little Lutheran church.

And then we grilled up, had some, had some steaks and whatnot and just rhubarb pie.

So beautiful day, beautiful day.

Very blessed to have mom here and spend time with her.

And we laugh a lot.

We laugh a lot.

And here now, here's why mom, of course, comes first on Mother's Day.

But here's why I really wanted to put out there.

I'm planting some flowers at mom's ritual center and our friends Brady and Brandon Ewing who come on the show.

We've said this before, our parents live a house apart.

in the neighborhood back home.

And so I'm off to work on flowers and Brady and Brandon's dad, David's out doing some yard work and we wave and we end up talking and he shares this fantastic and unexpected story of how he and his lovely wife, Andrea, Brady and Brandon's mom met back in high school.

and how he, how he, she wasn't really interested at first.

And he just was relentless and said, no, no, no, I want to go.

And she finally said, okay, fine.

And here now they've been married 40 some odd years and still as much love today as they were back then.

And it just, it was an uplifting story.

It was an unexpected story.

A, I think it gives some of this hope that loves can still exist and stay strong.

But also the big takeaway for me was,

This is what we all need to do in Wisconsin.

Get outside and talk to our neighbors.

Back when I was growing up, my grandparents had a front porch and you'd sit out on the front porch at night and people would walk by and you know, that's kind of how you got the town gossip or what was going on and you connected with people.

And I'm as guilty as anybody about this, not talking to real people in person.

I'm sorry, I don't believe that texting or video conferencing or any other of that jazz can supplement one-on-one interaction.

Whether it was hanging out with my godson and his family on Friday, my mom, seein' Brady and Brady's dad, David, when you talk to people, in conversation, unexpected stories come up, and it makes you feel better.

We as humans need other humans, and in this Mental Health Awareness Month, it was just a great gift from David Ewing

to remind me we need to connect with people and talk to our neighbors, talk to our friends, because you'll just feel better after you get done doing it.

So that was my big takeaway from the weekend.

You know, it's true.

And I didn't do a whole lot of that this weekend besides my roommates.

You were recovering.

Yeah.

I know a lot of the time, sometimes people ask me, hey, you want to go out to...

such-and-such restaurant or whatever.

And I'm like, ah, you know, it costs money.

I'm tired.

I

just want to stay home.

But whenever I just go, it ends up being fun.

And

I

feel better and healthier for it and spending time with people I care about.

And so you're exactly right.

And sometimes you don't even have to spend any money.

Just get outside in your yard or on your stoop or walk around or whatever.

So anyway, that's the public service announcement to start off the week.

Get outside and...

Talk to real-life humans.

You'll feel better after you've done it.

Big show today coming up at the bottom of the hour.

Wisconsin State Senator Kelder Royce will be here in studio.

She represents the 26th Senate District, basically the majority of the Isthmus of Madison, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

She is on the Joint Finance Committee.

The property was actually a committee on joint finance, but everybody calls it JFC.

And she is going to be here talking about course Republicans last week shot down like 600 items that was in Governor Tony Evers proposed budget.

And so Senator Royce is going to be here kind of telling us what Democrats want to put in this budget.

Some of the things that they obviously don't agree with Republicans, but also walk us through the details a little bit because I think most Wisconsinites don't quite understand how budgets are good.

Are put together and this is really important because it's our tax money as it turns out that they're that they're talking about so Senator Royce and she's just a great person to chat with as well So she'll be here at 230 at 306 what's worse?

pointing out weight loss or not pointing out weight loss That is the question in our number two and then Jack Kelly

from Wisconsin Watch.

You'll be here at 335 today to take a look at some of the weekend happenings a little bit in Wisconsin news and what's coming up as well at Wisconsin Watch.

So a full jam packed show today.

I thought we'd start with this.

I watched my morning news programs this morning and at least on some of them, this story was downplayed like I've never seen.

And look, I understand there are bigger stories in terms of.

the Constitution and things like this.

But I think this story, to me, points out in real terms, and I really want to use a word I'm not supposed to say on the air.

And don't, Zombers is looking at me.

Don't worry, I'm not going to.

You know, I'll tell you, for instance, if we had, if we had, I'm trying to think of a, if we had Dick Van Dyke here.

on the show, would that be something?

And we said, Mr. Van Dyke, I can say that.

If I had Richard Smith here, I can say here's Richard Smith.

I can't just use the nickname for Richard in and of itself for describing someone.

But that's what I wanted to.

Yeah, no, I feel

that.

Because here's the thing.

It occurred to me when the story broke over the weekend on Trump, he's getting a new plane.

That's where I'm going.

And we all know the guy, right?

And it's usually a guy.

We all know the guy in our hometown or in our life that we've come across.

And he puts all of his extra money or money he probably shouldn't into his truck or into his car or into his bike.

And then his kids are running around the neighborhood in rags or, you know, the law looks a mess.

Anyway, and you think, boy, that guy is just a blank.

Well, I'll say as jerk.

And like how could he be so self-centered to let his family and his wife or whatever not give them the basics of what they need and he puts his money into his truck or into his car and that's his life.

Just what an A number one jerk.

And so I think this story, regardless of whether you're Republican or Democratic, this story to me says that about Trump.

ABC News broke this over the weekend.

I'll read from this to start with what may be the most valuable gift ever extended to the United States by foreign government.

The Trump administration is preparing to accept a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the Royal Family of Qatar.

Now, some people say gutter, I mean, anyway, it's Qatar, Q-A-T-A-R, whatever.

A gift that is to be available for use by President Donald Trump as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office.

At which time, ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation.

According to sources familiar with the proposed arrangement told ABC News, the gift had been expected to be announced this coming week.

when Trump visits Qatar on the first foreign trip of the second term according to sources.

But a senior White House official said the gift will not be presented or gifted while the president is in Qatar this week.

So here's what it is.

And now we're going to play a cut Trump's reaction.

They've confirmed this.

So not to get too far into the weeds, but Air Force One was which is the call signal when the president is on any aircraft or any any plane.

But it's a 747-8 is what the United States has our two 747s I'm not sure what the current model is and they're like you know going on 30 years old So during Trump's first administration the government ordered two replacements from Boeing because there's always two in case the other one fails or whatever and Trump won every one to change the colors from what Jackie Kennedy had the iconic Robin egg blue to basically the same livery or paint job as Trump's private plane

Well, when Biden came in, he said, no, no, no, no.

And there was actually a mechanical reason.

The engineers said that darker color on the underside would actually endanger the aircraft.

And so that's why they, anyway, so now that Trump is back in, it's too late to change some of this stuff.

So apparently now the Qatar government is going to give him a souped-up gold-edged whatever.

palace in the sky plane.

$400 million that Trump gets to keep.

I'll explain when we come back not to mention the security risks.

I mean, it's a Dick Van Dyke edition.

It's Monday, May 12th, 2025.

It's The All Ball Show on the Civic Media Ready Network.

Show of the civic radio radio to work 22 now past the hour of two o'clock on a Monday May 12th 2025 Zombers on the board dialing a bloody dial up.

There's a Zombers jet airliner by the Steve Miller band nicely done nicely done.

Maybe a bit on the nose.

Yeah, I like it talking about so here's the deal over the weekend it ABC News broke this has been confirmed that Qatar in the Middle East is going to gift Donald Trump

a $400 million jumbo jet to use as his Air Force One, because he's salty about the fact that the new Air Force Ones, the pair that were ordered several years ago, are behind schedule, and that he won't be able to use them too long before he leaves office, assuming that somehow he doesn't end up in a third term.

And so he wanted a nicer plane.

So the Qataris have said, well, hey, we got one laying around our palace, as one does.

So here's a 400 million, they're calling it a palace in the sky.

Much nicer, much nicer accoutrements, appointments than the current Air Force One.

But they're only given in one plane.

And Trump wants it in use this year, like ASAP.

Now,

There's all kinds of things we just heard the democracy.

What's it called democracy minute?

Yeah.

Yeah, American democracy minute.

Thank I didn't know they're gonna do that serendipity there during the commercial they explained this very well and so There's all kinds of questions about the emoluments clause and whether Trump but Pam Bondi the Ponty girl Pam Bondi has said no no no mr. President anything you want You can do this it doesn't file because here's the argument they're making they're saying

that the Qatari government is gifting this to the U.S.

government, not to Trump.

But then, by January of 2029, the plane will go to Trump's presidential library foundation for him to use after he leaves office.

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times writing the piece, bringing up again, not very many people are talking about, the security factors in this.

I mean, right there's I mean, of course, there's no chance that the Qatari government or anybody else would put bugs in a plane like that and be list Here's the deal The president of the United States isn't even allowed to fly on a helicopter of another government even like when he goes to France or the UK They take their own Marine one.

They take their own transportation This is a huge security risk for the United States of America for American intelligence

But of course, it's all about quote-unquote Trump.

And speaking of Pam Bondi, the attorney general, remember this.

She was Qatar's hired gun.

She was raking in $115,000 a month as recently as 2020 to lobby for the regime.

And she just greenlit the deal for the quote-unquote gift.

of $400 million for a jet.

Cash Patel, Cashmere Patel, Trump's FBI director nominee, let's look at him.

Guess what?

Was on Qatar's payroll until November of 2024, months ago.

Pocketing cash for quote unquote consulting.

Didn't bother registering under the FARA, shocker.

I mean, these people, again, if you want,

Proof that this guy is a jerk Remember this is our attack because the United States government is going to have to pay For this plane to be retrofitted to try to upgrade it to the security level for Trump which experts say there's no way it can be And we're paying when it gets transferred into Trump's presidential library for him to use it for his personal use and Just out of coincidence

Trump's going to Qatar this week.

I mean, there's no shades of quid pro quo here, right?

8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2-8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.

Ollie in the Northwoods.

Ollie, thanks for listening.

What say you?

Well, I may have jumped the gun.

I just don't understand how, when it's written in the Constitution, the Malian language,

um clause uh he should not be receiving any kind of gift or uh money gifts planes boats whatever from a foreign government and i don't understand how they are being allowed to let him twist this into a way that he can accept it uh if it's given to the american people then it should

not go to his

private... Yeah, they shouldn't go to him personally, Ali.

You're absolutely right about that.

But again, this is why we were talking about during the nomination process, when you fire people who want to uphold the Constitution and install yes men and women, there's nobody that's going to stop you.

855-752-4842.

Charles in Milwaukee on AUK.

Charles, can you keep it brief, please?

Go ahead.

Yep.

Hey, Todd.

First of all, they're all shady people.

And my point I was calling for, when this story first broke last week, they had no idea what the media was talking about.

It was fake news.

Now all of a sudden, here we go.

And this is really going to happen, kind of just like with Project 2025, how Trump knew nothing about it.

And his whole administration has mainly been about the things that were written in Project 2025.

I appreciate the call, Charles.

Thank you so much.

8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.

Let's go to Joe, listening to WMDX in Madison.

Joe, I'm up against the clock, and I got Senator Royce next.

Got 45 seconds.

It's yours.

Yeah, but if you didn't want to say Dick Van Dyke, another name you could use is Richard Cranium.

I

heard people use

and that

sort of fits it.

I would encourage people to take a look at a Newsweek article from last week in April.

It mentions the fact that prior to getting this plane, there's a new golf resort that is being put forth by the Trump organization headed by Eric Trump.

And that precedes this whole thing about the plane.

It's a 5.5.

billion dollar beachside project located in Qatar and then golly just a little bit later you get a

point.

Yep bingo Joe you nailed it as you always do thank you I appreciate it stay tuned Senator Kelder Royce is in studio next talking about Wisconsin State budget don't go anywhere it's the all-ball show for a Monday on the Civic Media rating it work

First of all, I use a typewriter occasionally, still, but it's in a while.

But you know her.

She's been on the program before.

She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

She was a state senator representing the 26th district here in Madison, where you might not have known she's a Swifty.

That's right.

So directly from Senator Kelder Royce's Spotify playlist, senator, I had no idea.

Welcome.

Thank you.

It's great to be back.

Is this just you personally or the kids?

I mean, what?

You know, I'm...

a little older than, so I didn't grow up with Taylor Swift, but my kids kind of got me into it, and now I'm, you know, fully, fully there.

I love her.

I think she's fantastic.

She's a wonderful woman.

I admire her as

just pure artist and talent.

I also admire, and I think she's a great role model, particularly for young women, who just said in a male-dominated world, I'm not gonna take this crap, and it's been a leader.

Absolutely.

And as a musician, you know, she's...

She provides a lot of joy to our house.

Yeah, well, that's good.

We

need a lot of joy.

We appreciate you stopping by the world headquarters here on State Street.

Lots going on.

You are a member of the Joint Finance Committee, JFC, or joint with the official title is Committee on Joint Finance.

Beverly calls it JFC.

Let's just take a moment to explain the process here.

All the state budget happens every other year,

thus

biennial budget.

Governor went first, he put out his budget, and last week Republicans slashed whatever, 600 of those things or so.

But let's stop for a minute and explain to folks across the state what this process is.

is and what it does please.

Sure so every two years we're supposed to pass a state budget and that's everything from funding for local governments schools taxes roads you know all the public services that we rely on and

the governor presents the executive budget, and then the legislature's supposed to grapple with that and make changes, make alterations, and then pass it.

That hasn't happened since the current governor's been in office, because we've had divided government, and what the Republicans have essentially done is they've held these kind of sham public hearings where people wait for hours and hours to testify, and we hear from thousands of people across the state, and then the Republicans just kind of pretend they didn't hear it and throw what the governor did in the garbage, and they pass their own

budget with no compromise or discussion or interaction from the Democrats.

And this is the, as you said, in years past, I guess they kind of still did it to a degree.

Invite the public to come in and testify.

you write the budget and then you go kind of agency by agency.

So in the next few weeks, people, some people are gonna be like, why are these guys taking so long to meet?

It's because it takes a long time to go through agency by agency.

There's a guy that people in this show, you've heard me talk about before, Bob Lang, who is the head of the fiscal

bureau.

He knows everything about the state budget, where all of our money goes, where it comes from, he is...

an incredible treasure.

Could you, would you, is it fair to say Bob Lang may be the one of the handful of people in the state of Wisconsin where people on both sides say, well, Bob says it has to be right.

Yes.

That's how much respect he has.

Yes.

And his staff, I might add.

Yes.

And it is well earned.

Yeah.

And, you know, at a time when I think there's a huge divide and a lot of people don't trust, you know, government or don't trust anything that somebody outside of there.

tribe says, it's really important to have people like that.

So we're writing, you folks are writing a state budget for the next two years.

Last time I checked, Wisconsin has over a four billion with a B surplus.

Is that still the case as you move into this process?

It is sort of though, Todd, because here's the situation.

We've had so much chaos and corruption and competence from Republicans in Washington.

They're

setting the world's economy on fire with things like tariffs, with mass layoffs, so much uncertainty.

I mean, here in Wisconsin, we're feeling it, right?

Our farmers are not going to get paid for crops that they've contracted to.

Researchers are getting fired.

People who, you know, we're going to go to college are not anymore.

So all of that stuff is having a negative impact on our economy.

And so we don't know.

what is going to happen with our tax revenues, but it's not going to be good.

They're also kind of plating massive cuts to the federal budget.

And of course, nearly a third of our state budget dollars come straight from the feds.

So that would be devastating for us.

There's a lot, a lot unknown.

There is a great story with politics today, and it comes from this interview over the weekend on WISN Channel 12's upfront.

Over the weekend, the co-chairs of the Joint Finance Committee, for those that don't know, it's divided up between Assembly and Senate.

the assembly co-chair, Representative Mark Bourne of Beaver Dam was on, as well as our old friend, I say a bit sarcastically, Howard Markline, Senator Howard Markline of Springgreen on the other side.

And they were talking about these cuts to Medicaid specifically, these federal cuts to the

Senator.

And Representative Bourne was quoted as saying, quote, I'm not overly concerned about it, unquote.

That doesn't seem to be very responsible to me.

Oh, I think that's horrifying.

I mean, BadgerCare, Medicaid BadgerCare, covers one out of every three births in the state, one out of every two nursing home beds, and is probably one of the most important workforce programs we have in the state, right?

The vast majority of adults who are on BadgerCare are working, but we're talking about people who are the working poor, right?

These are childcare workers.

These are service workers.

They're the people who work in restaurants, you know, clean the office after you go home.

If we take away badger care, if we cut Medicaid or the Republicans in Washington do, these people will have nowhere to turn.

They will be going to the emergency room for their primary care.

Their health will get worse.

They will have to drop out of the workforce.

And guess what?

All of our insurance premiums are going to go way up.

And hospitals are going to close across the state, just like we've seen in Chippewa Falls, because we've, you know, Wisconsin's been so behind the times on expanding access to health care.

So this is a catastrophe.

And to go back to Budget Fiscal Bureau Director Lang, I saw him on Channel 3 here in Madison, the CBS affiliate, over the weekend doing an interview confirming, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think Director Lang said 20% of Wisconsinites are on some form of Medicaid.

Oh yeah, that's absolutely right.

So

again, the last time I checked Medicaid people, it doesn't just affect one party or the other.

There are Republicans, Democrats, independents.

In

every part of the state.

And especially in rural communities, where there aren't a ton of economic opportunities and jobs that have benefits, that have health insurance, one in three kids in the state.

So when I hear, and the reason I say old friend is because...

listeners of the show know I was a Republican until 2011 when I left the party and you know Howard Mark finds a person that I actually in the very first race went door-to-door for and he's been nothing but a huge disappointment ever since and the thing is Howard likes to talk about being a CPA he knows better I watched him

Screw over the University of Wisconsin, Richland, say, well, you know what Donald and I can do.

He's the co-chair of the Joint Finance

Committee.

I mean, if he can't do it, then who the heck

can?

Exactly.

And now here, Senator Mark Lyne says of this current situation, quote, we don't know what's going to happen yet, unquote.

I mean, that just seems completely unbelievable and irresponsible, Senator

Royce.

I totally agree.

I mean...

There's a lot that we can do.

You know, one of the first things that Democrats did is we circulated a letter when Republicans were talking at the federal level about cutting badger care.

And we said, you cannot do this.

This will devastate our communities.

It's going to hurt our economy.

And yet my Republican colleagues, they were invited to join us.

They won't say a word.

They're not even advocating for their own constituents to keep the health care that they already have.

You know, I don't understand the.

not just the cruelty of not caring whether people live or die and have healthcare, but don't you care about the economy?

Don't you care about the impact it's gonna have on our small businesses and on our communities when all these people lose access to healthcare?

It's gonna

be bad.

And we won't get into this now, but with the new map, Senator Barclayne has a brand new district that I think is not as comfortable for him to get reelected

in.

That's right.

You think for his own personal preservation, he might be interested in this.

Yeah, but you know, Republicans...

politicians seem totally impervious to caring about what voters actually want.

And we see that again and again.

We're talking to State Senator Keldor Royce here, who represents Wisconsin's 26th Senate District.

I hear the greater Madison area.

She is a member of the Joint Committee on Finance talking about the state budget.

All right, Senator Royce, I could sit here and go on about my former party.

I do quite a bit.

But what I'm interested in, because I don't hear this at least when I travel the state, whether I was just down in New Glarus this weekend, I was in Richland Center.

I'm going to Green Bay next weekend and Shawno.

I think that what a lot of Wisconsinites are, whether it's me talking every day or whatever, quit.

grouson and tell us something positive.

What is it that Senate Democrats are offering as an alternative?

As my former boss Scott Kluge used to say, if you rule the world, I'll change it.

If you guys were the majority, what would you like to see in this budget?

We are relentlessly focused on lowering costs for families all across Wisconsin.

So when you think about the big ticket items, housing, healthcare, prescription drugs, childcare, right?

these are all things that aren't really optional, right?

They're necessities.

And yet those costs have been rising incredibly fast.

Utility bills, right?

Even faster than inflation, which has been pretty high for the last couple of years.

And I understood that that was kind of had been the promise of Republicans that they were gonna be focused on that.

And yet the first time that they get power, what do they do?

They don't care about that.

They're just implementing these crazy, unpredictable policies that are

Making costs rise even higher.

Like if you're going to have a baby and all of a sudden your stroller costs two and a half times as much as it did a month ago, that's insane.

So Democrats are really going to be focused on lowering costs on those core big ticket items.

The other thing is, you know, what we heard in my travels all around the state.

People want to see our public schools funded.

They know that schools are the lifeblood of our community.

Our kids deserve the resources to not just survive but to thrive and get a great public education that prepares them to do whatever they want to do, to achieve whatever they want to in the world.

They deserve that and yet in a whole generation, 15 years, our kids have not even gotten an inflationary increase in public schools with Republicans in charge.

And that's something I'm very passionate about K-12 and our University of Public Schools.

I just think that the lack of investment, and again, this goes back to my former party, when former Governor Tommy Thompson made the promise, we're going to fund two-thirds of public schools.

Republicans were the ones that defunded that below the two-thirds.

Is it back up there?

Is it close?

But it still hasn't kept up with the

rate of inflation, right?

No, right.

Yeah, I mean, exactly.

My stepdaughter is graduating from college.

this week so proud of her but you know since she was in kindergarten these kids did not get an inflationary increase and i think that is really shameful what is the point of state government and guaranteeing kids a free quality public education in our constitution as we do here in wisconsin if the politicians in charge won't fund it

And here's my argument, Senator Royce, is that even if the general electorate or even your Republican colleagues don't care about schools and quote unquote, Democratic districts, think yourself.

I mean, we continue to have a record number of K-12 referendums for local taxpayers to have to make up for what Republican legislators don't do in Madison.

I would think that a Republican voter in Wisconsin would be ticked off at their representative or senator for...

put the screws back to them and we've heard that again and again but you know voters have overwhelmingly approved these referendums because they want their public schools funded but boy does it burn to know that the money is sitting there at the state and the republicans won't give it and as a result your own property taxes are going up so i say you know people who are

angry about their property tax bill, you have every right to be.

We shouldn't be pitting property taxpayers against school kids.

That's outrageous.

You know, communities need to come together, and it's Republicans splitting them apart because they're not doing their job.

Time always goes too fast.

We'll be respectful of your time.

About 90 seconds left.

Dealers, senators, choice.

I'll put it that way.

But I'll ask this.

Take it wherever you want.

Is there hope that there is some sort of bipartisanship that you can work with some of your colleagues to get some of these things implemented?

You know, I think the hope is that there's tremendous unity among the voters of the state, right?

We didn't hear people, literally no one asked for, hey, let's get a big tax cut for the wealthy, because Wisconsin already has one of the lowest tax brackets for the wealthy and big corporations.

Nobody asked for that.

People in every part of the state, red, blue, purple, want the same things.

They want to see investments in childcare.

So the costs go down.

They want to see healthcare and Medicaid supported.

They want to see our public schools funded.

And all we need is for the Republican politicians to take that hand that Democrats are extending and say, hey, let's do something right for our constituents that they want.

Senator Keller-Royce, thank you so much for your time.

Really, really appreciate it.

Stop by anytime as this process continues on.

Good to be with you.

And put a little, you know, why do you got to be so mean on for Howard

up there?

You know, that's

what

you need.

All right, come on back.

We'll have some fun.

Your phone calls after this is the All Balls Show on the Civic Media Ready Network.

Going on by request to State Senator Howard

Mark, we'll have him spring green this afternoon.

Senator, why are you gonna be so mean?

Many thanks to Senator Kelder Royce, who is not mean.

She's fantastic and talented.

Appreciate her stopping by talking about the Joint Finance Committee.

Here's the thing, Todd, to say, well, Todd, you're being mean.

You're being disrespectful.

You're picking on Senator Mark like, no, I wish that he, because I've said.

He's not a dumb person.

He's a very intelligent guy.

He has a, he's a certified public accountant.

And that's what frustrates me so much.

And I feel I, I've earned the right to be hard on Senator Mark line because guess what?

I went door to door for him and campaigned and helped him get elected to the state assembly.

And, and he has represents little of anything in his current form for the guy I went and campaigned for.

So the fact that I helped him get elected I think gives me the the right if you will to criticize him and pre be pretty hard and and it's What irritates me is that I I know that he knows What's up and the fact that he this wink of the nod the aw shucks guy.

I'm just from rural, Wisconsin I mean here's his line from WISN Channel 12's upfront this weekend quote We don't know what's going to happen yet.

I mean

Mark, meaning the other co-chair, represented Mark Bourne.

Mark and I don't have any inside information as to what's going on in DC.

We're going to just wait and see.

We've always based our budget decisions on the best available information, and that includes new collection, tax collection projects, projections next week, unquote.

Senator Marklein, one of your former colleagues, Glenn Grossman,

is now a United States Congressman.

Scott Fitzgerald, who was the Senate Majority Leader when Howard, when they were in the Senate together, is now a United States Congressman.

Tom Tiffany, who is in the state Senate with Howard, is now a United States Congressman.

If Howard Marklein can't get any sort of an inside track from those three to Washington, then we have real problems going on.

It's completely disingenuous, and I would call out the Democrats if it was the same thing.

So the reason I'm salty on Howard Markline is that I know him well enough to know he's a person of at least, you know,

educational intelligence, he is a certified public accountant, he understands budgets fully, and he is one of the most powerful people in Wisconsin.

The joint finance co-chairs are two of the most powerful people in Wisconsin.

And oh, Tony Kurtz, state representative from out in Southwest Wisconsin, who is also on the joint finance committee, guess what he's having?

Here, let me get the date right in case you wanna go.

Da, da, da, da, da.

Oh, it's tonight.

Five until as hours you do anything tonight five until seven tonight Tony Kurtz is having a fundraiser During the joint finance committee budget process.

Oh Now I'm not sure if anybody's gonna show up with a plane for representative Kurtz This is something I think should be outlawed.

I don't think that if you serve Democrat Republican senator or assembly person if you serve on the joint finance committee

You should not be allowed to fundraise during the joint finance budget process.

Period.

Period.

End of story.

752-4842, 855-752-4842, what's up?

You've also offered for Senator Mark Lyon to come and clear the air and tell their side of the story.

I have.

And they know because you've talked to them in person, not just said out of the airwaves, but talked to them in person and said, hey, you want to come on the show and talk about this.

And it's like, uh...

Well, last

time was original in Centerwood.

Howard was there to talk to our friend Phil Knead, WRC.

I said, Senator, you want to come down the hall and be on our show?

We'll bump anything else.

We'll put your ride on.

And I said, I said, Howard, I'm not, I just want to give you the chance to have a conversation.

And he looked at his watch and he goes, well, I think I got another engagement afterwards.

I said, OK, doors always open.

Let's go quickly, 855-752-4842, Los Angeles, California.

L.A.

Tom's listening.

L.A., what have you got?

Well first off Todd, we the people ultimately are the government and we must never forget that.

Second, we must get all money out of politics.

So I recommend everyone go to getmoneyout.net or getmoneyoutapolitics.us.

What I want to say too is that, you know, when you want to describe Donald Trump, just describe him as waste, God, and he's all free.

And the thing I want held the voice.

I hope she's still listening, but the Democrats need to come up with a, uh, easy type of, um, uh, I think it's, I'm a phone, I'm not sure, but CHTR or CHTM.

LA is, LA is in

law or mortgage.

And then I get some research on an average household in Wisconsin.

They pay $16,000 each of those industries per year, and that's on a low end.

Now, if you're looking at that, you're looking at $64,000 a household has to make in order to survive.

Tell me, Republicans and Democratic people out there, how the hell is an average person supposed to make it when they aren't making $64,000?

a year for the basic needs that they may

have.

Yeah.

I appreciate the phone call LA.

We will see if we have time to get into it in hour two to LA's point.

I mean, it's kind of connected.

There was a major fire in Milwaukee over the weekend, a tragedy.

I think the death toll is now at five people, although there's three are critically injured.

There were dozens, if not going on hundreds that were displaced, a four story apartment building.

And the Milwaukee, I believe it's Milwaukee Fire Chief.

Came out really strongly over the weekend because the place was built in the late 60s before the laws changed So there was no sprinkler system and and to L.A.'

's point if you Only have a certain income and you're working you're not sitting around you could only afford to live in certain places

And those places, oftentimes, are some of the most dangerous, and our hearts go out to those families that lost loved ones in Milwaukee over the weekend.

Come on back, but we'll have more on hour number two, including what's worse.

It's the All Ball Show on Civic Media.

Live from the Civic Media World Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba Show.

And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd Alba.

Across Wisconsin on the Civic Media radio network and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Tom Allbaugh along Mr. Aaron Zommers, our producer and engineer on the board.

It is six past the hour of three o'clock.

Welcome into hour number two of the big program.

It is Monday, May 12th, 2025.

It is a great day to be a Wisconsinite.

And I mean a great day.

Temperatures in the 80s through parts of Wisconsin, as they say, cooler near the lake, Lake Michigan, that is.

But most of Wisconsin in the 80s and 70s today,

Pretty blue skies out there right now as we come to you for the World headquarters of downtown Madison on State Street Zomers I know a little warm for you, but I'll take this

Yeah, you know I I can as long as I stay in the shade will be alright.

You'll

stay in the shade.

I

won't melt No, no, you won't you won't just chill out a little bit gonna be with you a many thanks to a senator keller Royce

From hour number two always a lot of fun to talk to the senator her insight on the joint finance committee and hope to Continue that into the summer months here is the joint last several weeks They hope to be wrapped up by end of June.

We'll see we'll see how that goes Anyway coming up here just a bit We'll do what's worse and then at the bottom of the hour 235 to be precise Jack Kelly from Wisconsin watch in with more

Wisconsin news headlines over the weekend and the things going on and the what's new on their great newsletter as well.

Always great to have Jack stop by.

Sorry.

I was looking at him.

I thought you were going to say something.

No, he had nothing.

No, I had nothing.

Look, Alaska trying to catch up a little bit over the weekend.

As we said, again, hearts go out to the folks in Milwaukee who went through that major fire over the weekend, a fourth story.

apartment complex, set of blaze, and five people I believe now have lost their lives, three more in critical condition.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of others are displaced.

And this was an older building built in the late 60s before the fire codes changed.

And God bless the fire chief down in Milwaukee.

He did not mince words after this with the press in saying, look, people have to make a decision here.

And

you know, whether it's a home builders association or whoever Wisconsin, I get it to retrofit these buildings with fire suppressant systems, i.e.

sprinklers.

It would cost a lot of money, but I've got at the time four and now five families I'm having to comfort and talk to who would think that cost to be nothing.

And again, as we, right before the top of the hour there, that call from LA Tom,

lots of folks, and I know we're experiencing this in Madison, that there are some places, and I'm not talking about like the suburb areas where you have the McMansions or whatever, I'm talking about basic one bedroom apartment housing in Madison, certainly on the Isthmus here, and I know there was just an article in, I'm not sure what it was in, but it was, I believe it might have been the Journal Sentinel, on Milwaukee's housing crunch.

and how they're facing this as well.

And it's not that there isn't housing available, it's affordable.

And when I say affordable, I'm not talking about, you know, what some people would consider quote unquote welfare or poor people or, oh, you know, they're just uneducated and they're not working and they're lazy and all these stereotypes.

I'm talking about people who are gainfully employed.

Some of whom have technical or four-year degrees and who are working full-time and yet cannot afford to live in modest one-bedroom homes in typical neighborhoods in Madison, Milwaukee.

And kids.

And kids.

And so this is something we've talked about before.

I hope to talk about it more as we continue on into this year is the housing crisis in Wisconsin.

And so here now over the weekend we see

one of these apparent neighborhood, not neighborhood, but an apartment complex where the rents were cheaper because it was an older apartment building, but had no fire suppression systems in it.

And a fire started and it just went like kiddling and a lot of injuries.

And the question begs,

And I get it.

I stopped myself for a second because if you're a landlord, you say, well, you know, I bought this and our families owned it for 40 years.

And, you know, before this happened and now it would cost us millions of dollars or whatever it would cost.

And I get it.

For some people, it might just be cost prohibitive, but it would seem to me that maybe perhaps we could take part of that $4 billion in our state budget and say, hey,

What buildings are there in certain cities where there's a housing crisis where we could possibly partner with builders and landlords to put in fire suppression systems so these things wouldn't happen?

Because I bet you if you go a block away Zombers and go to the joint finance committee and you ask anybody on there, Republican, Democrat or whatever, hey, would you like your kid or grand kid to live in a building that has no fire suppression system?

Or to go to school with lead pipes and lead paint.

Nobody there is going to say yes.

So my question is if you legislator don't want that, why would you why should we expect it to be OK for other people, fellow Wisconsinites?

And I get it, you can't solve every problem, every budget.

But it would seem to me at least having a pilot program or taking a step in that direction might be a good thing to do.

But.

That's just

me, that's just me.

I honestly, between this with the no fire suppression systems and the problems with lead in Milwaukee that are well documented and persist to this day, I find it a tremendous indictment on the, I don't know if it's the fault of the city of Milwaukee or the state government, but it's frankly unacceptable.

And people are dying because of it.

And someone's gotta

do something.

We shall see, we shall see what happens as we move forward here.

But anyway, I just thought I would bring it up so that people could maybe be aware of this and discuss a little bit.

13 minutes now past the hour of three o'clock.

I want to get to this before we do what's worse today.

Timely, timely indeed, as Mike Lucas likes to say, President Donald Trump today launched a version of price controls to reduce drug costs for the US consumers by basing payments for some medications

on their prices in other countries.

In an executive order, signing Trump said, quote, Big Pharma will either abide by this principle voluntarily or will use the power of the federal government to ensure that we are paying the same price, unquote.

Under the order, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

will, quote, set clear targets for price reductions across all markets, unquote, in the US and open a, quote, round of negotiations, unquote, with the industry.

Kennedy lauded Trump's executive order and said the policy was the fulcrum pardon me Quote the fulcrum of Bernie Sanders's run for presidency in 2016 and 2020 unquote Now as listeners of our show Republicans historically oppose increasing the minimum wage or have any minimum wage laws why?

Because they have said a minimum wage is a version of price control

As we learned in high school, price controls have been used multiple times in US history and policy has always backfired.

Richard Nixon famously launched broad price controls to combat inflation.

When price controls were lifted, the result was even more inflation.

Will this populist move by Trump, which distracts from his tariff debate, by the way, and differently?

Well, we'll see.

Now remember, during the...

Through the campaign we were so fortunate to have Mark Cuban on the show He was a surrogate for then vice president Kamala Harris Mark Cuban most of you many of you might know he's on shark tanker I think now the season he's off.

He was on shark tanks for the beginning owner of the medallist Mavericks although he's sold his majority interest in the Mavericks multi-billionaire What Cuban has started this new company called cost plus drugs

And he's taking his wealth and he's making deals directly with pharmaceutical makers and putting the middle person out of business.

And Charlie Kirk tweeted this last night about what Trump just read.

And here's what Mark Cuban, a guy who knows a lot about drug prices, said, quote, drug prices are too damn high, but the big culprit isn't the brand manufacturers, it's the big middlemen.

Namely PBMs.

They work so hard to distort pricing, the first lines in their contract with everyone is literally, quote, you can't disclose any of this, unquote.

How bad are they?

Have you ever seen them disclose a net price list?

For your company, Charlie Kirk, ask your PBM for a list of claims and the price paid for each medication.

Let us know if you can get them.

This EO executive order has a real shot and big pharma isn't innocent.

But the PBMs that have screwed things up, whether they have screwed things up, separate formulas from Jim and make them disclose all claims to employers and manufacturers, and we may be able to get brand meds cheaper than many countries.

Unquote that from Mark Cuban.

So what Cuban is basically saying you read a couple of his other tweets he's put out the last 24 hours He's saying look what Trump's doing today isn't necessarily going to fix the problem But you can't say it's not a step in the right direction because it may bring transparency And this has been one of Mark Cuban's main points in creating cost plus drugs is that there's no transparency

We're not seeing how much the pharmaceutical company is charging the middlemen and then how much of that gets passed on to either our local pharmacy or our hospitals or our clinics and that's what ultimately really drives prices up.

So I'm not here to necessarily flat out endorse what Trump is doing on this today, but based on people who are a lot smarter than me on this stuff like Mark Cuban, you know, it may help.

And I think it's good to at least acknowledge that and say, you know what, if there's something that could help the pharmaceutical or the cost of drugs to consumers in this country, hey, that's a good thing.

I think this is also a good reminder that people like Mark Cuban are not woke Marxist with Trump derangement syndrome.

They're smart people who see what's going on and will honestly critique it.

And if Trump does something good, he'll say it.

And

if Democrats do something bad, he'll say it.

Yeah, I have a lot of respect for him.

I'd love to have him back on the show.

I think maybe our friend Trigby is working on that.

But interesting indeed.

Should we open the thing up now or should we wait?

We can do it now.

All right, here we go.

Time once again for What's Worse.

Let's go.

Time once again

for What's Worse.

No prize.

Nobody involved.

Nothing to give away.

But it is your chance to have your voice heard across all 11 news, sports, talk stations, and the Civic Media Ready Network across Wisconsin.

All right.

That time of year, Todd needs to get it back out and exercise, put out a few pounds over the winter.

So here it is.

Today's category, what's worse?

Pointing out weight loss or not pointing out weight loss.

855-752-4842, 855-752-4842.

What's worse?

Pointing out weight loss or not pointing out weight loss.

855-752-4842, 855-752-4842, or you can text us at the Civic Media app.

You can download it at your app or Android device, go to your app store, in the search bar, type Civic CIVIC media, it'll pop up, takes less than a minute, and it is free to download as what Gale King at CBS calls a deal, the Civic Media app.

What's worse?

Pointing out that somebody has lost weight, or not pointing out weight loss.

Welcome back.

Take your calls after this.

855-752-4842.

855-752-4842.

It's the Tottenham Ball Show for a Monday on the Civic Media Radio Network.

wherever it may lead and having fun doing it.

Welcome back to the Toddleball Show on the Civic Media Brain Network.

Coming up just after the bottom of the hour, Jack Kelly from Wisconsin Watch will be in talking about important stories across the state of Wisconsin.

Politically catching us up to speed on there.

They have a great newsletter at Wisconsin Watch.

We'll talk more about that in just a few minutes.

Mr. Kelly, who is in the green room right now, better known as the couch outside the door.

Right now, asking the questions of the not so important, but sometimes amusing.

Today's what's worse, the category is pointing out weight loss or not pointing out weight loss.

855-752-4842, 855-752-4842.

Zomers, have you ever been in a position where you don't know if you should say something or not?

I mean, if someone clearly has lost weight, you want to compliment them.

But while you're thinking, well, if I say that, then it's going to sound like I thought they were heavy before.

But yet, if you don't say it, they're going to be like, I've done all this work and nobody notices.

Yeah, it can be rough.

And I think I'm going to give the worst answer.

To what's worse,

which

is it depends

All right.

All right.

Well, if anybody else has a more decisive answer 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 let's go to Milwaukee on WA UK Brian listening in Milwaukee Brian pointing out weight loss or not pointing out weight loss.

What's worse, you know

It's funny that

Somers said exactly what I was going to say because it really depends.

And here's my example.

Because for me, for example, I've always been a short, stocky, heavy-set guy.

And about two years ago, I was visiting with family for Christmas.

And my aunt, who I haven't seen in like a year, said, Brian, aren't you trying to lose weight?

Because I gained, like, 50 pounds since you last saw me.

And my stepmom said, well, you don't know, but he was diagnosed with some health issues.

And now I was on put on prednisone,

which

you gain a lot of weight with that.

And, and then she's like, but Brian, you're so young, how did you gain all this weight?

And then when we found out what was going on, you know, was that type of thing.

And then when I saw her this past Christmas, she actually complimented me on the weight loss that I've been trying to do being on the medication.

So it really depends because you could have a situation like that where you know the person's trying to lose weight.

But then again, if someone's going through chemotherapy or

has

chronic wasting syndrome and they're losing

weight, you don't compliment that.

Exactly.

Now, let's keep you on the phone, Brian, because you've gone through this a little bit.

Carolyn from Heartland just texted in on WAUK, and she just texted what

I basically what I was going to say, she says, just say, you look great.

I mean, so that was just something I have done.

I like, if I see someone and it's like, it's pretty clear that they've, that they've, you know, lost weight in a good way.

What I think is a good or healthy way.

I'll just say, wow, you look fantastic.

I haven't seen you in a while.

And like if they say, well, thank you.

I've really been trying.

Well, then you could kind of pick up on that.

But if they just say, oh, thank you.

I appreciate it.

Then maybe there's something else going on.

Is that an acceptable way you think?

Yeah.

I mean, that's the thing.

Like even when I was in high school, when I was younger, I gained a lot of weight because of some of the medication I was on.

And I stopped taking the medication.

My doctor said, you need to diet and exercise.

personally to help you know consequences later on in your life and I lost a whole bunch of weight when I was senior year in high school and all of a sudden I was getting compliments from you know students and teachers going oh my god how'd you

do it

well I just ate healthy that's

right

right you know

and

I also think it really depends on the situation

and I also think if if you know I've had

People friends in my life that might have been heavier, but they lost they lost some weight It wasn't where they wanted to be yet, but I would still say hey you look fantastic.

I mean, it's not that we all have to be like I I'm certainly no model, you know a center full or anything like that I think I think weight weight is particular to the person what they feel good about what's healthy for that individual We all walk a different journey.

So, you know some sometimes just like a new shirt or whatever and it's like wow There's that person's been colored

And it's funny too, because I've been talking to my doctors, you know, over the years about trying to lose weight.

And because I'm, for example, I'm 55 and currently 308 pounds.

When you look in a textbook, like a fitness book of what they say, a male at my age, which is 39, you know, with my height and my weight, you know, should weigh.

Well, then when you look at it, the doctor's like, no, you should not be this 100 and something, you know, pounds because that's going to be.

on your type of body, that's going to be too low.

You need to aim for, you know, they said like aim for like 220, 225, 230 because that's going to look better on you.

You know, so everyone's a little different,

you

know.

I appreciate the call, Brian.

Thanks for sharing that personal information.

We, I think it's just good to have these open discussions.

Sometimes this stuff ends up being more humorous and sometimes it makes us have cool conversations that are just real.

And I like that.

Yeah, on that note of everybody having different ranges of healthy weight.

When I was in like, I don't know, I think even in elementary school, this might have happened and they still did a lot of BMI calculations.

And it would be like, you're overweight, Aaron.

And then you look at me and I look like this big pen here.

It's no, I was just tall.

There was a lot of bone there.

I was underweight, if anything.

Wow, interesting.

Megan in some prairie listening to WMDX says, I agree with Carolyn almost had that typed word for word before I heard her comment.

Casper in engineering says I made it a personal thing to just not comment on other people's appearances in general.

Well, there's that too.

But I don't know anything else.

Oh, someone else said, just say, oh, Jude in East Troy, just say, you're looking good.

And they get it.

Yeah, I think that's, I tend to be like.

Don't know if someone truly looks I'm like I won't I won't tell people they look fantastic if they if it is clear they don't like if they're if they're ill or or You know what I mean,

then it's kind of more of a hey, how you're doing, right?

Now people

are gonna judge me if like oh you must think I look terrible if you don't say but my point is

I reserve that if I know a friend or family is trying to lose weight, and then they do, if I truly notice it, and I know the work they've put in, I want to be complimentary of that.

Right, that's the point.

All right, come on back.

We'll get to the point with Mr. Jack Kelly from Wisconsin Watch, a little Wisconsin news for you on this side.

It's the Taliban showing some idiot.

Welcome back to Cowboy Show on the Pacific Media already that we're glad to have you along here on a Monday, May 12th, 2025.

Say 35 minutes past the hour already.

I think so.

They've never heard of this at the time.

They've had an extra mushroom.

I'm looking, we're joined here at the desk now.

We hope to be every week from someone at Wisconsin watching and Jack Kelly is in.

Jack, how the heck are you?

I'm doing great.

Thanks for having me again.

It's always a pleasure.

We were talking mushrooms before, before we came back on the air, but morale mushrooms.

And then one of our listeners, Cameron Appleton, texted me right before Lord of the Air and said, please teach me about mushrooms.

I wish to grow them.

I'm not entirely sure which type of mushrooms he's talking about.

I don't know how to provide any advice

either.

I like mushrooms.

I like to eat them.

Are you a morale fan?

I am.

I'm not picky in choosing.

Eating mushrooms is an adult era innovation for me.

I was

like 25 years old when I started doing it again.

I was like, you know, mushrooms on pizza, whatever.

Never my thing.

Now I can't get enough of it.

That's fantastic.

I grew up on Morels as a kid, but they're they're pricey now.

I saw not on Saturday, but Wednesday here downtown.

Twenty five dollars a pound.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

Wow.

They're they're the elusive Morel mushroom.

But of course, the capital Morel mushrooms in Southwest Wisconsin, Muscatty.

All right.

Yeah, you said there was a place of Rothschild that claims this or whatever.

Oh, no.

And in Rothschild is where the state Republican Party convention is going

to be.

There may be a lot of mushrooms and bite in Rothschild, Wisconsin.

All right.

Well, this is enough of old mushroom home week.

Anyway, what Jack is here to do is and the great folks at WisconsinWatch.org.

That's WisconsinWatch.org.

Keep track of what the happenings are in the state of Wisconsin.

It's a great website.

You do a great new.

I wanted to pick up a little bit, Jack.

We had State Senator, Kelder Royce here earlier in the show, Democrat from the Madison area, and she's on the Joint Finance Committee.

But what I want to talk about is something to pick up our friend and colleague, Jane McNair, touched on this this morning on her show.

And for our afternoon listeners, talk a little bit about this joint finance budget and the...

the oddness, I'll call it, or uniqueness of this time around, they've done something different in terms of what you can say and what you can't say in the state budget.

Yeah, so Wisconsin is different than many states in the sense that the state passes an operating budget

and a capital budget every two years.

So when we talk about the state budget, we're talking about how lawmakers in Madison and the governor are planning to spend your $100 billion roughly over the next two years as the taxpayer.

And so the Joint Finance Committee had what was its first working meeting last week.

They met for about two hours, and they did something similar to they've done the last three budgets proposed by Governor Tony Evers, which is they pretty much went

uh, command a delete

and

strip it down to the very, very bare bones.

Um, so, you know, that, that's what they did.

Uh, we've seen this before something that is, um, not totally unique, but they have started to push more is that they, they kind of do that in two parts.

The first part they do is to delete.

In this instance, it was, um, several hundred provisions that the governor proposed basically for good.

They, they, the, the motion that they talk about, it says.

to be list of items to be removed from budget consideration.

What that means is don't bring it up.

Don't talk about it.

It's dead.

We're not going to think about it for the budget.

So they did that in one piece, and then in another piece, they deleted the rest of it, but some of those ideas could come back up.

So it's kind of a, you know, two halves.

You can see what they got rid of for good, and you can see what they might consider over the next couple of months as they finish crafting the budget.

So am I correct in saying what they're, what they're putting out here?

And this applies not just for people that might testify, but like

Sitting state senators representatives particularly the Democratic Party do not talk about these things or will cut off your mic because they're they're hitherto Gone.

Yeah.

No, that's exactly right.

I think state senator Roy's experienced this last session I believe it was something about childcare that she was talking about During one of the joint finance committee meetings and they turned her mic off and that

Is the case for many things and particularly for certain ideas that the public came and told the committee at four different listening sessions across the state over the last kind of month in April That they really cared about it and it was things about

education funding, about health care and health care access, about child care, etc.

Like one of the things, for example, that they killed for good is child care counts.

People on the program might have heard that before.

We've been talking about it for several years now.

It's a program that the governor created using federal money.

The state basically provides funds to child care providers effectively to keep them open so that you can have

places to send your kids.

And Democrats have raved about it.

They've seen it as very successful.

Republicans have been lukewarm at best.

After they've been very against it, they have kind of turned down the idea of making it a state-funded permanent program at every turn, and they did that again.

So childcare counts, it's out.

Don't bring it up again in the budget.

But, for example,

A big thing that the governor wants is to increase the amount of funds that are reimbursed to school districts for special education.

Special education is very expensive.

Many districts will tell you they have to transfer money from their general fund into that fund to help pay for special education costs.

He wants to increase the reimbursement rate up to, I think, 60 percent.

The state will cover 60 percent of special ed costs for all districts in the state.

Republicans took that provision out, but they didn't kill it for good, so we could see a version of that come back in the budget bill.

It just, we're talking to Jack Kelly of Wisconsin Watch.

You can find all these stories at WisconsinWatch.org.

Jack, it just seems on the first one of those things you mentioned there.

on the childcare.

And today, I guess, is the national day of childcare, whatever they're calling it, where to bring awareness to this very important subject.

We talked about it last week with Kareen, who has a childcare facility in beautiful Nucleus, Wisconsin.

Incidentally, I was at Bailey's Run in Nucleus over the weekend.

Beautiful place to have a beverage and a piece of our wonderful meal.

But in order for people in that community Nucleus to work, they need a place to have their kids in childcare.

To this very serious point that you're bringing up why on you're here to report not but but I guess I would say as a guy who analyzes the news it just seems confounding to me that a Current state senator or representative would say we're not even going to allow a discussion

on on childcare in this particular and this is going to mean that childcare workers go out of business some and some people no longer have a place to leave their kids which means they won't be able to go to work which means they'll be unemployed and those same people that said we're not talking about this will point the finger back and say well you're lazy

it's an interesting uh dynamic right i i mean just a couple weeks ago uh assembly republicans advanced a whole package of bills um

about bolstering the state's workforce.

Democrats come right back to them and say, if you want to bolster the state's workforce, invest in childcare.

I will say, Republicans on the committee,

kind of panned the idea that because they were throwing out childcare counts, nothing's going to get done on childcare, right?

You know, Howard Markline, Senator Howard Markline, he's the committee co-chair from, he's Republican from Springgreen, you know, in the crater, Madison area.

You know, he said during the committee, this idea that the door is closed on all of these things is pretty ridiculous.

And his committee co-chair, representative Mark Bourne from Beaver Dam, kind of piled onto that and he said,

There is more than one way to address issues and those will all be debated and built over the next couple of months.

So what they're saying is just because we don't want to do it the way the governor wants to do it doesn't mean we're not going to do it at all.

And so, you know, now

we kind of wait and see as they go behind closed doors, strike deals, and really make the sausage of the spending plan for the next two months.

The fiscal year for the state runs out on June 30th.

It's kind of a soft deadline.

If they don't pass a budget, we don't have a state government shutdown.

Funding levels just continue as is.

But there's some pressure.

People typically like to be done with the budget by or shortly after the 4th of July, and with the 4th of July being a Friday this year.

lawmakers will probably be eager to meet the deadline.

I think you're absolutely right.

And I don't mean to harp on this too much because we talked about Senator Mark Laine in the first hour, a guy I happened to know for my days in the Capitol.

I would take Senator Mark Line and his word in what's in your article saying that he what he said was the word he used It's ridiculous to say they're not going to address child care.

Is that right?

I'll make sure I get it right

The idea that the door is closed and all these things is pretty ridiculous

So Howard says the idea that the door is closed is quote-unquote pretty ridiculous.

This is the same guy

who a couple of years ago, I was at a town hall, 100 plus people packed in a room trying to save the UW Richland campus and asking Howard and asking representative Kurtz, who both sat on the joint finance committee then as well, saying, how can we get money?

We need like maybe three or four million to keep this campus open.

And Howard literally looked at people and said, quote, I don't know.

I don't have any power.

I don't really have any real power.

That's we that's what he told people and here's a guy who is the one of the most powerful legislators in the state

most definitely

and So now so my point is when we come back to this was in the story of Wisconsin watch what he says.

Well, you know, this is ridiculous.

How should?

Voters take this guy at his word when he clearly hasn't been serious in the past

it's interesting and You know, obviously this this is on its face of policy discussion, right?

We're talking about the state budget is

by no means the sexiest thing.

You use the right term sausage

making.

But there's always politics to it as well.

Right.

Howard Marklein was drawn into a different district.

More

democratic leading.

Right.

And is probably the most vulnerable or certainly one of the two most vulnerable Senate Republicans and Democrats will be eager to win his seat come in 26 because they see it as the path to taking the majority in the Senate.

And so.