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No.
Not at all.
It's not Todd.
It's not Todd.
But I believe I am contractually obligated to say the following.
Across Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.
Good afternoon everybody.
Pat Kraitlo host of the conveniently named mornings with Pat Kraitlo on select stations along the civic media radio network, accompanied by the count of the control room, the Baron of the control board, the viceroy of the volume knobs, the one and only Aaron Zommers.
Wow.
Zommers.
Good afternoon.
used to
I figured, yeah, you're like radio royalty here now.
You've been around long enough.
You've earned some titles.
And as further proof that I should not go unsupervised, allow me to introduce this hour's co-guest host, part of the Riff Raff of River Falls, a proud alum of Badger Boy State 1985, senior advisor to the Lincoln Project, and creator of the next newsletter you need to be subscribing to, Search for Hope with Trig Vilsen.
I think it is.
I think it is.
I know.
You look a little different there.
Something's different and not just the way you crushed that Red Bull just now, but apparently you're spending your time now with Red Bulls and razor blades.
How you are as clean shaven.
Yeah.
Like all over.
I mean, where's Tele-Sabotis to hand you a lollipop?
This is really a new look.
it will grow back.
That's OK.
There were no tears.
No, I don't know who you are anymore.
Anything like that.
Well,
Some in Wisconsin would disagree, but, you know, that's true.
That's on them.
Trig V, as I mentioned, has the newsletter, the blog, Search for Hope, and the newest series.
He does serials like this, like, you know, here's our latest 10-part series.
This new one is 10 Lessons for the Resistance in a Fear-Based System.
that we will have to be looking into here.
So we're going to talk about that a little bit.
We will also talk about budget bills, plural, with the one thing in common, Republicans in disarray, no budget bills yet in Washington DC, or in Madison, as the Republicans try to get their ducks in a row, more like herding cats, pick your animal, you know, analogy from there.
So on the state level,
To get an update on where things stand, we're gonna talk to Democratic State Senator Kelder Royce.
Why Democratic State Senator Kelder Royce?
Because it could be that Senate Republicans can't, they can't get all 18 of their ducks in a row.
And if they want to pass a budget, they may have to find a way to attract some Democratic votes as well.
We'll see if, if that's really happening or if it's not.
But of course at the federal level, we have again,
what's called the vote arama going on, a bunch of amendments to the bill in the U.S.
Senate and
its first political casualty.
Folks who listened to my show this morning know that we talked to my friend Michael McElroy, a Courier Newsroom colleague of mine from our North Carolina outlet about Senator Tom Tillis, who on Saturday was a rebel standing up to Donald Trump and saying, no, these Medicaid cuts are going to be devastating to my state.
So he voted no on a procedural vote.
And by Sunday, he was packing his bags and saying, oh,
Would you look at the time?
I can't possibly run for re-election.
Michael McElroy told us that that was still surprising.
He was going to face a tough re-election next year, but still surprising that he made for the exits.
Trig Vilsen, as Todd would say, what say you?
right?
Like he's not ranked again because he will lose in a primary in a state like North Carolina because he stood up really for the citizens of North Carolina.
I think the thing that people are missing with the big beautiful bill I was on a call earlier today is starting.
I mean, you can talk about the tax cuts for billionaires and the fairness issue and
All the rest of it.
But at the end of the day, it's going to have real consequences, particularly with health care in rural areas in places like Wisconsin and North Carolina.
And in Tillis's case, he was saying this is wrong and there isn't, you know, he has no choice but to exit or probably to lose in a primary for standing up what was right for North Carolina.
I mean, it's crazy.
It is.
I mean, and he's not the only one who knows
that if anybody says, you know, everybody who deserves their Medicaid benefits won't see how did Derek Van Orden put it?
You won't see your benefits cut a nickel.
Tom Tillis knows, and some of his colleagues know but won't say, that is straight up gaslighting.
You know, and I am sure you have seen it in some of the other nations you've worked in, where, you know, the ruling party says,
Oh, no, no, no.
The the sky is indeed, you know, purple.
It's not blue.
And, you know, if you don't believe me, well, there's the gulag, you know, they just want to say it enough times and make people believe it.
And Drake view, you know, this as well as I do, you know, they need just enough people to believe that their big bloated boondoggle will save money when it will not.
It has such a price tag for a generation to come.
Well, and they need people to be afraid of saying what they think right Pat so it isn't just that they need enough people they need people to be afraid to even have the conversation and You know We have seen some of that You know you think about in in places like Chippewa Falls or River Falls for that matter, right?
Like you go down to Johnny's bar in River Falls You don't want to have a conversation about politics and if politics comes up
people are holding their tongues, even if they want to say something because they start thinking, well, it isn't worth saying anything.
And when you have somebody like Tom Tillis, who's the United States Senator, who's basically doing that same thing, that's a problem because that is what autocratic forces try and do.
And I have seen that all over the world.
Well, you know what is what is I don't know Let's play what's worse, which is not the one that Todd's gonna play later Todd will be back in the three o'clock hour And he'll have a what's worse roundabouts or a traffic lights edition But let's play our own special version of of what's worse a Republican senator saying what he thinks but only when he's making for the exits or a Republican senator
making noise like they're going to stand up, but then accepting some kind of a sweetheart deal that we find about later, which in the case of Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, was going to be some kind of a carve out for, I believe it was for you for rural hospitals or something like that.
And again, you know, good job on you batting for your state.
But
Don't lecture me on earmarks and the bridge to nowhere and all the other corruption if you're still doing it as much as ever.
Trig V, what's worse?
Well, I would say, first off, Tom Tillis and senators not saying what they really think until they're headed for the exits or equally saying it behind closed doors and then staying in the Senate and doing the wrong thing, right?
I think in Murkowski's case, there's a long history of that, right?
And there was the whole period where you would get, like you think about...
Why in Virginia?
I was thinking about this recently.
We were driving down to see William and Mary with my daughter as a school She might go to and you get down by Norfolk and and all those military bases John Warner got all of those when he was head of the Armed Services Committee, right?
Like you go around the United States is all this stuff built by by senators
I'm not so sure that that carve out is the, you know, that's kind of the way the legislative process has worked.
But it does raise an interesting question for people in Wisconsin.
Like Ron Johnson spent all in on the big, beautiful bill.
Why hasn't he held out to get some carve outs for Wisconsin hospitals?
Well, we want
We wondered that this morning when I made the case that somebody.
needs to understand how important it is to take Ron Johnson to go spelunking.
Because if there's one thing he loves, it's caving.
And he did it again after standing up and saying, Oh, no, this, this won't do.
He has caved now.
And apparently caved because he's going to get even more Medicaid cuts, more health care cuts to the Affordable Care Act and things like that.
I don't believe it.
Because when he caved eight years ago,
He caved only after he got a sweetheart tax deal for pass-through corporations and he benefited financially from that by his own admission.
I don't think it's just enough to get Ron Johnson to, you know, change his mind because a few more orphanages are going to be closed.
There's got to be something there for him, don't you think?
It's true.
Please don't interview my capital staff.
I'm asking you.
And this is, you know, I want to ask you something.
Like when you ran for office and when you were in the state Senate, right?
Yeah.
You weren't running to you were you ran as a Democrat, but you weren't running to represent the Democrat.
party, Democratic Party, you're running to represent the Chippewa Valley.
And there's all these people now who seem to be just running to either represent themselves or their party.
And it's so antithetical to what our entire system is supposed to be about.
Well, it's because, again, in my own view, what has happened with the Republican Party is it has lost its way.
in terms of governing, in terms of service.
There was always traditionally two parties that wanted to govern, two parties that wanted to solve problems, but now one of them has taken either a mix of fiscal conservatism and social conservatism and has become antithetical to government, hostile to government, does not want to raise spending a penny
to keep up with inflation because they don't want to be accused of, you know, raising money.
And when you don't want to solve problems anymore, when you just want to be in power for the sake of power, I think you've lost your way.
And I want to believe that it's not forever, that we're going to see a new generation of people who decide to go out to the Republican Party because they are service minded, but they still want services delivered efficiently.
They don't want
You know, free bus rides like the nominee for the mayor of New York City wants, you know, that everybody should still have to pay a little bit of bus fare and all the other little things that we can disagree on.
But we're not there yet with with the Republicans of the future.
I hope they're out there.
I just think I think about it generationally, right?
Like so mean, the weird thing in some ways for me is I came of age.
with, you know, because the Paul Ryan's, the Scott Walker's, the Robin Bosses, all of us have known each other since high school, right?
College, politics, whatever.
You don't, don't, don't lump me into that.
I'll let, I'll let Trigby finish, finish that thought about where we're going with the modern Republican party right after we stop for a commercial break here.
And it's
do.
There you go.
So we'll come back and talk more about that after the break.
Todd will be back in the next hour.
But for the moment, this is the Todd Alba Show with Pat Critello and Trig Vilsen here across the Civic Media radio network.
Now, like Todd, I believe I'm supposed to talk right up until the break.
So pardon me if I say here's the end of the music now.
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Well, we changed things up over at the morning show, so you don't hear Stevie Ray Vaughn at the top of every hour the way you used to, but you can still hear it right here whenever Pat Krightlow is showing up on the Todd Alba show, usually on Wednesdays, but filling in for an hour here on this Monday, along with another one of those familiar Wednesday voices, Trig Wilson of the Lincoln Project, filling in for an hour while Todd takes care of some
Family business put it that Aaron has has Todd talked about the nature of his absence previously because I don't want to steal any of his thunder
talked about
a lot
but I'm sure he'll I'm sure he will explain what's going on
I know he will.
It's nothing serious.
It's actually kind of funny the way that he's taking care of his family.
But we'll leave that story for him coming up after the three o'clock news.
Off the text line, Jim and Brookfield.
Hello, Pat.
Always great to hear your voice and hosting the show mid-afternoon.
Though now I haven't urged to sip on a warm cup of coffee.
Maybe a nice coffee on a summer day will do the trick.
Thank you, Jim, from Brookfield and from Len and Madison.
It seems Ron Johnson is another taco with a few different ingredients.
I guess that'd be Jacob.
Johnson always chickens out.
Something like that.
I mean,
I like the spelunking better for cave, you know, the time.
Hey, personal point of personal privilege over here.
If I'm going to be over here, I'm going to
say a few kind of things about my day gig, which is Up North News.
I'm the founding editor of Up North News.
You can find us over at Up North News W I dot com.
We've got newsletters for every day of the week.
Click subscribe in the top banner.
I write a special politics edition on Sunday mornings, known as Sunday mornings with Pat quite low.
Crazy how that happens and then you know during the weekdays you can hear mornings with Pat Krightler You can get our weekday newsletter and we have a sports newsletter on Saturdays as well get it all at upnorthnewswi.com
Let me play one clip here and then trigger via now we'll go back to talking about, you know, governing versus being versus doing.
But let's hear from Latanya Johnson talking to Matt Smith from WISN TV on the upfront program over the weekend about whether Senate Republicans are going to need the votes of Democratic state senators in order to pass a budget.
Here's a little 30 second clip from that with Senator Johnson talking about the kinds of things that would need to be in a budget bill if it
we're going to attract democratic votes.
We are making sure that we stand up for the things that are important to all of the residents in the state of Wisconsin.
We heard special education, education, period.
prison reform, all of those things are what this state wants to see and we're determined to see some of those things get in the budget, especially childcare.
If the governor says yes to abroad over arching deal, is that good enough for you to say yes?
Well, it depends on what the budget looks like as a whole.
I think everybody is waiting to see what the final process is.
And I like that because, again, having been in that position, the question he's asking is so unfair.
It's the right question to ask, but it's, you know, if the governor says it's good enough and he'll sign it, you know, you're gonna have to vote yes on this.
And no legislator likes to feel like, you know, the governor is bullying them into a yes or no vote.
Trigvie, you've certainly seen that in the state capitol as well, where everybody wants the power to do whatever they want, but there's always a...
A majority leader, a minority leader, or a governor right there?
George P.Tac, yes.
It was.
Yeah.
And I know Todd, I think Todd has told the story.
I told the story as relate to me by the late Mike Ellis, you know, about when somebody goes against their leader at like whether it was three or five in the morning, whatever it was to get that stadium built.
It's kind of the nightmare scenario for every leader that's out there.
But you know, some folks want to be maverick enough.
Not everybody can be a John McCain.
I'm looking at you, Mitt Romney, who had the ability to be the maverick for this session, but that just ain't the way it's working out.
As far as the state budget goes, we're looking to talk to Senator Keldoroy's in our next segment all about that.
But, Trig V, I interrupted you with that commercial break when you talked about whether the Republican Party is gonna come back and people who actually have a service mindset and not just a...
I knew the reporters that used to work at the TV station, I knew which ones right away wanted to be journalists and which ones just wanted to be on TV.
And you get that same thing in politics.
You know, whether you like Tommy Thompson or not, it's really irrelevant to the story.
But Tommy used to always talk about that there were two kinds of politicians, those who want to be and those who want to do.
You wanted to be one of those who who wanted to do things and you saw that and what his approach to governing was, right?
Like he was going to cut deals with whoever he could cut deals with, Polly Williams, whoever.
But there's an entire generation of in this, you know, I use Scott Walker as the example of this.
That guy was at Badger Boy State running for governor of the state of Wisconsin or president of the United States at Badger Boy State and everybody who was there knew.
In fact, we were all like, you know, a bunch of us were trying to figure out how we get the girls from.
from Ripon College out behind a dorm room, which we weren't very successful at since we were just a bunch of high school boys.
And then you had Scott Walker, he was running for president.
They just want to be.
And when you want to be rather than want to do, the ends to be justifies any means and you sell your soul.
You take the 30 pieces of silver, I'm sure Scott.
we'll get that analogy.
Who was not nearly as successful running for president as I'm sure you were with some of the the fine individuals there in Rippon by probably talking about whether to be or to do or should be, do be, do whatever it is that you said to to woo them.
Mark and Paredesack, if you can hang on, we're going to talk to State Senator Kelderoy's first and then we'll look for your call and any others that have come in.
But we're going to get back to talking about the state budget.
and whether Democrats are going to play a role.
Are they are they being welcomed to the table and are they being so because they actually have ideas Republicans want to hear or it's a matter of convenience to try to avoid.
the most extreme of their members there in the Republican caucus.
It is The Alba Show on a Monday afternoon.
Touch back after the three o'clock news.
I'm here with Trig Vilsen.
I'm Pat Critello.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Filling in for a guy so talented it takes two guest hosts to fill in for him.
It's Pat Critello and Trig Vilsen filling in for Todd Alba for one hour and one hour only.
At least Lord willing and a fair wind blowing, he will be back after the top of the hour to take the three o'clock hour from there.
But while we're here and he takes care of other commitments, we are thrilled to welcome in State Senator Kelder Royce from Madison.
Senator Royce, hello, how are you?
I'm so happy to be with you both.
Oh, it's a pleasure to have you here.
Let's just go right for, you know, anything new.
I mean, the workday is all of, you know, eight hours old or something like that.
Has Devin Lemahue, the Senate Republican leader, has he come calling yet to ask for your vote to
help get a
budget bill across the finish line?
Where are we at?
Well, not mine, but, you know,
Today is the day that the budget is supposed to be passed by law, right?
So as I've been saying along, we are behind schedule and Republicans have been dragging their feet, not prioritizing this with their kind of on again off again unwillingness to negotiate.
That said, I do think, you know, there's cautious optimism that we might pass a budget this week, both the Senate and the Assembly are being called in to session this week and
Um, yeah, I think governor and legislative leaders have said that they are hoping to pass a budget this week.
We just have to see, is it going to be a good budget?
Well, it's not going to be a good budget.
Will it be a horrible budget or will it be a pretty bad budget but with some things we can live with?
Well, it's because we've got in both Madison and Washington DC, you've got extremists in the GOP caucus that want to cut even more in the, they say in the name of fiscal conservatism, but of course, then all the money goes out the door and tax cuts to the very wealthy.
Right, adding five trillion dollars to the deficit.
Yeah, sorry, you don't get to the national debt, you're not.
No
lecturing.
You're not going to lecture on fiscal conservatism at all.
And so, you know, here comes the prospect of, you know, wanting to have some democratic votes to pass, but
If that's going to happen and get something done this week, it means that Republican leadership along with setting two or three extremists off to the side are going to have to agree to a few things.
We heard a little bit of it from Latanya Johnson in the last segment here when she was on upfront over the weekend.
But let's ask what what else would have to be in a package like that for, you know, for you to vote yes on it.
It's not enough just for
Governor Evers to say, come on, do
me a
favor and vote for this.
It's got to have some stuff in there.
I'm betting childcare is somewhere near the top of that list.
It sure is.
And you know, I have to say the budget that Senator Markline has already voted for is really horrendous.
It continues this horrible cycle where our schools get shortchanged and then property taxpayers are having to raise their own taxes to make up the difference and to keep our schools doors open.
He has the budget that he voted for has zero dollars in general school age increase.
And at a time of rising costs, that's functionally a cut.
And every budget that he's provided over, he has shortchanged our kids.
And it shows in his own school districts, he's had schools closing, he has put his districts in impossible positions and our kids are not getting what they need.
And so what I'm hoping is that
As we bring this budget to the floor, there's a way to make it better so that we can have more money going into our schools so that all of our kids can thrive and learn.
We have to make sure that childcare is funded.
The governor has been very clear about that.
He's not going to sign a budget that doesn't give direct payments to childcare providers to help stabilize that industry and keep parents in the workforce.
And of course, we can't have a cut to UW.
In fact, we need to be investing in the universities of Wisconsin because we've had too many campus closures in recent years.
Well, and that's where I'll turn turn things over to Trigvie over here the the Pride of River Falls and the UW system for another question or two Trigvie
Yeah, so I think one of the things that that back long ago when I was working in the state of Wisconsin, right?
During the Tommy Thompson era one of the things that they would get talked about a lot by Tommy was you know budgets are about what your priorities are, right?
We might disagree back then about what the priorities are
I mean, what are their priorities in this?
Because it clearly isn't education.
It's not
the UW
here?
It's not the economy, because the decisions they're making are going to hurt our economy.
It's not lowering costs for families, because the decisions they're making are actually going to raise costs on families.
I would say the Republicans, both here and in Washington, have been focused on one thing, and that is
more tax breaks and giveaways for the wealthiest demands for millionaires and billionaires for big business.
And the rest of us get to pay the cost.
And when you look at this bill in Washington, we talked a lot about how many millions of people are going to lose their health insurance.
And that's devastating because all of us are going to pay higher rates.
We're going to see hospital closures in really rural parts of the state.
But what doesn't get talked about enough is the fact that you and I are going to be paying more in taxes so that
Elon Musk and Donald Trump can get millions of dollars in tax breaks that they wouldn't even notice.
It's just an incredible wealth transfer from working Americans to the very, very wealthiest, to the, you know, 0.5 or 1%.
And that is what they care about over and above every other priority that Wisconsinites have.
Right, right.
And it's not like, you know,
it's not like there's some economic theory that that's helpful like it is it is not right we know that that actually shrinks the economy it does not give us the kind of broad growth that having a strong little class would do.
Can you share your reaction to the state supreme court ruling on the governor's veto powers?
I spoke at length last week about how and again I did not go to law school.
And I have nothing but the utmost respect for the progressive justices.
But if you were asking me to pick that opinion versus what the lower courts wrote about the governor's veto powers, I know which side I would have come down on.
But I just wanted to know your reaction overall to basically the governor being hamstrung as Republicans try to play some games with how they allocate funds.
Well, yeah.
And as a lawyer, I have not yet read that decision because I've been
a little tied
up
in budget papers.
But yeah, I think that, you know, the governor in Wisconsin does have very, very broad veto powers, and it's always been understood that he has very, very broad veto powers.
But the problem is we've got Republicans playing games with that.
And, you know, Republicans were just smacked down several times by your Supreme Court for
their overreach for violating separation of powers and doing unconstitutional activities as it relates to the Attorney General and as it relates to other state agencies.
So I would say, clearly the court is not acting as a partisan divided body as the Republicans have charged it with.
A lot of these decisions are 7-0 or 6-1.
you know, that's probably a healthy thing for the court, even when we might disagree with an individual decision.
Yeah, indeed.
I mean, they they're clear on trying to follow the law as the law is written.
It's just that the the law right now is being used in ways I think the original authors did not foresee.
I'm thinking specifically of leaving well over 100 confirmations in the state Senate.
You know, that is that is an absolute
corrupt use of the advising consent process.
And I just worry that they're going to do the same thing with budgeting now where, you know, if it's okay for them to give money instead of say to DPI, to put it instead into their own joint finance committee supplemental fund, you know, that
this
thing's just going to become one big slush fund, you know, if they get the chance to do that, I fear they will.
Right.
And I think it's, you know, really important when we have
political actors acting in a lawless manner, like we have in Washington with Republicans and like the Republicans have sometimes acted here in Wisconsin, that courts be willing to confront that and not sort of put blinders on and say, well, you know, we expect everyone to act like they're the founding fathers and be on their best behavior because we just know that's not true, right?
We have.
We've seen just absolutely outrageous unlawful activity being done, especially at the federal level when you look at the abuses by ICE and other agencies.
And we have to have court standing up for all of our rights.
And this really is about Wisconsinites having the right to have their.
will be affected by government, right?
To get the things that we want and we need.
And the governor is fighting for us to have those things in the budget and the Republicans are trying to thwart him.
So we've got to have courts face that reality and we have to do our best to try to make sure that the legislature can change that dynamic.
We are talking to State Senator Kelder Royce from Madison about the Joint Finance Committee and the work on the state budget.
I'm Pat Krightlow along with Trig Wilson filling in for Todd Abba for this hour.
So where do we go from here?
Especially given that there still isn't a federal plan yet that passes.
We don't know their full impact on Medicaid.
We know they would love to do things like
you know, defund all Medicaid to plan parenthood and what that would do to small, you know, clinics all across Wisconsin.
How much more difficult is this because of the uncertainty in Washington right now?
Well, I think it's very difficult because what Republicans are doing is going to devastate communities all over the state and not just, you know, big urban communities like Madison and Milwaukee every day, but small rural communities and even suburban.
community.
So all of us are going to be negatively impacted if this horrible, the big bill goes through in Washington.
It's going to make state budgeting very, very difficult, because we're going to have billions of people potentially losing their healthcare.
And that means they're not going to be able to work in the same way.
It means we're going to be facing the closure of rural hospitals and nursing homes, which are only sort of kept afloat by Medicaid.
And
And that's going to have a really significant impact on all of us who have private insurance too, because there's going to be a lot more uncompensated care.
And our rates are going to go up because we're going to have to sort of pay that cost indirectly.
So there are big economic consequences for that.
And as a member of the legislature, I really want to think about how can we keep
families able to make their ends meet, right?
We want to be lowering costs for people on groceries, healthcare, utilities, prescription drugs, the housing, like the core things that matter.
And yet my Republican colleagues don't care about any of that.
They have rejected every proposal that we have offered to try to lower costs for families.
And it leaves me really concerned with what's going to happen when their taxes go up so that Elon Musk and the Trumps can get more tax breaks.
I got less than two minutes left.
Trig V got one good final quick question for Senator Keldrowes.
I think at the end of the day, from the, you know, and I say this as a former Republican, there, a lot of what's being gutted is the things that make Wisconsin so unique.
And when they.
go off about the university being a woke den of indoctrination.
In River Falls, Wisconsin, it's where our nurses and our teachers go to school.
They're distracting with cultural issues, but they're really gutting the things that make Wisconsin great, the heart of the small communities and the larger ones.
Yeah, and I just think Democrats have a real case to make to people because there are a lot of people across rural Wisconsin who've been voting for this who don't really realize and When they're having to drive three hours to get an MRI, maybe they will But it's just gutting what has made the state great
Yeah,
and it's where you need people like Senator Keldoroys on the front line fighting for this, communicating these values to folks on the joint finance committee and in the full legislature.
Senator Keldoroys, thank you so much for your time.
Thanks for allowing us to pinch it for Todd.
Let's get you back on the morning show real soon.
You crazy early risers, and we'll talk again real soon.
Sounds good.
Thank you both.
All right, Kelda.
Thank you so much.
When we come back, we've got a couple of phone callers standing by to comment on probably both the state budget and the federal budget as they continue to be, shall we say, messy.
Republicans in disarray in DC and Madison.
Who'd have thought we'd be using that headline, right?
This is the Todd Alba Show.
Pat Cright, Lo Trigvielson here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
This song was not chosen to mock Trig V. Olsen for shaving off his beard, but...
If you were watching us on video, you'd probably run back to your radios right away.
But these two handsome gentlemen are on your screen anyway for another seven, eight minutes or so before Todd Alba takes back control of his own show.
It got real dark here real fast in Chippewa Falls up here on Lake Wissoda.
So I pulled up the radar and along with it is a special weather statement that a strong thunderstorm is about to impact Dunne and Chippewa counties here before too much longer.
There's already a strong line of thunderstorms.
stretching from Ironwood, Michigan, down through Hayward and Trigo, and down not too far from Grantsburg.
So folks, if you're there, again, no severe warnings out yet, but things are gonna rumble.
Not in the way it was this past weekend when the Blue Angels were in town for the Chippewa Valley Air Show.
That was a different kind of thunder altogether, but that was a nice way to spend the weekend.
What about the fourth of July weekend for you?
What will you be doing?
We're not we're not going to do much.
We always we never go.
I never go down to the mall for the fireworks.
We always go over to the Arlington fireworks, which is smaller.
But no, we're we're kind of getting ready.
You know, my wife and my wife and kids go over to Europe to see her parents every summer for a period.
So they're leaving right after.
So yeah, not too much.
But on
You know, my sister was just up by Blemidji.
Her daughter was going to camp up at Blemidji.
And she and her husband were staying in their camper just outside of Blemidji.
And a storm came through straight line winds.
And one of the trailers right next to theirs, thankfully, the people got out.
but a tree fell down and took out their camper.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that was a terrible.
It could have killed
Yeah.
Let's go to the phone.
A couple of callers standing by.
Mark and Prairie do sack.
Let's start with you.
Good afternoon.
Mark.
Nice to hear from you again.
Yeah.
Good afternoon.
Yeah.
What's going to me is, you know, Rick Scott is demanding for more cuts of Medicaid.
Ron Johnson probably is demanding getting more cuts from Medicaid.
And here are people that are extremely wealthy.
I mean,
and and rick scott let's remember largest medicare frauds during history at one point in time that seventy five times taking the fifth amendment and the simplest solution for all this is started increasing the top tax rates again to up what they were i mean maybe just some of the lower tax rates together the people don't the bottom of tax cuts where are any of these rich people going to go to go to europe because the tax rates over there are much higher than they are here i mean that it is just going to be that
Hurting the poorest among us is their solution for this big barbaric bill that they want to get through.
And it is just beyond me where nobody seems to be making that argument on the Republican side of the aisle at all.
Maybe we should be thinking about the poorest among us in the Bible that Jesus commands us to do.
That's the one thing that can block you from getting into heaven unless you
if you refuse to take care of the poor and if your fellow man and the stranger you know you are you know that um that's you know kind of a bar to getting into heaven and uh i'm surprised none of the republicans want to recognize that at all
yeah i never hear that that part of the the new testament very much out of their mouth sir mark thank you very much appreciate the call jack and marimac we've got you on the line as well hello
hello uh yeah thanks um first of
all
Not only are Republicans loving the Bible, they're also loving the Constitution, but they seem to forget a little thing that is called the preamble, which explains why we have a constitution in the first place.
And one of the provisions in the preamble is to promote the general welfare, and I believe that's a direct quote,
not
the welfare of the billionaires.
The Republicans are real good at simple messages, so I got a simple message.
And that is, if you put a 2% tax on people with 30 million or more, and graduated up to 5% at a billion or more, and you could raise from that money about $2 trillion.
single year.
That would be enough, of course, to wipe out the deficit, to entirely wipe it out, and to rapidly pay down the debt.
So that's the first message that people need to get.
But if that happens, Jack, I mean,
Jeff Bezos won't be able to rent out Venice for his wedding.
He'll have to use, I don't know, Lake Holcomb or something instead.
I mean, think of the poor man's
wedding.
2% or 5% on somebody that's not wealthy is going to change their lifestyle even a little bit.
Not even a bit.
Not even a bit.
You have to have seven yachts instead of eight here, Jack.
We're up against the news, but thank you for the point.
It is extremely well taken and tricky in closing.
I think there have been many failures of Democratic and progressive messaging over the years.
on that list that nobody talks about is failure to explain why you want a progressive tax system, you know, that it has marginal rates.
When we talk about, you know, a 50% marginal rate on incomes above a million dollars, it doesn't mean 50% of the million dollars.
It means 50% of, you know, that first dollar above a million.
Everything that Jack just described, we could do and we'd still have as many billionaires as we would today.
Well, it's the perversion on the right, you know, you have this perversion of the Lafler curve, right?
Like it's taken as an article of faith that that
you cut taxes, it grows growth.
That isn't what Art Laffler said.
No, it's not.
But it's this perversion.
I heard Scott Walker say that one time.
Paul Ryan will say it too, right?
Well, Reagan taught us if you cut taxes, you increase growth.
Well, first of all, that's debatable.
It is true that if you cut them from 90% to 50, you will.
But there's a law of diminishing returns.
But it's taken as an article of faith and Democrats haven't pushed back enough
Oh faith and they need to make it
Yes.
Oh without it for everybody for all of their constituents Not just the ones that that donate to them a trig V. Thanks for playing in the sandbox with me.
I guess we got to turn things back over to Todd
I mean,
if
you will.
Aaron Zamas, thank you, of course, for all the help.
And you can catch me again weekday mornings from six to nine across the Civic Media radio network.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
Enjoy the rest of your Monday.
Todd's back.
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