State Budget Battle Brewing

We welcome new regular panelist Priscilla Bort, Citizen Action’s Movement Politics Director. Priscilla shares more about herself with our listeners. The panel dives into the state budget battle brewing that will consume the Capital for the next few months. Robert reports back on the final Joint Finance Committee (JFC) public hearing held in Minocqua where Republicans again pretended to listen to the public. Now the real action begins as JFC takes votes on the budget. Priscilla tells us about Governor Evers’ plan in the budget to ensure all Wisconsin students eat for free while in our schools. We highlight Rep. Kristina Shelton’s relentless support for the proposal and her leadership in the Assembly and beyond. We call out the latest GOP bills targeting social safety net programs that passed the Assembly early this week. Robert highlights AB 148 which would impose costly and antiquated barriers on access to health care. The panel discusses the dangerous debt limit fiasco and Rep. Van Orden’s decision to back Speaker McCarthy’s scheme to make Trump tax cuts for the rich permanent, make draconian cuts to critical programs, and reverse climate change and health care affordability advances. Priscilla updates us on the Republican effort to legally harass former Racine alderman John Tate II, in wake of the quick dismissal of the bogus partisan charges. We expose the Milwaukee Police Association’s effort to fight legally over the new City of Milwaukee video release policy which improves transparency for victims’ families and the public to which the police are supposed to be accountable.