Episodes
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Who Pays for the Ads About Your Electric Bill
Your electric bill is set by state regulators who answer to elected officials. The utility can donate to those officials' campaigns. PACs tied to DTE and Consumers Energy are among Michigan's largest political donors. Both are asking regulators for rate increases that would add over nine hundred...
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Who Approves Your Rate Increase
When your utility asks to raise your electric rates, three people decide whether the increase is justified. They're the Public Service Commission — appointed by the governor, not elected. Same with the department that sets drinking water standards, the one that administers Medicaid, and the one...
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Why Your Premium Went Up in January
If you buy your health insurance on the marketplace, your premium went up in January. For people who get help paying, the amount they owe more than doubled on average. Here's what happened. Extra marketplace subsidies passed in 2021 expired December thirty-first. Congress fought over them for...
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Diesel and the Harvest
Diesel passed six dollars a gallon in September. Before the war with Iran began in February, it was under four. That matters for the fall harvest. One Iowa farmer put the cost of running his combine at a thousand dollars a day — and harvest can run thirty days. Fertilizer is the other half of it....
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Money in Wisconsin Politics
Wisconsin caps what one person can give a candidate for governor at twenty thousand dollars. But there's no limit on how much a single person can give to a Wisconsin political party — and no limit on how much that party can hand to a candidate. So a billionaire can route the money through the...
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Montana's Hundred-Year Fight
Back in 1899, when state legislators still elected U.S. senators, a copper baron named William Clark bribed enough of them to win a seat. In response, Montana voters banned corporate money from state elections by ballot initiative. That ban held for a hundred years. Then came Citizens United, and...
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The End of Gerrymandering
We've talked about gerrymandering — how politicians draw district lines to choose their voters instead of the other way around. We've talked about how Wisconsin fought all the way to the Supreme Court to get fairer state legislative maps, and how the congressional maps are still gerrymandered.…
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The Redistricting War Just Escalated
Last year, a redistricting war broke out. Texas redrew its maps to favor Republicans. California hit back to favor Democrats. Six states redrew in all — the most mid-decade redistricting in over fifty years. Then, on April twenty-ninth, the Supreme Court narrowed Section 2 of the Voting Rights…
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The Burden, by the Numbers
Your federal return doesn't show your whole tax bill. There's payroll tax on every paycheck. Sales tax at every register. Gas tax at the pump. Property tax on your home — or baked into your rent. Add it all up, and the picture changes. The federal income tax is progressive — meaning higher…
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The Geography Trap
If you're a conservative in Madison, your state representative is a Democrat — and that's not changing. If you're a liberal in Wood County, your rep is a Republican — and that's not changing either. No matter how involved you are, your representative doesn't need your vote. Now imagine combining...
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What We Tax
Taxes pay for roads, schools, and the military. But where do the taxes come from? Mostly, we tax work. Payroll taxes take fifteen point three percent starting with your very first dollar — no deductions, no exemptions. Income tax comes on top of that. If your money comes from a paycheck, the…
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The Ledger
For decades, Washington ran a two-step. Step one: cut taxes. Step two — years later, when deficits grew — declare that we can't afford our programs, and cut those too. Reagan cut taxes in the eighties; the squeeze came for housing, education, and job training. The deficits of that era helped push...
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The Napkin
In 1974, economist Arthur Laffer sketched a curve on a napkin for two White House aides: Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. The idea was simple: at a tax rate of zero, the government collects nothing. At one hundred percent, nobody works — so it also collects nothing. Somewhere in between, there's…
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One Direction
In 1960, the tax rate for the top bracket — that is, income earned beyond the first four million or so in today’s dollars — was ninety-one percent. Today, that top rate is thirty-seven. The drop didn’t happen all at once — and it didn’t happen under one party. Kennedy started the cuts, bringing…
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Same Dollar, Different Tax
In 1986, Ronald Reagan signed a tax reform built on a simple principle: a dollar is a dollar. Whether you earned it from a paycheck or a stock sale, it was taxed at the same top rate — twenty-eight percent. That deal didn't last. Over the next thirty years, Congress cut the rate on investment...
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What It Would Take
So if multi-member districts with proportional representation are such a good idea, why don’t we have them? Two reasons. For Congress, there’s a 1967 federal law that requires single-member districts. A bill called the Fair Representation Act has been introduced to repeal it. It would let states...
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How Multi-Member Districts Work
Here’s a question. If you live in a district where sixty percent of voters lean one way, what happens to the other forty percent? Under our current system — nothing. They lose every election. Their representative has no reason to listen to them. In district after district, a huge chunk of voters...
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The Oldest Democracy
Something feels broken. You vote, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Your representative doesn’t listen to you. Elections feel like they’re decided before they start. And no matter who wins, nothing really changes. You’re not imagining it. The United States is one of the oldest democracies on earth....
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Half the States Want to Fix Money in Politics
Did you know that half the states in the country have passed resolutions asking Congress to propose a constitutional amendment on election spending? Idaho became the twenty-fifth state in March. The list runs from Massachusetts to Montana, Oklahoma to California — red states, blue states, and...
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The Redistricting Battle Nobody Won
The redistricting war is over — and nobody won. Texas, North Carolina, and Missouri redrew their maps to favor Republicans. California and Virginia redrew theirs to favor Democrats. The net partisan result? Roughly a wash. But the country now has dozens more safe seats than it had a year ago.…
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National Popular Vote
In the last presidential election, ninety-four percent of all campaign events happened in just seven states. That means the vast majority of Americans were completely ignored. Whether you live in Texas, California, or forty-one other states — candidates had no reason to talk to you, listen to…
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The People Already Agree
Here’s something that might surprise you. Across Wisconsin, fifty-six counties and dozens of municipalities have passed resolutions calling for nonpartisan redistricting. Thirty-two counties have put it to a countywide vote — and voters approved it by overwhelming margins every single time. This...
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Competition
In 2022, under Wisconsin’s old gerrymandered maps, only four out of ninety-nine state Assembly races were decided by fewer than five points. Four. The other ninety-five? The outcome was basically known before the first vote was cast. Congress is even worse. Since those maps were drawn, the median...
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Rockets and Feathers
You may have noticed something about gas prices. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, prices shot up almost overnight. But when oil markets settled back down, it took weeks — sometimes months — for prices at the pump to follow. Economists have a name for this. They call it "rockets and feathers."...
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Where Does the Money Go?
When gas prices spike, you pay more. But where does that extra money actually go? Oil was sixty-six dollars a barrel in February — before the Iran war. By mid-April, it was over a hundred. The price difference flows to whoever owns the oil. In the U.S., it goes mostly to oil company shareholders…
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Gas Taxes: Where Does the Money Go?
Every gallon of gas you buy in Wisconsin includes about fifty-one cents in taxes — roughly thirty-three cents to the state, eighteen to the federal government. People grumble about it. But here’s what that money does: it builds and maintains the roads you’re driving on. Wisconsin’s gas tax used…
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What's in a Gallon of Gas
When gas prices go up, we want someone to blame. The president. The oil companies. The government. But the price of a gallon of gas isn’t one thing — it’s four. About half the price is crude oil — set on a global market that no president, no company, and no country fully controls. Another…
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Does Drilling More Lower Gas Prices?
The United States already produces more oil than any country on Earth — nearly fourteen million barrels a day. That’s a record. And gas still shot past four dollars this spring. Why didn’t all that production protect us? Because American oil enters a global market of over a hundred million…
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Oil Is a Global Commodity
In January, the United States invaded Venezuela — a country with the largest oil reserves on Earth. Gas prices that week? Two dollars and eighty-one cents. They barely moved. Because despite all those reserves, Venezuela produces less than one percent of the world’s oil. Reserves don’t set…
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When Gas Prices Spike, Your Grid Gets Dirtier
When gas prices spike, most people notice at the pump. What they don’t notice is what happens to the electricity coming out of their wall. Power plants are dispatched in order of cost — cheapest first. When natural gas is cheap, gas plants run. When gas prices rise, coal becomes the cheaper…
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Who Decides Your Electric Bill?
Do you know who sets your electric rate? It’s not your utility. It’s the Public Service Commission — three people, appointed by the governor, who decide what every utility in Wisconsin can charge you. They’re the most powerful government body most people have never heard of. Here’s how it works....
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Point Beach, Kewaunee, and the Nuclear Question
Fifteen percent of Wisconsin’s electricity comes from one place: the Point Beach nuclear plant near Two Rivers. It runs day and night, produces zero carbon, and because it was paid off decades ago, it’s some of the cheapest power on the grid. Wisconsin used to have a second nuclear plant —...
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What Energy Independence Actually Means
You hear it every election: "energy independence." It sounds simple. Drill more, import less, control our own destiny. But the more you look at it, the more complicated it gets. The United States produces more oil than any country on Earth. We’re also a net importer of crude — over six million...
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One-Third of US Corn Is In Our Gas Tanks
Every gallon of gas you buy is already ten percent ethanol — alcohol made from corn. You’ve been burning corn in your car for years. Here’s what you may not know: a third of the entire U.S. corn crop — five and a half billion bushels a year — goes to making ethanol. Not food. Not animal feed.…
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Who's Subsidizing Whom?
The federal government has subsidized oil, gas, and coal for over a century. How much? That depends on how you count. The Treasury puts direct tax breaks at a few billion a year. Independent analysts who include cheap access to public land and regulatory exemptions put it closer to thirty-five...
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The Sun Doesn't Send a Bill
Here’s something worth thinking about. A coal or natural gas power plant has two costs: the plant itself, and the fuel it burns every day. When fuel prices spike — like they are now — your electricity bill goes up too, because your utility is paying more for fuel. A solar farm has one cost:...
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The Pipeline You've Never Thought About
Since 1953, a pipeline called Line 5 has carried oil and natural gas liquids from Superior, Wisconsin, across the Upper Peninsula, down through lower Michigan, and into Canada. You’ve probably heard people argue about it. Environmentalists want it shut down. Enbridge, the company that owns it…
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EVs in a Wisconsin Winter
Can an electric car handle a Wisconsin winter? The honest answer: it depends on your life. Cold weather does cut range. At freezing, most EVs keep about eighty percent of their rated miles. On the coldest days — zero, five below — plan on losing thirty to forty percent. What most people don’t...
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We Drill It, Export It, and Import What We Need
The United States produces more oil than any country on Earth. It also imports over six million barrels a day. Both of those things are true at the same time. Here’s why. The oil America drills is mostly light and sweet — low sulfur, easy to refine. But about seventy percent of our refineries…
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When Gas Goes Up, Everything Goes Up
When gas prices spike, it’s not just your commute that gets more expensive. It’s your groceries. Your heating bill. Everything that moves by truck, train, or tractor costs more — and in America today, that’s almost everything. Take farming. Wisconsin farmers run on diesel — for planting,...
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The River Under Your Gas Tank
A single fifteen-barge tow on the Mississippi River carries as much cargo as a thousand semi trucks. Fuel, fertilizer, grain — it all moves by water because nothing else comes close on cost. Over sixty-five percent of America’s agricultural exports travel the Mississippi to reach the world. But…
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The Math on Electric
You can now buy a new electric car for under thirty thousand dollars. The Nissan Leaf starts at about thirty thousand with over three hundred miles of range. The Chevy Bolt is coming in just under twenty-nine. These aren’t concept cars. They’re on dealer lots. That’s close to what a new gas car...
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Heating in the North
If you heat your home with propane in northern Wisconsin, your heating bill is tied to global energy markets — just like gasoline. When natural gas prices spiked after the Ukraine invasion, propane followed. When Iran disrupted oil markets this spring, propane moved again. Your cost of staying…
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Where Does Your Electricity Come From?
With all the talk about data centers in Wisconsin, you might be wondering: where does our electricity actually come from? About forty percent is natural gas. Another thirty percent is coal — down from sixty percent just ten years ago. The Point Beach nuclear plant provides about fifteen percent....
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The Sheboygan Story
Sheboygan held a Democratic Assembly seat almost continuously from 1959 to 2011. Over fifty years. Then the 2011 redistricting happened. Republicans were in charge of drawing the maps, and they split the city in two — half into one district, half into another — each packed with enough rural...
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How Safe Seats Make Politics Worse
When a district is drawn so that one party is guaranteed to win, something happens to the politics. The general election stops mattering. The only election that counts is the primary — and primaries are dominated by a small number of the most dedicated party voters. So candidates don't compete…
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What Gerrymandering Is
Every ten years, after the census, Wisconsin’s legislative districts get redrawn to reflect where people live. And in Wisconsin, the politicians in power draw those lines. Think about that. The people who benefit from the maps are the same people drawing them. In 2011, Republicans controlled the...
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The Next Ten Years Are on the Ballot
Wisconsin has fair legislative maps right now. But there’s no guarantee they stay that way. In 2031, after the next census, the maps get redrawn. And whoever controls the legislature and the governor’s office at that moment will decide how it’s done. That means every race this November — from...
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The Special Session
On April 14th, the Wisconsin legislature is scheduled to convene a special session called by Governor Evers. The topic: a constitutional amendment to ban partisan gerrymandering. Here’s what usually happens with special sessions in Wisconsin. The governor calls one. The legislature gavels in. And...
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The Redistricting Arms Race
Right now, across the country, a redistricting war is underway. It started last summer when the White House pressured Texas to redraw its congressional maps to lock in more Republican seats. North Carolina and Missouri followed. Democrats hit back — California approved new maps, Virginia started...
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