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Wisconsin parents need affordable, high-quality child care in order to fully participate in the workforce and be reliable employees. Wisconsin businesses seeking to expand the state’s workforce also depend on the state’s child care system, since without it far fewer parents would be able to work. But state lawmakers have gradually scaled back the state’s child care subsidies in recent years, leading to a steep drop in the number of families receiving child care assistance, particularly in rural areas. Now Wisconsin lawmakers have proposed a moderate increase in funding for child care assistance for families with low incomes. The...

On the heels of a tax cut that will mainly benefit the wealthy and corporations, President Trump’s 2019 budget reflects his stark vision for the country — where the wealthy and powerful gain more wealth and power, while many in Wisconsin face more and more obstacles just to get by. In December, Trump and Congress passed an enormous tax cut primarily benefitting the wealthy and well-connected, causing deficits to balloon. Now he wants to finance the cost for those tax cuts by making everyone else pay the price. President Trump has released a budget that includes over $1.4 trillion...

The different plans for what to do with the state’s budget surplus have one thing in common: they offer short-term benefits at the expense of long-term gains in economic stability. Many lawmakers seem to be viewing the surplus as an opportunity to provide election-year tax rebates—raising questions about whether they are focused more on securing their re-election than promoting broadly-shared prosperity across the state. At the end of the 2019 fiscal year, Wisconsin will have $138 million more in its General Fund than was anticipated when lawmakers passed the two-year budget last year. Lawmakers are seeking ways to spend...