If successful, a lawsuit claiming Wisconsin’s private-school parental choice program and public independent charter schools are illegal will also shut down the Public School Open Enrollment program used by approximately 73,280 children, according to legal experts.

If a court buys the claim that one program’s funding mechanism is impermissible because of the way state aid follows children to another school, the others’ would be too, said Rick Esenberg, head of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which is seeking to join the case.

The Public School Open Enrollment program allowed 73,280 students to attend a traditional public school in a district they did not live in during the 2022-23 school year, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

When it comes to Christmas, you gotta love little cities like Abbotsford. And you gotta love huge metropolises like New York. Both, in the spirit of the season, allow Christmas tree sellers to operate without charge or regulation.

No permits. No fees. No problem. They’re showing a little faith and trust in the goodness of mankind — and the marketplace.

Who, meanwhile, is the government grinch in Appleton charging $45 for a Christmas Tree Vendor’s License and another $150 for an initial Temporary Use Permit as well as an “agent authorization letter” from whomever owns the lot plus a potential review from the Fire Department?

The hand of government is indeed a little “heavy” in Appleton, said Paul Jonen, who used to have a tree lot there but sold the property where he set it up.

Do taxes play some role in a person’s decision to migrate to a certain state? Looking at the IRS’ annual data on individuals moving from one state to another can help answer this.

The IRS’ most recent data show how many taxpayers moved into and out of Wisconsin to and from every other state between 2020 and 2021. The figures also show how much the combined adjusted gross income, or AGI, of the moving taxpayers amounted to.

Apart from a few outliers, the data show a correlation between states that Wisconsin taxpayers are moving to and from — and the difference between those states’ top income tax rates and Wisconsin’s. States with top tax rates higher than Wisconsin’s generally lost AGI to Wisconsin, while Wisconsin generally lost income to states with lower top tax rates.

Here we graph data from 19 states Wisconsinites moved to and from between their 2020 and 2021 tax returns. These are the states that, according to the IRS, Wisconsin’s net gain or loss was $10 million in AGI or more.

The y-axis of the graph depicts how much income on net moved into Wisconsin from another state (the positive values) or how much moved out (the negative values). The x-axis depicts how far above or below Wisconsin’s top income tax rate (7.65%) another state’s top rate is. So, a state above 0% on the x-axis has a top tax rate that’s higher than Wisconsin’s; vice versa for a state that is below 0%. States at -7.65% are those with no state income tax. The dotted line is the linear correlation.

A word about Iowa: Under previously passed law, Iowa’s top tax rate has been falling by steps to 3.90% and as of 2023 is below that of Wisconsin, at 6%. This analysis, looking at taxpayers who moved between 2020 and 2021, uses the top rate that was prevailing in Iowa in 2020, 8.53%.

Wisconsin officials in the Evers administration, supported by politicians in many of the state’s big cities, are vying for a piece of a $4.56 billion federal Infrastructure Act pot that they want to use to broadly expand Amtrak.

Most of the construction costs would be federally funded. But state taxpayers could be on the hook for operating and maintenance costs for an expansion that some legislative leaders say isn’t needed or wanted.

Wisconsin is one of 90 state, regional and local transit entities outside the Northeast Corridor that will learn by the end of this year if the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) approves the first phase of their projects.

Pat McIlheran comments on one Wisconsin business owner’s entrepreneurial spirit — and what the state can do to empower more toward the same

Meg Ellefson welcomes Mike Nichols to discuss the Institute’s fact-finding project related to the public impact of marijuana legalization

The Badger Institute, formerly known as the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI), has long been at the forefront of the fight for school choice, right to work, welfare reform, tax restructuring, limited government, civil society and so much more. If you appreciate the Institute’s legacy and want to support free markets, opportunity and prosperity, please consider donating today. Your support will help the Institute continue to advocate for conservative principles now and in generations to come.

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