As nearby states reform, Wisconsin clings to licensure requirements that add little value |
The numbers don’t lie, and nobody knows that better than all the kids who no longer want to be accountants in Wisconsin.
The number of people getting accounting degrees at University of Wisconsin System schools plummeted from 868 in the 2019-20 school year to 625 in the 2023-24 school year.
The kids becoming actuaries or finance majors or math teachers instead of accountants can probably do the arithmetic in their heads but, for all the English majors out there like me, my calculator says that’s a 28 percent drop.
Other states have had the same basic problem. But, unlike Wisconsin — at least thus far — many have enacted the same basic solution: elimination of unnecessary and expensive CPA licensure requirements that currently cost many kids about $100,000 in extra tuition and lost earnings. |
Past ‘expansion’ debate was over issues that aren’t past at all |
As the nation tussles about how to rein in the projected spiraling costs of Medicaid, it’s remarkable how much the outlines of the fight resemble those of 2013, when Wisconsin’s Republican legislative majority and governor balked at big federal expansion of benefits.
That’s because the underlying issues touch on still-active fault lines in society. One concerns the growth of the welfare state.
Back when the Affordable Care Act, dubbed “Obamacare,” was imposed on America, a key demand concerned Medicaid, the ‘60s-era single-payer health care program run by states but funded heavily by federal money. Most states didn’t cover able-bodied childless adults. Obamacare tried to entice them to add such people, all the way up to those earning 38 percent more than the poverty level.
Wisconsin, though, already covered such people up to twice the poverty level. Lawmakers and then-Gov. Scott Walker pared it so childless adults were covered up to the poverty line. Above that, they were sent to buy private insurance on the other feature of Obamacare, the subsidized “exchanges.” |
A Wisconsin dairy cow, on average, produced nearly five times more milk in 2024 than the average cow did 100 years ago, data from the federal National Agriculture Statistics Service show. The average Wisconsin dairy cow produced 5,280 pounds of milk in 1924. In 2024, the average cow produced 25,493 pounds. |
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Rep. David Steffen is one of the authors of a bill that would give utility regulators a year to pinpoint where in Wisconsin would be good places to put new nuclear power plants. “It is a big Bat-Signal in the sky for the nuclear industry,” he said. |
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Weekly survey: Should Wisconsin reduce its requirement for CPAs from 150 credit hours to 120?
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Previous survey question: |
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Often in his three terms in the Senate, Sen. Ron Johnson has been a lone voice railing against the $543 billion in improper Medicaid payments disbursed, according to the Office of Management and Budget, from 2015 through 2024. |
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