The flacks for the Milwaukee Public Schools put out a press release the other day, the sort of thing they issue at this time of year, bragging that 1,056 recent high school graduates had secured $113 million in grants and scholarships.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel took the bait, of course, reporting that MPS is breaking records and quoting the new superintendent as saying that “remarkable things can happen.”

Kudos, to be sure, to every single graduate, about two-thirds of whom are economically disadvantaged, able to make it through that labyrinth with an eye on a trade school or college. Many are smart and diligent enough to win scholarships. The rest are, I guess, at least apparently better than the people running the district at getting important financial paperwork in on time.

What’s really remarkable here, though, are some other numbers.

With Republican legislative leaders and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers having reached and passed a budget deal for Wisconsin’s 2025-27 biennium (fiscal years 2026 and 2027), it is worth examining two significant tax relief proposals Republicans included in their plan.

The more costly of the two provisions, reducing individual income tax collections by an estimated $695 million over two years, is a significant increase in the amount of retirement income that is excluded from income taxes for Wisconsin seniors. The next most expensive provision, reducing collections by an estimated $643 million over the biennium, expands the amount of income that falls within Wisconsin’s second-lowest bracket.

If the goal of the bracket threshold change is to provide tax relief to lower- and middle-income Wisconsinites, expanding the amount of income that is exposed to the lower 4.4 percent rate, rather than the 5.3 percent rate, is a relatively well-structured way to accomplish that goal. However, the expanded retirement income exclusion will undermine the tax code’s neutrality and shift burdens onto working families over time, while yielding far less “bang for the buck” than other more pro-growth reforms.

As summer rolls around, Wisconsinites are far more likely to get their kicks on wheels than they used to — registrations of off-road recreational vehicles have nearly doubled in the state in 15 years.

Registrations of boats, on the other hand, have gone down slightly.

The number of all-terrain vehicles, utility-terrain vehicles and off-highway motorcycles registered rose from just over 275,000 in 2009 to 521,037 in 2024, according to data from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

SB 125, a bill authorizing the study of viable sites for nuclear power generation, was signed into law Wednesday morning. Commenting on the bill and a related measure, SB 124, Evers stated in a press release, “We must continue our efforts to help lower energy costs and improve energy independence by reducing our reliance out-of-state energy sources, and these bills are an important step in the right direction.”

We agree and look forward to supporting future developments that secure reliable power for a competitive economy.

An analysis of federal data reveals that only 16 percent of violent crimes in Wisconsin’s region of the country result in an arrest of a suspect, and 4 percent of property crimes result in an arrest.

It is crucial to address these issues to ensure that justice is served and to restore public confidence in the criminal justice system.

The best part about legislative Republicans’ tax measure is that it really does cut taxes for a lot of Wisconsinites, says an authoritative observer of states’ tax reforms.

The enactment raises the upper limit of the personal income tax’s second-lowest bracket, meaning the tax rate on a lot of income would fall from 5.3 percent to 4.4 percent.

After passing the State Senate on Wednesday, July 2, the 2025-2027 biennial budget was passed by the State Assembly and signed by Governor Evers in the early morning hours of Thursday, July 3.

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