Wisconsin’s 2025-2027 biennial budget includes several provisions aimed at improving the affordability of childcare in the Badger state, ending the misguided effort to directly support private childcare providers’ operating expenses with taxpayer dollars — and instead focusing on reducing costs for families through regulatory reform and targeted assistance.

It’s a win for Wisconsin families.

Wisconsin’s 2025-2027 budget leans into a market-driven approach. By June 2026, it phases out the Child Care Counts program — an emergency pandemic-related program that directly subsidizes the private operations of childcare providers. Instead, the budget ensures low- and moderate-income families with young children can receive government assistance to help cover their childcare, and it reduces regulations on child-to-staff ratios and on teacher requirements to help lower their overall costs.

The Vantage Data Center in Port Washington is on its way to becoming the largest single energy user in state history — an indication of the immense power needs of the five data centers in the works in Wisconsin.

We Energies plans to add 6.3 gigawatts of power generation capacity — enough to power 4.5 million to 6.5 million homes, and more than the entire capacity of generating plants owned by We Energies — over the next five years, a good chunk of it to supply the eventual power needs for the Port Washington center.

The power supplier for more than a million customers in Wisconsin confirmed for the Badger Institute this week that its buildout of 2 gigawatts of gas and 4.3 gigawatts of renewable energy generation coincides with a request for 1.3 gigawatts of available power by 2027 from Vantage.

This rapid expansion of the artificial intelligence (AI) and data storage industry is sharply focusing attention on a huge new demand for energy and how best to supply it in a region forecast to be at risk for a severe energy shortfall in the coming years.

The number of building permits issued for new single-family homes in Wisconsin remains well below pre-Great Recession levels, data from the Wisconsin Builders Association show.

Over the past five years, Wisconsin has permitted an average of 11,964 single-family homes per year. That is less than half the pre-recession average of 25,100.

Permitting reached its peak in 2003 when 30,333 new houses were approved. Following the recession, the number of permits fell to its lowest point in 2011, when only 5,362 homes were permitted.

Six states — including Democrat-controlled Colorado — were granted waivers this week to prohibit the purchase of soda and other sugary food items with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

Earlier this year, several Republican state legislators introduced bills that would require Wisconsin to seek a similar waiver. The Badger Institute registered in favor of both bills (AB 180 and SB 154), but neither advanced to the floor for a vote.

The measure remains a worthwhile pursuit for lawmakers to consider when returning to Madison later this year.

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