News

Assembly Speaker calls for tolling to fund Wisconsin infrastructure

Declining gas tax revenues require a fair and sustainable replacement

By Michael Jahr

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Wednesday renewed a call for Wisconsin to adopt tolling as a way to pay for state infrastructure projects. 

An alternative is needed, he said, as increased fuel efficiency and an increase in electric cars on the road are contributing to declining gas tax revenues. 

“We have got to decide as a state and as a society how we are going to pay for our roads,” Vos said at a legislative roundtable hosted by the Wisconsin Counties Association Conference. “The gas tax is declining. … We’ve got to find an alternate revenue source.”

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Viewpoint

Foreseeing the Future of Wisconsin’s Flat Tax

CROWE reports long-term gains in output and income

By Mike Nichols

I don’t know if they need binoculars, a magical telescope, one of those Deloreans that Christopher Lloyd drove around in Back to the Future or just a spine but politicians starting to negotiate tax reform in the Capitol would do us all a favor by looking a little beyond where they are presently sitting in the here and now.

If none of the above are available, they could just secure a copy of a report issued by the newly invigorated Center for Reform of the Wisconsin Economy (CROWE) at UW-Madison. Among the takeaways, moving to a 3.25% flat individual income tax rate would...

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Badger in the News

Wisconsin school choice program affects property taxes unnecessarily, the fix is simple

By Patrick McIlheran

More families than ever are opting for independent schools using Wisconsin’s parental choice programs, so get ready to be told again what a burden they are.

Which is nonsense.

The number of parents taking state aid to private schools is up by 43% since 2017 even as school districts’ enrollment has fallen 5%, according to the state’s annual third-Friday headcounts. Last fall, 3,270 more families than the year before used choice to find a school that would better serve their children than district schools, whose enrollment fell by 6,444. Gov. Tony Evers wants to close off those opportunities: In his budget, he proposed freezing enrollment in the wildly popular Parental Choice Programs, which would throttle them.

The Legislature is unlikely to go along, so expect a flurry of commentary about how much those parents’ choices cost in property taxes. It’s a perennial attack against the more than 50,000 children using choice. WEAC, the public-schools union, featured it in its messaging last spring.

Read the op-ed

Healthcare Roadmap

Nine out of 10 Wisconsinites support greater price transparency in healthcare, according to a Wisconsin 2023 Issues Poll recently conducted by the Center for Excellence in Polling.  

When respondents were asked if they would “support giving patients the ability to know what their real price and actual out-of-pocket costs will be at least 72 hours ahead of time for non-emergency care,” 90% said yes, including 90% of Republicans, 93% of Democrats and 88% of Independents. 

Our Mandate for Madison addressed hospital price transparency – and other free-market health care recommendations – with a pair reports: A Roadmap for Healthcare Reform in Wisconsin and Common-sense Healthcare Reforms for Wisconsin.

Committee Hearing on Reading

A joint hearing of the Senate and Assembly committees on Education convened Thursday morning to receive testimony regarding reading science, instruction and policy. Badger Institute Policy Director Patrick McIlheran recently wrote on the state’s longstanding reading challenges, as 1 in 5 Wisconsin 8th-graders have scored “illiterate” in national tests for 25 years running.

Amid illiteracy, where was the urgency?

For decades, “a lot of kids didn’t get phonics instruction or much of it,” said Emily Hanford. “They weren’t taught how to sound out the written words. And it became pretty clear by the 90s that that had been a big mistake.”

Read the full commentary

Free Exchange Podcast

A Legislators’ Look at Licensing

Few people give thought to the impact of occupational licensing – until it affects them directly. But licensing requirements can fence people out of occupations, drive up costs to consumers, limit mobility, create unnecessary bureaucracy and more.

In this episode of Free Exchange, State Sen. Andre Jacque and State Rep. Shae Sortwell, both chairmen of their chamber’s licensing committees, discuss how licensing affects Wisconsinites and policy reforms that can reduce or eliminate some of the resulting burdens.

Listen to the podcast

Upward Mobility

Safety Net Fact Sheet

The Badger Institute has a growing library of one-pagers highlighting facts, data, trends and recommendations on a variety of policy issues.

Wisconsin residents receive at least $9 billion in federal assistance through means-tested programs, and the state contributes another $3 billion. Can more money dedicated to a flawed federal safety net effectively reduce poverty and increase upward mobility? Without addressing the underlying causes of poverty, namely limited employment and unmarried parenthood, the answer is no.

Download the fact sheet

At a Glance

Weekly Survey: Should state leadership include flat tax legislation in Wisconsin’s next biennial budget?

Previous Poll Results

What We’re Reading

• Goldwater Institute: Thousands of Arizona Workers Benefit from Universal License Recognition

• Center Square: Ghost students cost taxpayers nearly $360 million

• BizTimes: Business leaders helped bring voucher schools to Milwaukee 30 years ago, funding them is their next fight

• Institute for Policy Innovation: More Good News on State Taxes

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The Badger Institute is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization funded solely by the generosity of foundations, companies and individuals.