Campaign season is upon us, and that means calls by candidates to cut state spending significantly in order to close the gap in the state budget, currently estimated at $3 billion over the next two years. What these candidates don’t say is that trying to balance the budget through cuts alone will likely drive up property taxes and...
One of the latest campaign statements to draw the scrutiny of fact-checking journalists at the Journal Sentinel is an attack by lieutenant governor candidate Rebecca Kleefisch, who appears in a campaign ad with running mate Scott Walker that assails Tom Barrett for supporting “a government takeover of our health care.” PolitiFact gives...
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has recently agreed to hear the case of Omer Ninham, a young man (now age 26) who, at age 14, was convicted of homicide in a case in Green Bay. He was sentenced to life without parole. Building on the relatively recent ruling by the US Supreme Court that non-homicide youth must have at least some chance for...
On September 30, 2010, the Milwaukee, Wisconsin Journal Sentinel published an article on the rate of domestic violence killings in the state of Wisconsin. According to reports from the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WCADV), who began tracking this data in 2000, in the year 2009, domestic violence deaths in Wisconsin...
An interesting development in politics and journalism has been the rapid increase in reporting on the accuracy of politicians’ statements during campaign season. Generally speaking, that’s a very welcome development, since it provides a means of keeping candidates a bit more honest and improving the level of political discourse....
In the wake of new Census Bureau data released in late September, showing the widest gap ever measured between the rich and the poor, the Wisconsin Budget Project has posted a series of three blogs examining some of the policy issues related to the distribution of wealth in the U.S. and Wisconsin. On Wednesday the Budget Project blogged...
Today is "National Child Health Day." Let’s celebrate the occasion by enjoying a little bit of good news on children’s health that was overshadowed last week by the generally depressing Census Bureau data on income and poverty. According to the data from the American Community Survey, the percentage of children who were uninsured...
WCCF is launching this campaign to help raise the profile of children's issues during election campaign season. Please help spread the word by sharing the web page with your network, placing the linked campaign logo on your website if appropriate, and using other tools to pass along this important information.
Despite the efforts of Democrats to extend it, federal funding runs out today for the TANF Emergency Contingency Fund (ECF), which was a $5 billion appropriation in the Recovery Act that has been used in a variety of ways to help low-income families. One very important use of the ECF dollars has been to finance transitional jobs and...
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHSS) announced Thursday (Sept. 30) that it was awarding nearly $49 million to help 48 States and the District of Columbia plan for the establishment of health insurance Exchanges, including almost $1 million to Wisconsin. The grants will assist states in the planning needed to develop...
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