WCCF has just released a new policy brief, authored by Dave Edie, on the economic benefits of early investments. The brief, "Great Investment: The Economic Benefits of Investing in Early Learning," explores the importance of early brain development, the extraordinary research on the positive effects of high-quality early childhood...
Some of you will recall that WCCF was privileged to host R. Dwayne Betts at a conference last year to talk about his experiences as a youth who was sentenced to prison at age 16 for being involved with a friend in an armed carjacking. He had never held a gun before, but within a matter of minutes he had committed six felonies. A bright...
Thursday night (June 25) the budget conference committee approved a comprehensive agreement that resolves the budget differences between the Assembly and the Senate. The conference committee’s revised budget bill was later approved by the Senate by a vote of 17-15, with all the Republicans and one Democrat voting against it. An Assembly...
The Governor has been getting worried that the budget bill won’t be passed and signed before July 1. A late budget isn’t out of the ordinary; in fact, the biennial bill is almost never signed into law before the July 1 start of the biennium. But Governor Doyle notes that the stakes are much higher this year because of the state’s huge...
A key element of the Senate’s plan to balance the state budget is the elimination of the income tax break for capital gains income. A short issue brief on the topic by the Wisconsin Budget Project notes that Wisconsin is one of just 9 states that treat capital gains income differently than other income. The other 8 states are mostly...
The State Senate passed its version of the budget last night on a 17-16 vote, with one Democrat, Jim Sullivan of Wauwatosa, joining the Republicans to vote against it. In general, WCCF likes what the Senate did. A couple examples of changes we support are indexing the minimum wage and eliminating the generous capital gains tax break....
As the sun was coming up on Saturday, June 13, the State Assembly was finishing their work on the state budget. After a full week of meetings and caucuses, the Assembly finally went to the floor late Friday night to debate the state budget bill. Now the State Senate has their turn to caucus and debate the budget bill. The Senate hopes...
Among the amendments to the budget package being taken up by the Assembly today is one that makes a long overdue change to the Homestead Tax Credit program.The Homestead Credit is a critical program in making property taxes less burdensome for low-income households in Wisconsin. In most respects, it is a very well targeted and well...
Earlier this week, WCCF released its analysis of the impact of the Joint Finance Committee’s budget on children and families. The WCCF analysis is updated with each step of the budget process.Although the Joint Finance budget does include more than $300 million in additional revenue compared to the Governor’s bill, that figure is...
On Monday night, the Janesville City Council passed a resolution in support of the goals of our Vision 2020 Campaign to End Child Poverty. The text of the resolution does not seem to be online yet, but according to the Janesville Gazette report (you can save time by skipping to the very last line of the story), a task force will be...
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