Mike gives an update on MacIver's research about Wisconsin's utility companies, their owners, and their efforts to expand their monopoly in Wisconsin. Also, against the backdrop of Germantown's controversial TID project, Bill gives a couple quick lessons for local officials on how TIF is supposed to function and where local revenue actually comes f…

If you make less than $48,000 a year, the state of Wisconsin will pay to have you sterilized.You heard that right.The state of Wisconsin actually has a program that sterilizes poor people.It’s all part of the department of health services’ family planning only services program, which falls under medical assistance.Apparently, this has been going on…

Wisconsin Republicans are coping with their Waterloo moment (losing the Supreme Court in the April 1st election) by doubling down on crony capitalism. They’re rebranding the toxic ROFR bill as the Wisconsin Energy Reform Act. Meanwhile, they’re shirking the fight for a responsible state budget. And speaking of Waterloo, the City of Waterloo has an …

Nothing in life is simple or easy when the government gets involved. Take the city of waterloo Wisconsin for example. Not really a liberal place. Trump won there. But when some residents wanted to get backyard chickens – the city government lost its mind.Following months of committee meetings, draft proposals, hearings and debates, it finally hatch…

No one ever questions the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) and with good reason. It is a non-partisan office of absolute professionals who serve as the legislature’s official accountants. But they are dead wrong when they say that Gov. Evers’ budget would raise taxes and fees by $2.6 billion. It’s not even close. $2.6 billion is less than …

What do you do when you wake up one morning and learn your local government is hell-bent on making a terrible decision. It could be anything – a bad real estate deal, an idiotic public works project, maybe it’s a high-density housing project in your sleepy suburban downtown.I get calls about these things all the time, and I hate to say it, but it’s…

Wisconsin is dealing with another mental illness outbreak, with drag queens campaigning for Crawford in Madison, Bernie Sanders' opening act signing vulgar songs about God, and Democrats arguing that there are just as many hermaphrodites in the US as redheads... MacIver's Bill Osmulski and Mike Lucas don't mince words about what's going on here, an…

Two weeks ago, Bernie Sanders came to Wisconsin parading some crossdresser around who was singing the most vile and vulgar songs about God in front of cheering crowds of everyday liberals.Last week, a democrat representative from Ashland lectured republican lawmakers about how there are just as many hermaphrodites in the us as there are redheads.Yo…

Girls’/women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines explains what’s truly driving the transgender movement, why so many people are afraid to confront it, why Democrats are so committed to it, and how Republicans are finally growing a backbone to stand up to it.By The MacIver Institute

The Wisconsin State Legislature debated the ROFR bill on Tuesday that would establish a monopoly in the private sector for Wisconsin-based electric transmission companies, and on this edition of the MacIver Report, Bill Osmulski and Michael Lucas focus on one exchange between a lobbyist and the committee chair about "laissez faire, Adam Smith capit…

MacIver's Bill Osmulski and Michael Lucas review all the content that the institute produced over the past week. These included stories about:Republican Lawmakers Alarmed by Gov. Evers’ “mother” Changes - The governor changed “mother” to “inseminated person” in a budget line about IVF. The governor also dropped the words “father” and “husband” from…

MacIver Content Director Bill Osmulski sat down with Wisconsin State Senator John Jagger (R-Watertown) to point out the hypocrisies and the hidden agenda behind Gov. Evers' "Year of the Kid."By The MacIver Institute

MacIver's Bill Osmulski and Michael Lucas review Gov. Evers' budget proposal and introduce MacIver's budget coverage for the 2025 Wisconsin state budget debate.By The MacIver Institute

Today is Tuesday, February 18th, and tonight Gov. Evers will tell us how he plans to tackle the state’s $860 million structural deficit.What’s that? You thought we had a $4 billion budget surplus? Well, that’s how much the state expects to have in the general fund this June. However, based on spending requests from Evers’ agencies, two years from n…

MacIver Institute content director Bill Osmulski and economist Michael Lucas tackle some tough mysteries about Wisconsin public policy in this edition of the MacIver Report. The state senate just introduced a bill this week that would give electric transmission companies a monopoly over future projects in the state. Also, Milwaukee Public Schools' …

MacIver's Bill Osmulski and Michael Lucas review all the content that the institute produced over the past week. These included stories about:- Wisconsin Supreme Court to Decide Meagan Wolfe non-nomination on Friday- Wisconsin’s Own USAID Scandal- Northwoods Congressman Questions Gwen Moore’s ICE-evasion Advice- Milwaukee County Leaders Call Republ…

MacIver's Bill Osmulski and Michael Lucas review all the content that the institute produced over the past week. These included stories about:No Place for Parents in Gov. Evers' "The Year of the Kid"Republicans Pitch Constitutional Amendment to Limit Evers’ Veto PowerLegislative Audit Committee Waiting for full UW DEI AuditGov. Evers asks Trump Adm…

Gov Evers has declared 2025 to be the year of the kid, and if you’re a parent it should make your skin crawl.In Evers vision, everything your kid needs is provided by the state. You’re not even in the picture. When your kids are in school, they’ll get fed, taught, and nurtured by government employees. When your kids aren’t in school, they get fed, …

MacIver's Bill Osmulski and Michael Lucas review all the content that the institute produced over the past week. These included stories about: - Democrat reactions to Trump's second inauguration- MacIver's state budget coverage- Evers' State of the State address- Post-Constitutional WisconsinBy The MacIver Institute

When Gov. Evers wants something, he doesn’t let anything stand in his way, and the thing usually standing in his way is the state constitution.During covid, he led us through one constitutional crisis after another while trying to seize autocratic control over the state. Fortunately, Evers lost those fights in court, but ever since liberals won a m…

Tony Evers did not become governor to drain the swamp in Madison, but he might accidentally do just that.He’s suing the legislature because he doesn’t think it should have any say in what rules and regulations his bureaucrats write.The supreme court heard the case last week, and Evers might get more than he bargained for. It seems there’s nothing i…

MacIver's Bill Osmulski and Michael Lucas review all the content that the institute produced over the past week. These included stories about:- Everyone in the Biden Administration covered for Joe's mental decline- Gov. Evers wants to bypass the legislature by allowing "the people" to pass laws through referendum- Major medical records leaks under …

Charity is on a lot of our minds this time of year, and hospitals throughout Wisconsin thought it was perfect time to brag about their supposed largess.The Hospital Association just released a report about all the charity that non-profit hospitals are doing and claimed things like that don’t happen in the free market. Too bad for them, the MacIver …

So, you got your property tax bill, and you’re wondering why it went up so much for the school district.Across the state, school district property taxes went up $327.2 million this year. That comes out to 5.7% A lot of that was because of referendums, but that’s not the whole story.You probably forgot the big budget deal republicans made with gov. …

Why is it so expensive to own a home or rent in places like Madison, Wisconsin? The MacIver Staff delves into all the ways that centralized planning from local government makes a bad situation worse and why the free market is the only way out.By The MacIver Institute

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, between 2021 and 2022:- Personal income in Wisconsin went up less than 3% while inflation went up 6.5%.- Housing expenses in the state went up almost 11%, the 19th highest in the country.- Energy expenses went up a whopping 37.5%, the fourth highest jump in the country.…

The MacIver Staff discusses a new MacIver report that reveals major state agencies in Wisconsin have no budget. How is that possible? Also, why didn't the Republican Party of Wisconsin run candidates in half of the state's district attorney races? And what about that upcoming State Supreme Court race? It's all in this episode of the MacIver Report.…

Elections have consequences, which is a concept that liberals struggle to grasp.Take the city of Madison for example. It’s trying to figure out why housing costs are out of control.The median rent in the city is now over $1,400 a month, far above what the median household can afford. And those rents keep going up. One guy on the local news just sai…

The MacIver Staff discuss various strategies and factors that impact any potential challenge to Wisconsin's US Senate Race between Eric Hovde and Tammy Baldwin. Also, this week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court heard a case about whether the state's 1849 abortion ban actually banned abortion, and how liberal justices behaved more like a Supreme Legislat…

On election day in Wisconsin, the polls are open from 7 am to 8 pm, and as long as you’re in line at 8 pm, you still get to vote.Wisconsin state law is very clear about this.That’s why what happened in whitewater on Tuesday night is so alarming. The DNC filed a last-minute lawsuit, because of long lines on campus there. A county judge then ordered …

MacIver's staff dives into the results from the 2024 election with a special focus on the outcome in Wisconsin. More importantly, they identify special areas of concern going forward that Wisconsin conservatives must address now before it's too late.By The MacIver Institute

Why do government organizations actively promote the occult around Halloween? In this episode, Rebecca the Intern visits the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) and learned how to read palms and tarot cards before watching a seance demonstration. Want to learn more, head over to your local public library where you can check out a multitude of how-to…

2024 is not 2020, and the left is finding that out the hard way.Multiple national crises gave liberals an excuse to break every election law they thought they could get away with.Absentee voting was key by maximizing turnout among low information voters willing to go with the flow. It was aided by illegal ballot harvesting operations in cities acro…

Join the MacIver Institute's staff as they discuss how the election is shaping up in Wisconsin, review their previous predictions, and present a voter's guide to "strategic voting."By The MacIver Institute

For the second year in a row, the MacIver Institute hosted Tucker Carlson in Wisconsin. This year with the 2024 presidential election looming, Carlson talked about what is at stake and what conservatives need to do to bring home the win.By The MacIver Institute

You probably haven’t given much thought to the next state budget yet, but the budget writing process is already underway, and fortunately the MacIver institute is on top of it.Last week state agencies submitted their individual budget requests to the governor, and they are fascinating.Every agency is required to include a self-assessment on their p…

Work on the next state budget has just begun, and Governor Evers is already struggling to keep up.Every state agency is required to submit its funding request to Evers by Sep. 16th, according to the deadline he set. However, the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) says that Evers still hasn’t released all the details agencies need to complete that…

Last episode, Bill and Michaels took a trip through the next 100 days to make a series of bold, yet realistic predictions about the election and world events. (Spoiler alert: they’re still all on track).There’s more time travel in this episode, as Bill and Micheal transport themselves to Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024: Kamala Harris just won the presidenc…

Since the last presidential election, the price of food has gone up 21 percent, so has rent. Electricity is up over 30 percent. No wonder inflation and the economy are the most important issues for voters this year.A national poll conducted just last week found the vast majority of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, over half say th…

The MacIver Institute relaunches its “MacIver Report” podcast with a list of bold, yet calculated predictions for the next three months. Join MacIver’s content director Bill Osmulski and lead policy analyst Michael Lucas as they argue exactly why they believe:• The “October Surprise” will be Jimmy Carter passing away• Joe Biden will resign or die i…

No one in Wisconsin should be surprised that Kamala Harris has all but secured the Democrat nomination for president without a single vote in the primaries.We got a good look at the Democrat party’s ironically undemocratic methods during the 2022 mid-terms.Remember how there were originally 8 candidates running for the Democrat nomination for US Se…

You might have seen Samar Alatout’s name in the news last month.He is the faculty advisor for students for justice in Palestine at UW Madison.There are videos of him repeatedly attacking police when they tried to take down an illegal encampment there. He’s even seen interfering with an arrest.These are serious crimes, and Alatout was arrested that …

Every time there’s a problem somewhere, government’s knee jerk response is to throw money at it.Take the hospital situation in western Wisconsin for example. Two hospitals abruptly closed their doors this spring, creating a capacity problem in the emergency rooms there.The state is trying to figure out how to send $15 million in emergency grants to…

Joe Biden had a great day in Wisconsin last week.He showed up in mount pleasant to announce that Microsoft is building a new data center there, and everyone bent over backwards to give him all the credit, which was really tricky because he had nothing to do with it. But that’s why the mainstream media has told you next to nothing about the project.…

Wisconsin lawmakers will soon vote on a plan to bail out the City of Milwaukee.It would allow Milwaukee to create a special 2% sales tax to help with its unfunded pension liability.Lawmakers say the alternative means Milwaukee will go bankrupt, just like Detroit did in 2013, which they say would be devastating for the entire state.Well, we checked …

Wisconsin lawmakers are fast tracking a plan to bailout Milwaukee to prevent it from declaring bankruptcy. They claim it would be devastating for everyone in Wisconsin if that happened."We understand that bankruptcy for the City and County would be detrimental for the entire state," said Sen. Mary Felzkowski, one of the bill's authors. She says AB2…

Ranked choice voting - it’s hard to imagine a more complicated way to hold an election.Voters have the option of picking more than one candidate in each race.Clerks count one set of the votes, eliminate candidates, then count another set of votes, eliminate more candidates, then count yet another set of votes, and so on until they declare a winner.…

Governor Evers has a big problem with the Wisconsin Constitution.It goes back to 2020 when he shut down churches, tried to extend the term lengths for local elected officials, and continually invented new ways to declare public emergencies.This past summer, he used the Frankenstein veto to expand school funding increases for the next 400 years – ev…

As far as a liberal is concerned, government can never have too much money. So, it was no surprise when Governor Evers vetoed three tax cut bills that would have provided desperately needed relief to Wisconsin’s middle class (especially retirees.) What was surprising was his claim that those tax cuts would essentially bankrupt the state, and it wou…