MacIver News Service - The Assembly passed the their version of the 2013-2015 budget on Wednesday, but in a stunning surprise, Assembly Democrats decided not to offer any amendments on Wednesday to the state budget and only Minority Leader Rep. Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) spoke out against the bill. Read More »

Assembly Reaction to Passage of Gov. Walker's Budget Read More »

MacIver News Service - Assembly Republicans proposed a technical amendment on Tuesday to the budget that will delete a provision that limited the Veterans and Surviving Spouses Tax Credit and deletes a $4 million grant to a Wisconsin aircraft company for job creation and retention. Read More »

The budget approved by the Joint Committee on Finance would expand the reach of independent charter schools in Milwaukee County by 2014. According to DPI data, that's a big gain for the area's economically disadvantaged students. Students from low-income families in 2R charters outperformed their classmates in traditional MPS classrooms or instrumentality charter schools once again in 2013, according to state testing data. Read More »

MacIver News Service - The Joint Committee on Finance passed a budget in the first week of June that looks to reduce bonding by nearly $370 million. Bonding under Governor Scott Walker's budget proposal totaled $2.17 billion, but the JFC approved budget decreases bonding authority to $1.8 billion. Read More »

MacIver News Service - A group of university professors and liberal political organizers came together in Madison for a conference on the working class in which many of the participants were extremely critical of capitalism. The program was entitled Fighting Forward: A Labor and Working Class Summit and took place on June 12-15 at the Madison Area Technical College. Read More »

MacIver News Service - The Joint Committee on Finance passed a budget in the first week of June. JFC made some changes to Governor Scott Walker's budget that included a $648 million income tax cut, a modification to the school choice expansion, and an increase in the per-pupil spending for K-12 public schools. After all the Committee's changes, Wisconsin is estimated end fiscal year 2015 with a $109 million surplus. Read More »

MacIver News Service - The Joint Committee on Finance approved a budget in the first week of June that includes a $648 million income tax cut. The plan will decrease rates for all tax brackets, and reduce the amount of brackets from five to four. Even with the tax cut passed in JFC's version of the budget, most taxpayers in Wisconsin will pay a higher income tax rate than millionaires in Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. Read More »

MacIver News Service - From June 12-15, many departments from the University of Wisconsin System are sponsoring Fighting Forward: A Labor and Working Class Summit, an event that Rep. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) said was "higher education prioritizing liberal indoctrination of students instead of the concept of educational sifting and winnowing." Are your tax dollars paying for this conference? Read More »

MacIver News Service - Last week, the Joint Committee on Finance (JFC) finished its work on the 2013-2015 state budget. As groups across the state begin to assess the changes in the new budget, Republican and Democratic legislators on the Committee offered their own takes on where the budget succeeded or failed. Read More »