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David Crowley Proposes Eliminating Minimum Markup
One of the Democrats running for governor wants to kill the state’s minimum-markup law to lower the price of gas.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley on Thursday suggested that ending Wisconsin’s mandatory price law could save drivers almost 40-cents per-gallon.
"Wisconsin families are getting squeezed at the pump by Donald Trump's war and by an outdated state law that has been rigging the price of gas against them for decades," Crowley said in a statement. "Drivers are paying nearly a dollar more per gallon than they did a year ago, and Wisconsin law piles a mandatory 36-cent markup on top of it."
Minimum-markup requires gas stations in Wisconsin to charge an extra 6% to the price of gas, or set prices 9.18% over the average wholesale price of gas, whichever is higher.
The idea was to protect mom-and-pop gas stations, but critics say those protections simply mean higher prices for drivers.
Minimum-markup also applies to beer, liquor, and cigarettes in Wisconsin. Crowley is not suggesting an end to the law for those products.
"This is not about leaving small gas stations on their own," Crowley said. "It is about replacing a Depression-era price floor that does not work with targeted protections against the actual predatory behavior we want to stop. Minnesota just did this. Wisconsin should be next."
Crowley’s focus on minimum-markup is part of his recent campaign emphasis on “affordability.”
"Wisconsin families need a governor who puts affordability first. The two biggest squeezes on family budgets right now are housing and energy," Crowley said in a video on X.
Wisconsin lawmakers have proposed an end to minimum-markup for years, but those proposals have always fallen short at the state capitol.
Many businesses, including Kwik Trip, have fought any effort to even chip-away at minimum markup.
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