Because Scott Walker Asked

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When Wisconsin's legislature crafts the state budget every two years, it relies in part on state income tax payments from about 2.5 million households. In 2016, Wisconsinites paid $7.7 billion in state income taxes. These funds accounted for about 51 percent of the state's general purpose revenue, with the rest coming from other sources, including sales taxes, alcohol and cigarette taxes, and taxes on utility bills. General purpose revenue is the funding with the least restrictions on how the state can use it, compared to sources like federal revenue and borrowing.

Wisconsin citizens’ right to clean water, clean air and a good quality of life is endangered by water pollution frequently caused by agriculture. Wisconsin’s industrial agriculture industry generates more manure than crops can safely use as fertilizer leading to excess phosphorus and nitrate levels in the soil and groundwater. As a result, our local streams, lakes, and waterways are quickly becoming damaged beyond repair.

The Sierra Club released a status paper on CAFO's and water quality in Wisconsin at a release meeting in Menomonie on June 14. We attended the meeting and bring you both the paper and a video of the entire meeting where several concerned citizens testified about the issues of groundwater contamination from CAFO's, the status of some of the CAFO approvals in the state, and the lack of enforcement on the part of the DNR. Speakers included Lindsay Olson, Dunn Co Water Specialist; Rachel Kummer, Farmer; Neil Koch, retired hydrologist and Elizabeth Ward, Conservation Programs Coordinator, John Muir.

As Wisconsin struggles to grow private-sector jobs, there is potential to expand telecommuting work outside urbanized areas of the state by improving broadband connections. As it stands, about 13 percent of Wisconsin's population lacks access to high-speed internet connections, according to a 2016 progress report from the Federal Communications Commission.

UW Applied Population Laboratory

Donald Trump's presidential victory in Wisconsin, the first time a Republican candidate has won the state's electoral votes since 1984, was the result of a complex shift in voting patterns in counties both large and small. Trump received just over 27,000 more votes than Clinton, out of more than 2.94 million cast overall. Wisconsin's turnout was about 66 percent of all eligible voters, reported the Wisconsin Elections Commission, the state's lowest since 1996.

The county-by-county voting results for Wisconsin in the 2016 election offer insight into Trump's victory in the state. So, too, does a look at the vote numbers in the victory by President Barack Obama over Mitt Romney in 2012. Overall, Trump received just about the same number of votes as Romney, but Clinton received nearly 240,000 fewer votes than Obama.