Civic Minute

We've talked about gerrymandering — how politicians draw district lines to choose their voters instead of the other way around. We've talked about how Wisconsin fought all the way to the Supreme Cour…

Last year, a redistricting war broke out. Texas redrew its maps to favor Republicans. California hit back to favor Democrats. Six states redrew in all — the most mid-decade redistricting in over fift…

Your federal return doesn't show your whole tax bill. There's payroll tax on every paycheck. Sales tax at every register. Gas tax at the pump. Property tax on your home — or baked into your rent.

If you're a conservative in Madison, your state representative is a Democrat — and that's not changing. If you're a liberal in Wood County, your rep is a Republican — and that's not changing either.…

Taxes pay for roads, schools, and the military. But where do the taxes come from?

For decades, Washington ran a two-step. Step one: cut taxes. Step two — years later, when deficits grew — declare that we can't afford our programs, and cut those too.

In 1974, economist Arthur Laffer sketched a curve on a napkin for two White House aides: Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. The idea was simple: at a tax rate of zero, the government collects nothing.…

In 1960, the tax rate for the top bracket — that is, income earned beyond the first four million or so in today’s dollars — was ninety-one percent. Today, that top rate is thirty-seven. The drop didn…

In 1986, Ronald Reagan signed a tax reform built on a simple principle: a dollar is a dollar. Whether you earned it from a paycheck or a stock sale, it was taxed at the same top rate — twenty-eight p…

So if multi-member districts with proportional representation are such a good idea, why don’t we have them? Two reasons.

Here’s a question. If you live in a district where sixty percent of voters lean one way, what happens to the other forty percent? Under our current system — nothing. They lose every election. Their r…

Something feels broken. You vote, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Your representative doesn’t listen to you. Elections feel like they’re decided before they start. And no matter who wins, nothing real…

Did you know that half the states in the country have passed resolutions asking Congress to propose a constitutional amendment on election spending?

The redistricting war is over — and nobody won. Texas, North Carolina, and Missouri redrew their maps to favor Republicans. California and Virginia redrew theirs to favor Democrats. The net partisan…

In the last presidential election, ninety-four percent of all campaign events happened in just seven states. That means the vast majority of Americans were completely ignored. Whether you live in Tex…

Here’s something that might surprise you. Across Wisconsin, fifty-six counties and dozens of municipalities have passed resolutions calling for nonpartisan redistricting. Thirty-two counties have put…

In 2022, under Wisconsin’s old gerrymandered maps, only four out of ninety-nine state Assembly races were decided by fewer than five points. Four. The other ninety-five? The outcome was basically kno…

You may have noticed something about gas prices. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, prices shot up almost overnight. But when oil markets settled back down, it took weeks — sometimes months — for p…

When gas prices spike, you pay more. But where does that extra money actually go?

Every gallon of gas you buy in Wisconsin includes about fifty-one cents in taxes — roughly thirty-three cents to the state, eighteen to the federal government. People grumble about it. But here’s wha…

When gas prices go up, we want someone to blame. The president. The oil companies. The government. But the price of a gallon of gas isn’t one thing — it’s four.

The United States already produces more oil than any country on Earth — nearly fourteen million barrels a day. That’s a record. And gas still shot past four dollars this spring.

In January, the United States invaded Venezuela — a country with the largest oil reserves on Earth. Gas prices that week? Two dollars and eighty-one cents. They barely moved. Because despite all thos…

When gas prices spike, most people notice at the pump. What they don’t notice is what happens to the electricity coming out of their wall.

Do you know who sets your electric rate? It’s not your utility. It’s the Public Service Commission — three people, appointed by the governor, who decide what every utility in Wisconsin can charge you…