The Budget Buzz – Two items of interest on the upcoming budget that promise to get interesting in the next few months. First, in the last budget cycle, Governor Evers used his veto pen in a very controversial fashion. He removed words and letters within the document to change sentences and thus created funding that was not originally in the budget that was passed by both houses of the legislature. According to Education Week – “The governor of Wisconsin threaded a needle through a tiny legal loophole to enshrine annual school funding increases in law for the next four centuries. That’s right—centuries, not years. Schools in Wisconsin will see their base funding from the state grow by $325 per student each year until the year 2425 under the newly passed two-year state budget.” Democrats and school advocates argue that the amount is only a small daily amount that probably won’t even “keep up” with inflation. However, if the practice is allowed to stand, there is no limit to what the governor could do in the future. The matter is before the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the rumors are that unless the court reins in what appears to most as veto powers that are not provided to the governor, there might not be a budget moving forward. In Wisconsin, if there was no budget, the budget spending would remain at current year levels. The second issue is the governor’s provision in his most recent budget that the terms mother and father are removed from statute and replaced with “inseminated person” and “parent”. Husbands would become “spouses” should Evers language changes become law. The pushback has been substantial, and the issue has put Wisconsin in the national news. The legislature traditionally veers away from policy changes in the budget process, but with the governors “newly found” veto powers republicans are proceeding with caution.
Trump opposition looks to slow the Trump agenda through sympathetic federal judges.
It would be literally impossible to follow all the lawsuits that have been filed against Trump, the Trump administration and the trump agenda. At the time of this writing, there are 132 of them. Almost all of them will be settled when congress enacts its next spending package. A majority of these lawsuits involve spending that congress has already approved.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul are joining lawsuits against the Trump Administration. One is a multi-state federal lawsuit with 20 plaintiffs arguing that the “massive” planned cuts of employees across 20 agencies effectively eliminate duties the agency is charged by Congress to carry out. The cuts were mainly temporary and probationary employees. Scholars agree that any pause imposed by the courts would be temporary.
Another lawsuit involves the staffing cuts specifically at the U.S. Department of Education. Most scholars feel that congress would need to act to abolish the department but feel reducing the size and scope would not.
A third lawsuit seeks to block the Trump administration and billionaire Elon Musk from accessing restricted government records on millions of federal employees. It is clear that millions of employees, including the IRS, Social Security office and more, have access to records.
A fourth lawsuit joins 21 other states suing the Trump Administration over the recent decision to slash “indirect cost” reimbursements to research institutions nationwide. According to UW officials, “the reimbursements help researchers, like those at UW-Madison, cover expenses like labs, faculty and infrastructure. The National Institutes of Health announced that it would cut indirect cost rates to a flat 15% across-the-board. In a statement criticizing the move, UW-Madison administrators said the change would “significantly disrupt vital research activity and delay lifesaving discoveries and cures related to cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and much more.” Many would point out that the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s endowment, managed by the Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association (WFAA), had a market value of $4.3 billion at the close of fiscal year 2024 and returned 14.7% for the year.
One of the more interesting lawsuits involves the controversial executive order (EO) Trump issued has been the EO that ends “birthright” citizenship. It is also the most debated by scholars. Section 1 of the 14th amendment states:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
There is much debate about how the Supreme Court will rule on this. Soon we will know.
GSG – Staff
