In an op-ed published in the New York Times on Tuesday, President Joe Biden discussed his upcoming federal budget proposal and celebrated the Inflation Reduction Act, the 2022 law that included provisions requiring Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. He criticized Republican proposals to repeal the IRA and proposed policies he said would preserve funding for Medicare...
GOP lawmakers attack Biden’s plan to lower the federal deficit
President Joe Biden is reportedly set to release a budget proposal on Thursday that would reduce the annual budget deficit by $2 trillion over a decade without raising taxes for anyone earning less than $400,000 a year. But congressional Republicans who have been demanding deficit reduction in exchange for averting a catastrophic default on the national debt are already attacking his plan. With...
Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate won’t recuse himself from cases involving major donors
Right-wing special interest and dark money groups are spending millions of dollars to get conservative Justice Daniel Kelly elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in an effort that’s contributing to what has become the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history. But the money spent by these groups and by wealthy individuals has some questioning what sort of influence that money buys. Both...
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers includes Medicaid expansion in proposed Wisconsin budget
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers wants Wisconsin to finally expand Medicaid, a move that would not only provide health insurance to tens of thousands of low-income residents but, his administration says, would also save the state more than a billion dollars. “Expanding Medicaid is good for our health and good for our workforce,” the Wisconsin Department of Health Services said in a fact...
NARAL Pro-Choice America endorses Protasiewicz in Wisconsin Supreme Court election
One of the nation’s largest abortion rights groups stepped into this spring’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election on Monday morning to endorse Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz. NARAL Pro-Choice America, founded in the late 1960s to combat restrictive anti-abortion laws at the state and national level, fights for access to abortion and reproductive health care and works to elect...
Republicans target transgender people at annual conservative gathering
Transgender activists are condemning transphobic rhetoric repeated by speaker after speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference, held at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, this weekend. Conservative politicians and anti-trans activists called for everything from banning gender-affirming care to the eradication of...
Dark money group targets House Democrats with false claims that Biden will cut Medicare
The dark money group American Action Network announced Friday that it will spend $2 million on ads to try to convince voters that President Joe Biden is going to cut health benefits for older Americans. The tax-exempt 501(c)(4) political group said it plans to run ads in 14 House districts and in Washington, D.C. A sample spot, aimed at voters in Alaska, targets Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola...
The GOP’s extreme bills: Rolling back abortion rights
When the conservative majority on the Supreme Court overturned the nearly 50-year-old Roe v. Wade precedent guaranteeing abortion rights in the United States in June 2022, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio cheered. “I think that right now, this issue is appropriately before the states. That’s where it should have always been, that’s where it is now, and I think that’s...
White House initiative accelerates replacement of lead pipes in Wisconsin
In January, the Biden administration announced the launch of the “Get the Lead Out Partnership,” a coalition of state and local governments, communities, and private companies working with the federal government to replace dangerous lead piping that has polluted water supplies across the country. Among those announced as part of the coalition were the state of Wisconsin, along with...
Marjorie Taylor Greene pledges bill to criminalize gender-affirming care in CPAC speech
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) announced during a speech Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference that she wants to criminalize gender-affirming care for minors. Greene said at the major Republican gathering that she plans to introduce in the House of Representatives the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, which she said would criminalize the provision of gender-affirming care to...