Category: State news

MADISON, Wis. — Gov. Jim Doyle campaigned last fall on the promise of not raising general sales or income taxes, but he has proposed a number of targeted tax and fee hike that are drawing fire from state Republicans in advance of the budget’s release on Tuesday.

Some Republican lawmakers said that they’re skeptical of how the governor is going to pay for all the ideas he’s laid out in the last month. They said that they think he’s trying to fix the budget with higher taxes. The governor’s aide, however, counters that Doyle’s plans are fiscally responsible.

Gov. Jim Doyle announced in a Friday statement that he will ask the state Legislature to grant state and UW employees domestic health care benefits in Tuesdayâ??s 2007 budget address.

Gov. Jim Doyle will propose offering group health insurance benefits to domestic partners of all state employees – including University of Wisconsin faculty and staff – when he presents his 2007-09 state budget to lawmakers next week.

The move broadens Doyle’s attempt two years ago to offer domestic partner coverage to employees of the University of Wisconsin, which was rejected by Republican lawmakers.

This time, Doyle faces a slightly friendlier reception in the Legislature.

MADISON (AP) â?? Gov. Jim Doyle says heâ??ll propose offering group health insurance benefits to domestic partners of all state employees when he presents his state budget proposals to lawmakers during the coming week.That is broader than his proposal rejected by legislators two years ago to offer domestic partner coverage to University of Wisconsin employees.

Republicans controlled both houses of the Wisconsin Legislature then, but Democrats now control the Senate and the Republican majority in the Assembly has been narrowed.

Gov. Jim Doyle called for tax breaks for health care, child care, tuition and Social Security on Thursday, pushing forward proposals he first made late in his campaign.

“Far too many families across the state are getting squeezed,” Doyle said from an Appleton home. “That’s why we’ve worked hard to make the right, responsible choices to keep life affordable for middle-class families.”

PEWAUKEE (AP) – Ody Fish, an activist in the Wisconsin Republican Party and longtime member of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, died Tuesday, his family said. He was 81.

As the UW Board of Regents prepares to vote on a new freshman admissions policy this week, state Rep. Stephen Nass, R- Whitewater, said the policy’s inclusion of race and ethnicity among its admission criteria is “ill-advised and possibly illegal.”

Although Wisconsin’s total net farm income dropped by more than 40 percent last year, dairy farmers suffered most of the pain, with some sectors doing well, according to the annual Status of Wisconsin Agriculture report from UW-Madison.

In the wake of criticism surrounding the accumulated sick leave credit Wisconsin politicians have stacked up, several pieces of legislation have been drafted to remedy the problem and will be debated in the next session.

A recent report noted that Wisconsin lost five percent of its farmland from 2000 to 2005 and that the loss was at a faster rate than any other state in the region.

State Agriculture Secretary Rodney Nilsestuen worries that this loss of crop production threatens our future in the biofuels industry, which he characterized as “ââ?¬Â¦the biggest opportunity for rural development I’ve ever seen.

Bucky Badger, that candy-striped fellow from Madison, and Goldy Gopher, the dentally challenged pet from the Twin Cities, have a problem.

If Bucky and Goldy were to enroll in, let’s say, a Medieval Mascot History course at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, the Wisconsin-bred Bucky would pay less than the Minnesota-born Goldy, even though they are sitting in the same class in Folwell Hall in Goldy’s maroon-and-gold home state.

Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton is telling middle school students that the state of Wisconsin will reward their accomplishments and ensure their access to a college education through a new program called the Wisconsin Covenant.

But Pam Nash, Madison’s assistant superintendent for middle and high schools, said today she would not dangle the carrot of financial aid to students until it is absolutely clear that the money will be available to them.

Gov. Jim Doyle stressed bipartisan efforts to push an agenda packed with new reforms Tuesday night at his fifth State of the State address, but some lawmakers questioned the practicality of such ambitious plans.

(AP) – The prepared text of Gov. Jim Doyle’s State of the State address to the Wisconsin Legislature Tuesday night:

Even the Legislature’s most vocal critic of the University of Wisconsin praised Gov. Jim Doyle’s plan for a “Wisconsin Covenant” to give eighth-graders a state-funded college education if they maintain a B average in high school and stay out of trouble.

“I think there is some merit in the covenant,” said Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, “but it clashes with the UW admissions proposal that would lessen academic requirements.”

Moreover, proposals in the governor’s State of the State speech Tuesday to increase graduates in fields such as nursing and engineering will depend on the money available in a budget faced with a $1.6 billion deficit, said Nass, who chairs the Assembly’s Colleges and Universities Committee.

After calling education and health care his top priorities, Gov. Jim Doyle urged legislators in his State of the State Address Tuesday also to improve Wisconsin�s economy and environment this year.

Quoted: Gary Sandefur, dean of letters and sciences.

Gov. Jim Doyle on Tuesday called for reforms to provide affordable access to health care to nearly every Wisconsin resident and to retool the state’s public colleges and universities with new investments.

MADISON � Gov. Jim Doyle says voters last fall sent a message.

“They wanted us to end the divisiveness and partisan fighting, and focus instead on making progress for middle-class families,” Doyle said Tuesday as he delivered his fifth State of the State address to the Legislature. “Democrats, Republicans, let us pledge tonight: We will come together to get things done.”