Brian Dake

The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady Wednesday as it seeks to curb stubborn inflation.

Fed policymakers have hinted that they’ll be cautious about additional rate cuts, so long as the job market remains solid and prices continue to climb.

“We feel like we don’t need to be in a hurry to make any adjustments,” Fed chairman Jerome Powell told reporters Wednesday.

Members of the Fed’s rate-setting committee voted unanimously to leave their benchmark interest rate between 4.25% and 4.5%. That helps determine the cost of other short-term borrowing, such as car loans and credit card debt.

The central bank has already cut its benchmark rate by a full percentage point since September. But faced with sticky inflation, policymakers are in no hurry to make additional cuts. Consumer prices in December were up 2.9% from a year ago — a slightly larger annual increase than the previous month.

Meanwhile, the job market has proven to be remarkably resilient, with employers adding more than a quarter-million jobs last month. If the labor market were weaker, there would be more pressure on the Fed to cut borrowing costs and stimulate hiring.

Sean Duffy was confirmed Tuesday as transportation secretary, giving him a key role in President Donald Trump’s administration.

Duffy, a 53-year-old former Wisconsin congressman, was approved on a 77-22 vote in the Senate.

Duffy has promised safer Boeing planes, less regulation, and help for U.S. companies developing self-driving cars — while not giving any breaks to Elon Musk, a key player in that technology.

Duffy also vowed to “restore global confidence” in Boeing, hire more air traffic controllers, cut DEI programs in the Department of Transportation and create federal rules for self-driving cars.

Wisconsin Republicans are calling for an amendment to the state constitution aimed at narrowing the governor’s partial veto powers. The push comes amid a legal battle over Gov. Tony Evers’ use of a partial veto to extended a school funding increase for 400 years.

On Monday, State Rep. Scott Allen, R-Waukesha; State Sen. Julian Bradley, R-New Berlin; and State Sen. Cory Tomczyk, R-Mosinee, sent an email seeking cosponsors for a joint resolution pursuing an amendment that would only allow Evers and future governors to veto entire sections of a spending bill “capable of separate enactment as a complete, entire, and workable law.”

Because the lawmakers are seeking a constitutional amendment, their joint resolution must be passed during two successive legislative sessions and then be approved by voters in a statewide referendum.

The partial veto powers enjoyed by Wisconsin governors stand out from all others across the nation. Currently, the only restrictions in Wisconsin are that governors cannot create new words in spending bills by vetoing individual letters and they cannot create new sentences by vetoing parts of others.

Both Republican and Democratic governors have extensively used Wisconsin’s partial veto powers, which date back to 1930.

The most recent example came from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in July 2023. By crossing out a 20 and a dash before signing the state budget, Evers authorized school districts to receive a $325 per-pupil increase for more than 400 years. The Republican-controlled Legislature intended the increase to expire in two years.

A lawsuit challenging Evers’ veto is currently being considered by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Both liberal and conservative justices voiced skepticism about how Evers changed the school funding provision with some calling it “extreme” and “outrageous.”

On January 23, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay of the nationwide preliminary injunction issued by a federal district court in Texas in December 2024 in the Texas Top Cop Shop litigation.

However, a second nationwide injunction against the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) was issued earlier this month in the Smith v. Treasury litigation. The Supreme Court’s order in the Texas Top Cop Shop litigation does not specifically address the injunction in the Smith v. Treasury litigation. Because the injunction in the Smith v. Treasury litigation remains in effect, enforcement of the CTA remains paused.

FinCEN today stated that, because the nationwide injunction issued in the Smith v. Treasury litigation remains in place, reporting companies:

“are not currently required to file beneficial ownership information with FinCEN despite the Supreme Court’s action in Texas Top Cop Shop. Reporting companies also are not subject to liability if they fail to file this information while the Smith order remains in force. However, reporting companies may continue to voluntarily submit beneficial ownership information reports.”

The Texas Top Cop Shop and Smith v. Treasury litigations both originated in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. While the Supreme Court’s order in the Texas Top Cop Shop litigation does not specifically address the injunction in the Smith v. Treasury litigation.

In his seventh State of the State address Wednesday night, Governor Tony Evers started to outline his budget priorities — declaring 2025 the “Year of the Kid” and laying out investments and policies to support children and their families.

The address came at the start of a legislative session in which Republicans continue to hold majorities in the state Senate and Assembly, though with smaller margins than last session, and a $4.5 billion budget surplus remains unspent. Wisconsin also has about $1.9 billion in the state’s rainy day fund.

Governor Evers announced an array of proposals to support schools, including by providing free meals to students, expanding mental health resources, supporting child care for families and implementing better gun violence prevention measures.

Bipartisan collaboration will be necessary for Governor Evers to accomplish the priorities he laid out, and the road could be difficult as Republican lawmakers were mostly critical following the address.

Governor Evers said he would propose “historic investments in K-12 education” and “meaningful” investments in early childhood education, the University of Wisconsin system and the state’s technical colleges.

Governor Evers said he’ll propose dedicating almost $300 million to supporting mental health services in schools. This would include about $168 million for comprehensive school mental health services aid, $130 million to modify the existing aid for school mental health programs to provide 20% reimbursement for the costs of pupil services professionals, $500,000 for peer-to-peer suicide prevention programs and $760,000 to increase the amount and types of mental health trainings provided to schools.

Governor Evers also said he will propose investing $480 million to continue the state’s Child Care Counts program, which has provided funding assistance to eligible child care providers to support operating expenses, investments in program quality, tuition relief for families, staff compensation and professional development. The program was started in March 2020 using federal funds and Evers wants to keep it going with state funds. He also wants to dedicate another $20 million to other programs, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and he wants to use the budget to create the framework for community-based 4K.

The amount Wisconsinites pay in state and local taxes relative to their incomes hit its lowest level since at least 1972 last year, according to a new report from Wisconsin Policy Forum.

The “tax burden” is the ratio of what residents pay in state and local taxes relative to their income. The report found that number fell from 9.92% in 2023 to 9.62% in 2024.

The report noted several reasons for the decline, but it said the decrease is partly due to, “continued growth in incomes in the state, plus aggressive efforts by the state to hold down local property taxes.”

The latest report found state and local tax revenues grew by 1.9 percent last year, from $36.2 billion in 2023 to $36.9 billion in 2024. But that didn’t keep up with the rate of inflation and was also the smallest increase since 2017, according to the report.

“Meanwhile, income growth easily outstripped the growth in tax collections, as personal income in calendar year 2023 grew by 5.2 percent — double the increase seen the previous year,” the report said.

The report found sales tax collections in the state, which increased by 1.8 percent in 2024, were the “slowest year-over-year growth rate since 2010.”

The report didn’t take into accountnew sales taxes in the city and county of Milwaukee because of how data was gathered for the report. Milwaukee was able to raise its sales tax in 2024 due to Act 12, a bipartisan law to overhaul local government funding. The Wisconsin Policy Forum said that data will be included in next year’s report.

President Trump declared a “national energy emergency” as part of a suite of Day 1 executive orders and other actions Monday aimed at carrying out his long-promised “drill, baby, drill” agenda on American fossil fuels.

The orders include eliminating the so-called “electric vehicle mandate,” Trump’s phrase for a Environmental Protection Agency rule that required auto manufacturers to cut greenhouse gas emissions by half in new light- and medium-duty vehicles beginning in 2027.

The EPA has estimated the rule would force auto manufacturers to build electric vehicles for about 30% to 56% of their new light-duty vehicles by 2032 and 20% to 32% of new medium duty vehicles.

Trump also signed an order withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Climate agreement, which former President Joe Biden had re-joined after his election four years ago.

“The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity,” Trump said during a ceremony at Capitol One Arena.

President-elect Trump is planning a barrage of executive actions on energy, the border and immigration enforcement on his first day in office, four sources told The Hill.

Stephen Miller, incoming White House deputy chief of staff for policy, briefed Republican congressional leaders about a number of planned actions on Sunday, according to three sources. Trump will sign dozens of executive orders on Monday, a fourth source said. The orders will also touch upon bringing back the federal workforce to offices.

Wisconsin banks are going into 2025 with a “mixture of hope and hesitation,” as optimism about the policies of the incoming Trump administration meet uncertainty and economic headwinds.

That’s according to Rose Oswald Poels, president and CEO of the Wisconsin Bankers Association. The group yesterday released its annual Wisconsin Economic Report, which compiles a series of sector outlooks from leaders of key industries within the state.

In her overview, Oswald Poels said bankers in Wisconsin will be “closely watching” how Donald Trump in his second term may bring “much-needed regulatory relief” to the financial sector. They’re looking for a pause on new federal regulations being introduced, she said, along with hoping that “overly burdensome” regulations will be pared back.

As an example, she points to new Section 1071 requirements from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which are meant to collect more data on small business loans. Oswald Poels says they’re being criticized by banks for creating an “excessive” administrative burden for them and their small business customers.

“The requirements go far beyond the original intent of the Dodd-Frank Act and could negatively impact small businesses by making access to credit more complicated and costly,” she said in the report.

At the same time, bankers are feeling cautious about the economic landscape writ large, Oswald Poels said. She wrote the “path to economic recovery is still uncertain and a significant rebound may take longer than expected.”

The effects of inflation were a central topic in several of the sector overviews in the report.

Effective Thursday, January 16, 2025, at 12:01 a.m., the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) declares highways are officially frozen statewide and the frozen road law will expand to include the entire state.

The frozen road law allows heavier loads for trucks carrying logs cut crosswise (not including woodchips), and salt and sand for winter maintenance while cold weather allows. The seasonal weight restriction program is one way to protect Wisconsin’s investments in roads.

The department maintains an interactive map for seasonal weight restrictions, which shows the frozen roads boundaries, Class II roads and posted roads.

More information on overweight permits can be found on the WisDOT oversize/overweight permits webpage. Haulers with specific questions can contact WisDOT’s Oversize/Overweight Permits Unit at (608) 266-7320.