News of the Day

As the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, initiates federal funding cuts and mass layoffs, Wisconsin Republicans’ version is just getting started.

GOAT was created in December by Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, with the stated goal of exposing and addressing inefficiency in government. Its launch comes as DOGE has become practically a household name, and the two cover similar topics.

Tuesday’s informational hearing focused on remote work and included testimony from heads of the state Department of Administration, Department of Public Instruction, Department of Health Services, Department of Safety and Professional Services and the Universities of Wisconsin.

GOAT Chair Amanda Nedweski, a Republican from Pleasant Prairie, said lawmakers have seen increased demand from state residents for transparency with regard to remote work.

“The people who pay the salaries of the state employees want to know that there’s more accountability than just, move your mouse every few minutes,” Nedweski said.

As the committee contemplates remote work, a bill authored by Nedweski seeking to end the practice for most state employees is currently circulating in the state Capitol. She said the legislation may not be necessary if agencies were more open about remote work practices.

Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to target more than two dozen rules and policies in what the agency called the “most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history.”

The EPA didn’t provide details about what it wants to do with the regulations — whether it will try to weaken them or eliminate them entirely. In most cases, the agency said it is reconsidering rules that apply to things like climate pollution from vehicles and power plants, wastewater from coal plants and air pollution from the energy and manufacturing sectors.

“We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a news release.

Overhauling federal environmental regulations requires a so-called rulemaking process that usually takes a couple of years.

Any effort by the EPA to rollback environmental rules will almost certainly face legal challenges.

The Labor Department on Wednesday said that the consumer price index (CPI) – a broad measure of how much everyday goods like gasoline, groceries and rent cost – increased 0.2% in February compared with last month, while it rose 2.8% on an annual basis.

So-called core prices, which include more volatile measurements of gasoline and food to better assess price growth trends, were up 0.2% from the prior month and 3.1% on an annual basis.

Food prices increased 0.2% in February. The index for food at home was unchanged over the month and up just 1.9% over the past 12 months.

Energy prices were up 0.2% in February – a smaller monthly increase than the 1.1% rise recorded in January. Gasoline prices were down 1% last month on a seasonally adjusted basis, while natural gas prices were 2.5% higher.

Housing costs rose in February as the shelter index increased by 0.3% for the month. That leaves the shelter index 4.2% higher than a year ago, marking the smallest 12-month increase since December 2021.

Governor Tony Evers unveiled a capital budget Monday that calls for $4.1 billion in new building projects around the state, with the largest chunk going toward Universities of Wisconsin campuses.

The state would borrow more than $3.8 billion to pay for the overall capital budget, which needs approval from the Legislature. The plan would also pay for material aspects of Evers’ sweeping prison restructuring proposal, and put $1.2 billion toward maintenance projects across state agencies.

In a statement, Evers said the plan was necessary to address infrastructure needs statewide, and would create jobs and stimulate the economy.

Two years ago, Republican lawmakers approved about $2.7 billion in the capital budget. In a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, and Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, who co-chair the Joint Finance Committee, said Republicans would “craft a responsible Capital Budget that Wisconsin can afford.”

The UW portion of the capital budget totals about $1.6 billion. Among the projects included is $293 million to demolish the brutalist-style Mosse Humanities Building at UW-Madison, $194 million to finalize the Prairie Springs Science Center and shutter Cowley Hall at UW-La Crosse and $189 million to merge the health sciences program into one building at UW-Milwaukee.

Also in the capital budget is $325 million for the early phases of Evers’ prison overhaul, which calls for closing down the Green Bay Correctional Institution and transforming the Waupun Correctional Institution into a medium-security facility with an emphasis on vocational training. The plan would also shutter the long-troubled Lincoln Hills juvenile campus and construct a new juvenile prison in Dane County.

Evers also called for over $195 million for health services facilities, $137 million for veterans homes and the Wisconsin Veterans Museum and $25 million for renewable energy construction projects at state facilities.

The percentage of borrowers with subprime car loans who are at least 60 days past due on their loans increased to 6.56% in January, which was the highest level since data collection began in 1994, according to Fitch Ratings.

The share of 60 days past due subprime auto loan borrowers has remained above 6% since August 2024 after breaking the 6% threshold for the first time early last year. It previously approached the 6% mark in 1996, 2019 and 2023.

The increase in the number of borrowers struggling with auto loans comes as consumers continue to struggle with the impact of the inflationary pressures the U.S. economy has experienced in recent years, which have strained Americans’ household budgets. Higher interest rates aimed at bringing inflation down also made new auto loans more expensive for borrowers.

A recent analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that auto loan balances have grown steadily since 2011 and increased by $48 billion in 2024 due to an inflow of newly originated auto loans.

“Nearly all borrower groups have seen delinquency rates rise beyond their pre-pandemic levels,” the NY Fed wrote. It noted that borrowers with credit scores between 620 and 679 saw their likelihood of becoming delinquent in a given quarter rise from about 2% before the pandemic to 4% in 2024.

The report found that consumers are “in pretty good shape in terms of the household debt landscape” with stable balances and solid performance in mortgage loans – but noted issues with auto loans.

U.S. President Donald Trump suspended on Thursday tariffs of 25% he had imposed this week on most goods from Canada and Mexico. The exemptions for the two largest U.S. trading partners, expire on April 2, when Trump has threatened to impose a global regime of reciprocal tariffs on all U.S. trading partners.

In response, Canada will delay a planned second wave of retaliatory tariffs on C$125 billion ($87.4 billion) of U.S. products until April 2, Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc said in a post on X. For Canada, the amended White House order also excludes duties on potash, a critical fertilizer for U.S. farmers, but does not fully cover energy products, on which Trump has imposed a separate levy of 10%.

A White House official said that was because not all energy products imported from Canada are covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade that Trump negotiated in his first term as president.

President Trump has also imposed tariffs of 20% on all imports from China as a result.

China said it would “resolutely counter” from the United States on the fentanyl issue, urging the United States to resolve the abuse of the drug itself. “No country can imagine that it can suppress China on one hand while developing good relations with China on the other hand,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi told a briefing in Beijing on Friday.

“On April 2, we’re going to move with the reciprocal tariffs, and hopefully Mexico and Canada will have done a good enough job on fentanyl that this part of the conversation will be off the table, and we’ll move just to the reciprocal tariff conversation,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC.

“But if they haven’t, this will stay on.”

President Trump also said tariffs of 25% on imports of steel and aluminum would take effect as scheduled on March 12. Canada and Mexico are both top exporters of the metals to U.S. markets, with Canada in particular accounting for most aluminum imports.

On Wednesday Trump exempted automotive goods from the 25% tariffs he imposed on imports from Canada and Mexico as of Tuesday, levies that economists saw as threatening to stoke inflation and stall growth across all three economies.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) is enacting Class II restrictions for the majority of Wisconsin (highways south of US 8), including Zone 2 through Zone 5, on Thursday, March 6 at 12:01 a.m. Class II restrictions for far northern Wisconsin (Zone 1) will start on Monday, March 10 at 12:01 a.m.

Class II roads include about 1,400 miles of state highways susceptible to damage from heavy trucks during the spring thaw period as frost leaves the ground. Further information can be found online for divisible load permits and non-divisible load permits.

Seasonal posted road restrictions will go into effect statewide on Monday, March 10 at 12:01 a.m. County highways, town roads, city and village streets may also be posted or limited to legal load limits or less. Decisions to place or lift weight restrictions on those roads are up to local units of government.

The department maintains an interactive map for seasonal weight restrictions. Haulers with specific questions can contact WisDOT’s Oversize/Overweight Permits Unit at (608) 266-7320 or visit the oversize/overweight permits website. A recorded message with general information on road restrictions is available by calling (608) 266-8417.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick signaled a possible agreement between the Trump administration and leaders of Canada and Mexico that could see some of the tariffs imposed on both nations rolled back.

Canada and Mexico, two of the United States’ biggest trading partners, have imposed retaliatory tariffs following those imposed by President Donald Trump that went into effect Tuesday. Trump said the increases were in response to both countries not doing enough to curb the flow of illegal immigration and illicit drugs across their borders with the U.S.

“He’s really looking carefully at that trying to figure out if there is a way in there that he can come in the middle, where he can give the Canadians and Mexicans something, but they have to got do more,” he told Kudlow. “They’ve got to end fentanyl death. You can’t just say it’s OK that people can die. That is just not a thing.”

“It’s not gonna be a pause. None of that pause stuff. But I think he’s going to figure out, you do more, and I’ll meet you in the middle someway,” he added. “We’re going to probably be announcing that today. So somewhere in the middle will likely be the outcome — the president moving with the Canadians and Mexicans but not all the way,” he added.

“Both the Mexicans and the Canadians were on the phone with me all day yesterday trying to show that they’ll do better, and the president is listening because you know he’s very, very fair and very reasonable,” Lutnick said. “So I think he’s going to work something out with them.”

President Donald Trump’s tariffs against Canada and Mexico went into effect Tuesday. Starting just past midnight, imports from Canada and Mexico are now to be tariffed at 25%, with Canadian energy products subject to 10% import duties.

The 10% tariff that Trump placed on Chinese imports in February was doubled to 20%, and Beijing retaliated Tuesday with tariffs of up to 15% on a wide array of United States farm exports. It also expanded the number of U.S. companies subject to export controls and other restrictions by about two dozen.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country would impose 25% tariffs on $155 billion Canadian ($107 billion U.S.) worth of American goods, starting with tariffs on $30 billion Canadian ($21 billion U.S.) worth of goods immediately and on the remaining amount on American products in three weeks.

Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said Tuesday that Mexico will respond to 25% tariffs imposed by the United States with its own retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods.

The White House would like to see a drop in seizures of fentanyl inside the United States, not just on the northern and southern borders. Administration officials say that seizures of fentanyl last month in everywhere from Louisiana to New Jersey had ties to foreign cartels.

The Treasury Department is announcing today that, with respect to the Corporate Transparency Act, not only will it not enforce any penalties or fines associated with the beneficial ownership information reporting rule under the existing regulatory deadlines, but it will further not enforce any penalties or fines against U.S. citizens or domestic reporting companies or their beneficial owners after the forthcoming rule changes take effect either.

The Treasury Department will further be issuing a proposed rulemaking that will narrow the scope of the rule to foreign reporting companies only. Treasury takes this step in the interest of supporting hard-working American taxpayers and small businesses and ensuring that the rule is appropriately tailored to advance the public interest.

“This is a victory for common sense,” said U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent.  “Today’s action is part of President Trump’s bold agenda to unleash American prosperity by reining in burdensome regulations, in particular for small businesses that are the backbone of the American economy.”