The Maggie Daun Show LIVE – Friday, October 10th, 2025
From Milwaukee to Marshfield, where passion meets purpose and policy meets people. This is the Maggie Dawn Show. I wouldn’t get on this program without all of you fine folks every day and talk about how to do that through voting and through speaking out. I’m here with you every day. Get ready to challenge the status quo with a fresh perspective on the issues that matter to you. [Applause] What are you doing as an elected official? You have no business in an elected office. Breaking down the complex world of policy and politics with clarity, conviction, and just the right amount of fun. Go Pack Go. Go. Thank you for having me. Lawyer, economist, and fearless advocate for the truth. Here is Maggie Dawn. Welcome everybody and happy Friday. I am Maggie Dawn. You’re listening to the Civic Media Radio Network. I was up a little late last night uh watching the Brewers and the Cubs getting my heart broken, but Hope Springs Eternal, they’ll be facing off in game five of the NLDS tomorrow. First pitch is at about 4:08 p.m. We’re going to have coverage with many of our Brewers affiliates across the Civic Media Radio Network. So, if you live within the signal range of a number of our uh stations, be sure to go ahead and check that out if you are not fortunate enough to be going to that baseball game. Boy, coming right down to the wire. Um, as to politics, we begin this afternoon where I left off yesterday. Somewhat unsurprisingly, I’d say we spent the last 30 minutes of yesterday’s show. And if you missed it, don’t worry. You can always find all of our prior programs at civic media. us/shows and also on Apple Pods and Spotify, wherever you get your podcast from. Uh we spent the last 30 minutes of the show breaking down the sort of litany, the overwhelming fire hose of lies that are being told by both ICE as well as DHS about the facts on the ground relating to protests in cities like Chicago and Portland about Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy, about the fact that it is somewhere in the ballpark of 60 to 70% of those that have been snatched, disappeared if you will, off the streets, have no criminal record at all. And there are innumerable now instances where citizens have been snatched off the streets of American cities. Uh why? Not really sure. Maybe it’s because ICE is just racially profiling since the Supreme Court said that that was just fine to do. It’s a dark time in our country where one, we can’t rely on what the federal government is telling us that they are lying about things as a pretext to ferment mayhem, to ferment unrest, perhaps all to get to the place where Donald Trump can invoke the Insurrection Act, which as we discussed with Professor Josh Braver of W Law School yesterday, is a very vaguely defined act with very vaguely defined find uh facts that have to be proven in order to invoke the insurrection act. But what was interesting about what we were talking about yesterday on the program, again, this litany of lying, um, and what happened late yesterday afternoon, is that basically a federal court judge agreed with my assessment that the representations, the factual allegations, the facts that are being repeated adnauseium by administration officials on any news program that will have them read faux news and other suspiciously biased news outlets. A federal judge agreed with my assessment that they are lying. The federal judge that I’m talking about is US District Court Judge April Perry. She issued a restraining order late yesterday in response to a lawsuit by brought by Illinois Governor JB Pritsker, their attorney general, as well as the mayor of Chicago. That restraining order coming just one day after Donald Trump threatened to imprison in jail both Mayor Johnson, the mayor of Chicago, as well as JB Pritsker for uh I don’t know, disagreeing with the president. But the language that Judge Perry used in yesterday’s hearing, and as of about an hour ago when I was still looking for her written decision, I don’t think it’s been published yet. I’ll likely talk about it more on Monday, but the language that she used in yesterday’s hearing uh was quite remarkable and I wanted to start there today. Um she described the narrative of violence as claimed by uh the Department of Homeland Security as well as ICE as exaggerated and pointant to the use of tear gas and other militarystyle tax tactics against quote mostly peaceful demonstrators. A group that she noted in and around the Chicagoland area never numbered more than a few hundred. Um, she also said this, made this observation that we’ve talked about frequently on this program is that neither the military nor the National Guard are trained in deescalation. uh meaning when you’re confronting folks engaging their first amendment rights as is all of our right here in the United States that if there is tension building up if there looks to be a potential conflict between for example ICE law enforcement or FBI law enforcement from the federal government and protesters the National Guard is not trained to deescalate those situations I mean we heard Pete Hexath just a couple weeks talk about warrior ethos and that they’re all about killing. Well, I don’t want troops that are trained to kill as their primary uh objective, the military or national guard, facing off against folks exercising their First Amendment rights. Judge Perry agreed with me. Now, here’s what’s very interesting. At the center of the administration’s defense against these lawsuits being brought both in Oregon and Illinois is the administration’s claim that there is a quote rebellion. But Judge Perry said this quote I have seen no credible evidence that there is a danger of rebellion in the state of Illinois. End quote. One of the other interesting moments in yesterday’s hearing was the fact that the administration’s lawyer, a guy by the name of Eric Hamilton, described the current scope of the National Guard’s mission in Illinois as quote limited limited to the defending of federal property and federal agents. But when pressed by govern by judge Perry, the administration’s lawyer, attorney Hamilton, would not commit to the mission remaining limited to those functions. This is really important because all along what the administration’s been saying is there’s a rebellion. These people are violent. So first of all, the judge rejects that. Second of all, all along Christy Gnome, Donald Trump, Vice President Vance, Tom Bagman, Homeman, they’ve all been saying, “Listen, we’re just sending the federal guard to protect these federal ICE agents, to allow law enforcement to do their jobs or to protect federal buildings.” But in court, where a lawyer is not supposed to lie, and if they do, they risk their ability to practice law ever again, the administration’s lawyer would not commit to that limited scope, meaning just protecting federal law enforcement or federal buildings. He wouldn’t commit to that when asked by Judge Perry. In response, the judge said, “I am very much struggling to figure out where this would ever stop.” In other words, if you can just make up out of whole cloth that there’s a rebellion when there isn’t, and even if that were true, you say, “Well, the the primary purpose is to protect federal buildings and federal law enforcement, but I won’t commit to that. They may do other things, and I won’t describe them to you.” Yeah. The concern is where is the line? How do you control those troops again that are facing off against American citizens? Thirdly, Judge Perry went even further. She said that she believed that the National Guard’s presence in Illinois would actually make matters worse. I find that allowing the National Guard to deploy at the Broadview Processing Center or anywhere else in Illinois will only add fuel to the fire. And fourth, last but not least, Judge Perry basically came about as close as a judge can to calling the administration a dirty pack of liars as I’ve ever heard a federal judge come. She said that she had doubts about the statements, the facts that were presented by federal officials and their lawyers in court. She said that there was growing evidence that quote DHS’s perceptions of events are simply unreliable. End quote. And that is precisely what I was describing and sharing with each and every one of you yesterday afternoon in the closing of our show. The temporary restraining order order granted by Judge Perry will last for 14 days. the the Trump administration has filed an an appeal. Again, we are waiting release of Judge Perry’s full opinion. Now, what is interesting is that Christy Gnome yesterday in the cabinet meeting basically said that everyone else is the liar. All of these other head law enforcement officers that are from city or state government, that all of them are the liars. And of course, no one in the administration is lying. Take a listen to this. And then I was in Portland, went out and back on Tuesday and met with the governor, met with the mayor, met with the chief of police and the superintendent of the highway patrol. Um, they are all lying and uh disingenuous and dishonest people uh because as soon as you leave the room then they uh make the exact opposite response. So, we’re looking at new facilities to purchase. They’re in Portland, too, and we’re going to double down. And I told them if they didn’t meet our demands for safety and security on the streets and and work with us, then we were going to bring in more federal law enforcement. So, let me get this straight, Secretary Gnome. Everyone else is the liar. The chiefs of police, the mayors, the governors, the heads of the state highway patrol. Again, just as a generic observation, I don’t know law enforcement personnel to be particularly like progressiveleaning folks. What would their incentive be to lie? They don’t have an incentive to lie. The folks that have an incentive to lie are the ones that are trying to blow through all of our constitutional protections and convince the general American public that there is some sort of rebellion, some sort of imminent danger. The only group of people with the incentive to lie here is Christy Gnome, Donald Trump, JD Vance, Steven Miller, Tom the Bagman Homeman, and everyone else working in the administration. And let me be clear, I do not and will not hold individual National Guards members responsible for the lies and pretexts that are being sold to the American people by the folks that run these agencies and who have commandeered control of the National Guard. National Guard’s men and women are really good people, our neighbors and friends that volunteered to help out in disasters and to defend our country against our foreign adversaries, not to face off against citizens exercising their First Amendment right. And what gets even more ironic here is if you turn back your memories to the point in time during the Biden administration when Texas Governor Greg Abbott was deploying Texas Rangers to try to interfere and how the Biden Department of Homeland Security was securing the border in Texas. And Biden was considering federalizing the Texas National Guard. Oh yeah, Christy Gnome and Governor Abbott and everybody else, they thought that was going to be the end of our constitutional republic. She posted on X back in that time. If Joe Biden federalizes the National Guard, that would be a direct attack on states rights. Over the last several years, we’ve seen Democrats trying to take away our freedom of religion, assembly, and speech. We can’t can’t take them. We can’t allow them to take away our right to defend ourselves too. South Dakota defends the Constitution. Except apparently when it’s your guy doing the violation of states rights, our freedoms, and the Constitution. When we come back, I continue the shutdown watch and the impacts on Wisconsin farmers. So don’t go anywhere. I’m Maggie Dawn and you’re listening to the Civic Media Radio Network. [Music] I have that cut of gnome. We just didn’t have time. Yes, I I was looking at the clock, too. I needed to kind of set it up. We may do that. I might take CJ. Who knows what happens. Sounds good. And just Jamie, FYI, I may roll over into the Seab block and we’ll just shorten up Jeremy a little bit. Um, no big deal. I don’t think he’ll mind. And I mean, is the budget are the budgets really all that sexy? Charming. 20 seconds. [Music] Happy Friday everybody. I’m Maggie Dawn. You’re listening to the Civic Media Radio Network. Uh just before the break, I described the fact that uh Christy Gnome has apparently complete amnesia over the fact that she and every other Republican was calling like for bloody murder back when Joe Biden was considering but didn’t federalize the Texas National Guard when Governor Greg Abbott at the time had deployed Texas Rangers to interfere with the federal government’s exclusive right to maintain border security. This is when Greg Abbott put effectively concertino wire in a river and there were in the Rio Grand and people were dying getting caught up in it and drowning. There was effectively a standoff in a state park there. It was a really touchandgo situation. Christy Gnome was just outraged. outrage, I I say, to have Joe Biden federalize the National Guard, quote, in a direct attack on states rights, end quote. But now, no problem. No problemmo. Um, and she actually got on Fox News back then and uh expressed her outrage. Let’s refresh our collective recollections. That stood by Governor Abbott’s side. If you didn’t stand with him in solidarity, I’m not sure I’m not sure Biden wouldn’t have precipitated a real real crisis down there. Yeah, Sean, I went the actual day that that showdown was supposed to happen. Uh people asked me why when I heard the news, I immediately the next day was at the border and it was because of what I heard Democrats encouraging the president to do. They were encourage encouraging President Biden to activate our National Guard soldiers so that they would stand down. he actually was going to take control of our South Dakota National Guard and and actually activate them so that they would not protect America. So recognizing the real threat that was to states rights and how that would be the first time in history a president would pay a soldier to not fight, to not protect our country, uh made me show up in Texas the next day to let Governor Abbott know, I’m here. South Dakota is with you. We will defend our Constitution. We will defend our rights because the last several years we’ve seen Democrats take away our freedom of religion, our freedom of assembly, our freedom of speech. We can’t let them take away our state’s rights, too, especially our right to protect ourselves. Make it make sense, right? This is bananas. Also, she was inverting all kinds of stuff. He wasn’t federalizing either the Texas National Guard or the South Dakota National Guard to not protect Americans. He was considered federalizing them because you had a governor interrupting, interjecting himself, sending armed local law enforcement to what? Uh yeah, make it impossible for ICE agents to do their job, for Customs and Border Patrol to do their job. So that was not okay then, but it’s completely okay now. Even though you do not have what you could have, I think much more legitimately characterized Governor Greg Abbott’s use of the Texas Rangers and local law enforcement as that certainly looked a whole hell of a lot more like a rebellion. And we’ve got a federal judge saying there’s no rebellion. We had an expert yesterday on civil military relations saying it is only when law enforcement has completely lost control of a situation. Think LA riots. We don’t have that here. There’s not an argument that you do. By the way, if you’ve been watching any of the footage of these ICE agents or FBI agents, they certainly don’t look like they’re having any problem taking people down, do they? Seems like that’s working just perfectly fine. So, why is the National Guard there? Let’s just ask Judge Perry that. Uh what did she say? It looks like that the National Guard uh would only add fuel to the fire. H fascinating. And if this wasn’t quite close enough to home um in the Chicagoland area, I want to play for you some sound. This is a WGN producer. This is Chicago’s main uh uh television and radio outlet. Um, she has been taken to the ground in this video. She is being cuffed. She is a news producer. There is absolutely no legal reason to be taking down, cuffing, and arresting or detaining news persons that are covering these protests and these interactions. But listen to this sound. There’s a person videotaping this. She’s on the ground with her hands behind her back, face pressed to the ground, glasses skew, and she’s trying to identify herself so that her uh news outlet can be alerted that she’s being illegally detained by ICE. Take a listen. What’s your name? Debbie Brown. I work for WGN. Let them know. I got you. Yep. Debbie Browning. Brockman. Brockman. WGN. yourself. Do you guys want to share your names, too, or just going to cover your face? What in the hell is going on? I’m sure our good friend CJ uh has an answer. CJ, how are you? Thanks for taking my call, Maggie. And I understand why you don’t like to take my call because you need to tell the whole story that Greg Abbott, the governor, um, was trying to protect the border of Texas. It’s not It’s not It’s not Greg Abbott’s job, CJ. It’s not Greg Abbott’s job. There is a difference between federal law enforcement of obligations, which includes border protection and state. That is states rights. That’s the 10th amendment. Go ahead, sir. My question is not about the merits of Greg Abbott’s position. My question is about the hypocrisy in Christy the My question is about the hypocrisy in Christine Gnome’s position. It wasn’t okay then, but it’s okay now. When you have the president allowing 6,000 per day invited illegal, that is untrue, CJ. And you are dodging the fundamental question. I am asking you why is it why was it not okay for Joe Biden to do that? But it’s perfectly acceptable. Put it in a box. You can try to put it I’ll put you in a box all day long when you won’t engage with me on the issue that faces Americans today. Different standards for Democrats than there is for the MAGA regime. It’s all fine as long as we trade on racist overtones of fear of immigrants and lie about Joe Biden’s record. Super fine. Well, I’m glad we solved that. We’re going to continue the discussion about the impacts of the big brutal bill and Trump’s tariff terrors on farmers on the other side. Don’t go anywhere. This is the Civic Media Radio Network. [Music] Hey CJ, I know you want to talk about Greg Abbott and and Joe Biden. Listen to me. Listen to me CJ. You cannot continue to scream at me on the radio or I’m never going to take your call again. My point to you sir, my point to you if you can listen to me for a second is that I am as a lawyer I will grant please listen to me otherwise I will never take your call again. I want to explain to you why it is important for us to focus on what is happening now. Assume that you are correct about all of that CJ. Assume you were correct about all that. Would you shut up for a second and let me ask you what I’m trying to ask you? Why is it okay to do now what was not okay then as a matter of constitutional law? That’s what I’m trying to get to as a lawyer. Because the president was breaking existing law and the president now isn’t breaking exist existing law. CJ, why do you think CJ CJ? First of all, no court found that during Biden’s administration. Not a single court found that he was breaking the law as it related to immigration. CJ, name me the court case and the decision where a federal court found that Joe Biden was breaking the law as to immigration enforcement. It doesn’t exist. We have now over name the court. Can I name the court case? Yeah, go ahead. Just like it is for the shutdown page 572141 of the Democrat bill. You guys want to let illegals Okay. I can’t even I’m trying CJ with you. I am trying. But I can’t You can’t give me the court. You can’t give me the court case name. Give me the court case name where a federal judge found that Joe Biden was violating the laws as it relates to immigration enforcement in his first administration. You say that it’s the state’s right, then that should have been Abbott’s right to protect his state. He No, CJ, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the federal government versus the state government. Even if Joe Biden was not properly enforcing immigration law, and I’ll grant you that for the purposes of having a discussion, that does not then confer upon a state the right to interfere with the agents that are deployed to enforce immigration law by the federal government. That’s the whole point, CJ. Right. You can think I can think I can think Donald Trump is wrong and you can think that Joe Biden was wrong. But the point here is that it doesn’t matter who was right then or who is right now. The federal government has a role and the state government is constrained. Can I ask you a question? Is ICE enforcing existing law? Yes, but I’m not talking about ICE. I’m talking about National Guard deployments. CJ, tell the listeners that. Maggie, tell your listeners. I would if you would actually have a discussion with me about the topic at hand. I was talking about the National Guard. That is the court case that I’m referring to. That is the sound clip of Christy Gnome. We’re talking about the National Guard. You want to talk about how Joe Biden used ICE agents? It is the same principle then as it is now. And you have a complete and total flip-flop. And the fact of the matter is, CJ, Joe Biden never federalized the National Guard. He never did that. The one that was breaking the law was Oh my god. I can’t I I’m trying I’m trying so hard for people to understand the Constitution needs to apply equally to both parties, regardless of what team you happen to be on. But I’m done for today, folks. If you’re listening on YouTube, you can always watch the show behind the show behind the thing. If you want search for Civic Media on YouTube, uh we’re going to take some calls when we get back. We got about 50 seconds to live air. I thank CJ for trying to uh at least participate a little bit this afternoon. Whoa. And I listen, if any of you have any ideas of how I could get through to him, please uh text line 8557524842. Yay. 20 seconds. 15 seconds. Hope you all got a chuckle if you were watching. [Music] Welcome back everybody. I’m Maggie Don and you are listening to the Civic Media Radio Network. I want to sneak in a couple of calls before we go to my next guest. And yes, I will get to the shutdown and the Trump tariff terror’s impact on Wisconsin farmers. We’re going to talk a little bit about the city and county’s budget and then I will circle back. But I want to give some love to our loyal listeners and callers, including my friend CJ. I hope you have a good weekend, sir. 8557524842 85575 Civic Jeanie from Oclair. Go ahead, ma’am. you have the patience of a saint. I don’t that I don’t know if that’s true. Well, um I you know, in my mind I keep seeing as I watch live of of what’s going on in some of those um states and those areas where there’s protesters. Uh-uh. I’ve seen people getting attacked and handcuffed, shoved to the ground. Well, anyhow, I keep thinking about the mob on January 6th cuz I was watching live and I had three different TVs, different stations. I’m watching this of the people attacking, hanging Mike Pence, beating up police officers, lots of people cuz we’re going to the cap, you know, and it’s like I keep seeing that in my head and I think why in the Sam, you know what didn’t he call in any help? So that’s all I got to say and you have a great weekend. Thank you. Thanks Jeanie. Yeah, it is extremely frustrating the double standards. Richard from Wakau, happy Friday afternoon, sir. What you got for us? Even to you. I have this out of the box thought. You just think about it now. This thing that happened with the president in Israel. Yes. Um was there money behind the scenes somehow? Oh, well funny that you asked that question, Jacob. I know it’s further down in our sound cues for today, but I do believe we have a wee bit of a sound cue about the terrible conflicts of interest that basically taint the entire Trump family when it comes to their dealings in the Middle East. I believe that this is cut 40 to your point. Exactly, Richard. Might as well use the sound now since it’s got queued up so wonderfully by one of our intelligent listeners. Take a listen to this. This is this is uh Andrew Cuomo asking Eric Trump, why is it okay for you to have this stable coin and be doing deals in the Middle East at the same time there’s all these foreign policy things going on and listen to Eric Trump not answer the question at all? My question for you is you know what the climate is. Yeah. Why would you put yourself in a situation where you get involved with crypto and have the UAE as one of your big customers and then they get AI clearance for chips from the US government? You know how that’s going to look. You know what’s going to happen. That can’t be a serious question. I I mean why put your family in the position? That’s all I’m asking. It’s a legitimate question. Chris, I got involved with crypto because I was deplatformed from every bank in the country. Capital One called me in the middle of the night and said, “Congratulations, we’re shutting down 300 of your banking accounts.” All that ensues out of Eric Trump’s mouth is a litany of garbage that I was deplatformed from banks. What are you even talking about? Banks are profit-making entities. They’ll they’ll finance you and take your money. asked Deutsche Bank who financed the entire Trump family corporation for years and decades and decades. Um, by the way, that was of course Chris Cuomo, not the former disgraced sex pest Andrew Cuomo, who’s now running for mayor off ticket, but not Anyways, yeah, that was Chris Cuomo. Uh, folks, let me bring on my next guest. I want to get in to the sexy topic of municipal budgeting and and Jeremy Janine joins me very frequently on this program, president and co-founder of urban milwaukee.com. We’re going to talk a little bit about the city and the county’s budgets. Why does this matter to everyone? If you are in Ashland, Rhinelander, Lacrosse, in the Door Peninsula, it matters because municipalities across this state are finding it harder and harder to balance their budgets and make them work year-over-year. And that’s because despite the improvements made to local government funding in act 12 a couple years ago, our shared revenue formulas in the state of Wisconsin for what the state dames to share with local governments that deliver all the things that are non-political to us, you know, garbage pickup and uh snow removal and public schools and parks. Yeah. Cities, townships, villages, they’re all still struggling. Welcome back to the program, Jeremy. Thanks for your patience as we dealt with some of the today’s news. Thanks for having me. I can’t promise fireworks like you just had. Got to keep it spicy. Uh tell us a little bit about uh where the city and the county’s budget stand in terms of their process and what comes next and then we’ll go through a couple of the highlights of each budget. Sure. So looking at this city and county, they they both essentially align. They both have traditional calendarear budgets and they’re both at the point where the executive branch, the county executive or the mayor have proposed a budget and then the review is underway by the legislative branch, the county board or the common council. I suspect cities across Wisconsin right now are going through a similar thing. Although, as we’ll talk about, the scale of it for those two governments is just on another level. Yeah, it is. It is on another level. Let’s do some of the highlights of what we’re seeing in the city of Milwaukeee’s budget proposal. Sure. And I guess I’ll open with kind of a something that’s consistent across both of them and is a bit of a canary in the coal mine for the rest of the state. A perfect Milwaukee microcosm and that’s in 2023 and it really started in 2024. Act 12, new sales tax for both the city and the county and increased shared revenue. But for both uh entities, they’re now having to make cuts because they have a structural budget deficit again. And the driver of that is inherent in how the state allows municipal finances to work. You’re only allowed to increase your property tax levy, your primary financing source, by a small amount each year, equivalent to the value of new construction, and then a little inflation increase. But as we’ve seen on virtually anytime we go to the grocery store, inflation has been running at more than a small amount. So every single year we have this gap that grows and that issue just continues to compound even with this new revenue source. It avoided a this is the policy forum’s analysis, Wisconsin policy forum. It avoided a dire cliff, but there are still serious problems that will recur year after year after year. And the scale of Milwaukee County and the city of Milwaukee just makes those that much bigger problems. Yeah, it’s it’s fascinating to me the the term of art that gets thrown around that is so important to decode for people is the concept of unfunded mandates. So the the state requiring a municipal or local government to do X Y and Z, provide X, Y, and Z service, but not allocating or appropriating the funding that can make that happen. Um, and certainly when you look at the city and the county, there’s a lot of that that’s going on. And even within act 12 itself, one of the the sort of conditions um that was placed on the city of Milwaukee is both fire and police hiring and maintenance of force levels, those kinds of things, which which I would argue, yeah, we want to be able to have uh more police officers on the street, but to require that in the midst of again these structural deficits keeps putting these incredible pressures on the city’s budget and we’re seeing versions of this again everywhere in the state. Uh Jeremy, give us a couple of the highlights that are specific to the city of Milwaukeee’s budget. Some of the cost-saving measures that are a little bit more controversial. Sure. So, there’s there’s a revenue source that’s controversial and that is the mayor’s trying to increase the wheel tax and the the real controversy is the timing of that. He wants the council to approve that before they approve the rest of the budget. that would allow it to go into effect earlier that would generate another couple hundred thousand dollars. On the exciting side, there’s planning for a new library that’s underway. I think there might be a little bit of friction there under where that new library goes. And I I should clarify, not a new library, but replacing an old library. Yes. So, it’s an efficiency thought. The exciting thing about that project and uh this will apply to people outside of Milwaukee that’ll probably come to this facility is because it’s supposed to be co-located with the central count facility for the Milwaukee Athlet Milwaukee not a athletic commission uh Milwaukee election commission. Uh so that where all the absentee ballots are counted that’ll now be in a city-owned facility. The city recently has otherwise had to spend tens of thousands of dollars every year renting a building to do that because the scale of it’s just gotten so big. And then they’re moving a facility, starting to do that, move a facility out of the Monomony Valley. That’ll free up highly valuable land. It’ll also get a building with deferred maintenance off the city’s hands and possibly provide a development opportunity in the central city somewhere. I it’s it’s an interesting budget. There have been efforts at the county level before act 12 to find these other uh resource resource or revenue sources and you know when you look at a wheel tax just like a sales tax um what you see is that it is regressive in nature meaning it’s not based on income. It does it doesn’t affect people in in in terms of the richer you are the more you pay. It is an acrosstheboard wheel tax which means on a relative basis it takes up a bigger chunk of of a working person’s household income and that can sometimes affect some hardships on folks. Um tell us a little bit of the top lines Jeremy when we’re looking at Milwaukee County’s budget. Milwaukee County seems to actually be they have a smaller budget gap but it’s proving more difficult for them to solve. The city of Milwaukee has a hund00 million structural deficit. Milwaukee County has a $47 million deficit and the city seems poised to solve their budget gap without any real service cuts that are noticeable to anyone. The county on the other hand is proposing to eliminate six bus routes, reduce service elsewhere. Uh Graham Kilmer published an article in Urban Milwaukee today about reductions at the behavioral health services division that there are just a lot of challenges coming for the county that don’t seem as easy to solve as the cities. And when you think about that, um it’s interesting that you mentioned the behavioral health services. Um that is one of those mandated unfunded mandates from the state. Every county in the state is required to provide behavioral health services either on their own in a standup independent uh mental health hospital or in in public private partnerships, which is what we now have in Milwaukee County. So, you’re talking about one of these unfunded mandates mandated services. Um, and it’s interesting, we’ve only seen an explosion in mental health needs um over the last few years, not a decrease in those needs. That’s true across the state. It’s more acute in Milwaukee County simply because of population size. You’re also seeing cuts happening to transit, which is not an unfunded mandated service. But most would argue, including the M7, including uh the the the Greater Milwaukee Metropolitan Association of of Commerce, that having mass transit, having bus lines, and getting people to where jobs are is absolutely essential in order to keep businesses here and to keep Milwaukee uh going as an economic engine. So it’s a perfect microcosm not just for the entire state where municipalities across the state are looking at these things that make life better but are not statutoily required on the one hand and these state mandates for which they don’t get the precise funding that would be necessary to fulfill those mandates in the form of shared revenue. It’s a perfect uh symbol, Jeremy, in my mind of this thing that all of us know that we need, transit, this thing that we know we need and we’re required to provide behavioral health services and the fact that these are the two stones from which the county is trying to get blood, pardon the the metaphor here, to make their budget work. Um Jeremy, large, we got about a minute left. What would you suggest folks from across the state take away from looking at the city and the county’s budget? Know that the Act 12 didn’t solve budget problems and that impacted everywhere from Jainsville to Superior. It injected money into those communities, but it’s going to have a real problem in the future. It might not be next year, might not be the year after, but it’s coming. Folks, that is Jeremy Janine, president and co-founder of urban milwaukee.com. My greetings to Graham Kilmer. Jeremy till Maggie says hello. Check out their fine work at urban milwaukee.com. We’ll continue our budget watch and give you updates from time to time as that process proceeds. When we come back, I’m going to talk about the Trump tariff terrorists impact specifically on Wisconsin farmers. Don’t go anywhere. I’m Maggie Dawn and this is the Civic Media Radio Network. [Music] Thank you, Jeremy. Have a fabulous weekend. You, too. Where did my farmer stuff go? So, uh, Jacob, this will be cut 36 and then 20. Gotcha. Thank you. And then the next half hour we have those pre-taped interviews, right? Yep. It’s just one, but it’s the two segments with Jennifer Sullivan. Yes. Gotcha. All right. 20 seconds. [Music] Welcome back everybody and I want to say special thanks to all of the folks on our text lines participating in our lively discussion this afternoon. Mark from Prairie to Sack, Lori from Hayward, Tom from Manona, Ally in the Northwoods, Cam from Apple, Kurt and Madison, Tyler in Wisconsin Rapids. You all are welcome to participate every day in our program. And remember, right now we have a dedicated phone line and an email for you to tell us about the impacts of the big brutal bill, the shutdown, the tariff terror, the impacts of those things on your family. The dedicated phone line is 855755771. You’ll hear my voice on there uh asking you to share your stories with us. You may end up hearing them on air. If you’d prefer not to do that in a voicemail, you can email us at we matter@civicia. us. That email address is we matter at civic media. us. Because at the base of all of this, it is only if we give and present like the the flesh, the the the the the the real blood and guts, the real world impacts of these things on folks from our own communities that I think we can hope to break through. Um and so I wanted to do a bit of that uh before we hit the top of the hour. And uh at the top of the hour, really excited. I’m joined by an expert on healthcare in this country. Her name is Jennifer Sullivan. She’s with the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. You’re not going to want to miss that interview coming up at 5:00. But I wanted to talk about the impact of the tariff terror, the big brutal bill, all of these things on Wisconsin farmers because the latest egg economy barometer that was published by Purdue University um on October 7th, so just this week, said that farmers nationwide uh they are very concerned their economic condition is weakening um even though they are in a bumper crop year. They’ve got record high corn and soybe soybean yields. My goodness. But they are not going to do uh as well this year. Um and here in Wisconsin, we produce over 60% of the nation’s supply of cranberries. And the United States is the largest supplier of cranberries worldwide. Here in Wisconsin, our cranberry farmers export to the EU, Mexico, Canada, and China. If those countries sound familiar, they are the ones that Donald Trump has slapped some of the highest tariff levels on. Uh and so when we look at our cranberry farmers, they are going to be disastrously impacted by Donald Trump’s taco tariff terror and the fact that he seems to flippity floppity every day. And just yesterday, Donald Trump was busy threatening another massive increase in tariffs on Chinese imports in retaliation for restrictions that China imposed this week on the export of rare earth minerals from China to the US. Um, and it appears that Donald Trump, the great negotiator, is cancelling a meeting with China’s leader Xi Jinping. Um, this is hurting Wisconsin farmers. There no question about it. All of that economic insecurity and the pain that’s impacting farmers is being made worse by the mass deportations. Recall that a recent ICE deployment here in Wisconsin scooped up 24 dairy workers in Manitawok. Most had no criminal records and the deportation of these entire crews was occurring. That hurts farmers. Um here’s what’s interesting. Derek Van Orton was addressing a group of farmers uh and they were expressing these concerns and he said this. I cannot believe that he had the call to say this. We’re trying our best to help you. So, I would just ask that you stay in the business and that God will bless you. Wow. And he then went on to ask farmers to support a bill that he just proposed that would find the farmers for employing uh undocumented workers, require the farmer and or the workers to be deported, and then try to return under a new program. So he basically says, “Good luck to y’all. by the way, will you support this thing where I’ll strip your workers away from you and fine you? Um, and I wanted to share with you this. A farmer was recently interviewed by PBS Wisconsin. This is a dairy farmer and he explained how critical uh migrant workers are to the dairy industry. Take a listen to this. any farm um that uh employs anybody and they have immigrants um any dairy farm at that point we determined uh based on everything that we know that at least 80% and I would guess 90% of the milk harvested every day in Wisconsin is harvested by immigrants. Well, there is no visa available for uh immigrants to get to work on dairy farms. Uh the uh H2A visas for for short-term uh employment 10 months and uh dairy is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. So uh there is no legal way for them to get here according to the directions from the IRS. Uh if if you look at the documents and they appear genuine, you accept them. And that’s what we do. And all of our employees have green cards. If Congress isn’t going to do their work, we still have to milk the cows. We still have to produce the milk. We still have to deliver cattle. And Donald Trump’s solution to all of this is to strip farmers of their ability to make money through this tariff terror and the flip-flopping and then to give them a bailout. But make no mistake, farmers know exactly what is going on. They don’t want a bailout. They just want to sell their crops. This farmer calls that BS out strongly. Listen to this. I have to ask, where do you stand on the White House’s idea of helping farmers with tariff money that is being collected? That’s the most ridiculous thing. Let let me let me explain to you. Okay, your your listeners, excuse me. Those tariffs I’m paying on inputs um just this spring and and and all all of our parts, many of our parts come from uh from other countries. All right. Just this spring, I go to my local John Deere dealer. I need a chain for my for my corn planter. I take it out of the box. John Deere box. Dealt with these people for 40 years. John Deere part number. Turn it over. It says made from China. Okay. I’m thinking, “Wow, that’s odd. I just paid a tariff on that dogone thing.” So, here’s the deal. I’m paying that tariff. We’ll let you hear the rest of that sound at the bottom of this hour. Coming up next, Jennifer Sullivan. We discuss the impact of the healthc care cuts. Stay with us. I knew we were going to run out of time for that one, but we’ll hit it on the other side. Thank you, Jacob. You’re welcome. I’ll see you in half an hour. Yes. Got a little breaky break. They wish to break the entire thing. That is the objective. It isn’t about efficiency. It’s about breaking it. And it’s about breaking it for what end? Now, the Maggie Dawn Show continues. Gerrymandering is bad for everybody from Congress and courts to burgers and baseball. I’m grossly discouraged and I have given up on any justice in our in our system. It doesn’t exist anymore. Once again, here’s lawyer and economist Maggie Dawn. Folks, don’t give up hope. There is always hope. And we’ve got an expert guest with us for the next half hour to talk about the moment of hope that we may find ourselves in. Yes, MAGA controls the presidency and both houses of Congress and well, the Supreme Court, but Democrats are applying pressure to save access to health insurance for some 22 million Americans. So, hope does spring eternal. So excited to be talking with her. Her name is Jennifer Sullivan. She is the director of health coverage access for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Welcome, Jennifer. It’s so important for people to understand what’s at stake in this shutdown. It’s not just about furoughed employees and air traffic controllers. Healthc care access for tens of millions of Americans is on the line. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me today, Maggie. It’s good to be with you. Um, you’re absolutely right. We’ve got health coverage on the line for more than 22 million people who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces or healthcare.gov. of as it’s known um in many states and we can we can get into all the details but I think the important thing to keep in mind is at the beginning is who who gets insurance through the marketplaces. Let’s start there. Yes, this is about people. Um, the marketplaces were created because we had this gap in our health coverage system back in, you know, 2010 when the law was debated, 2009, where if you didn’t get health insurance through your employer, you didn’t have a an affordable option available to you and heaven forbid you had pre-existing conditions and then you couldn’t even buy an overpriced plan on a private market. And what the Affordable Care Act did is say, let’s create a place where people can buy good health insurance, high quality health insurance, even if they don’t have get that through their job. And if people need a little help paying for that because they’re of their income, then let’s provide some help to do that as well. And so we have a marketplace that serves um one in four of the enrolles in the marketplace is a small business owner or um is self-employed. This is a critical safety net for th those folks. It’s also really important for young people, people coming out of high school, people coming out of college that don’t have their foot in the door, don’t have a job that is offering high quality benefits, then they can purchase coverage through the Affordable Care Act. And then you’ve got folks at the higher end who are approaching retirement but aren’t quite there yet. They can enroll in Medicare, but they’re up in years. They probably have increased health care needs. and the marketplace about 23% of marketplace enrolles are in that sort of 55 to 64 bucket. So I just think it’s important to start these conversations about the human side of it. We can talk numbers all day long, but these are people who are working hard. By definition, if you’re in the marketplace, you have an income, you’re trying to make ends meet, and this is how you get your health insurance. Yeah. And this is the thing. If Republicans, if the MAGA regime are not willing to come to the table and address this problem right now, tens of millions of people will likely either be grossly underinsured or not insured at all. And that doesn’t mean that they’re not going to have health care needs. It just means that people will either go bankrupt, be sicker, and or not get the preventative care that they need. And the folks that have emergency situations will still show up in the ERS for those life-threatening conditions. And because they’re under or uninsured entirely, that has a a a a domino impact on those who are fortunate enough to have good quality insurance through their employers, which is the traditional way. Jennifer, I wanted to get into who we’re talking about because when we talk about the the tax credits that help people afford it, um what how does this operate? What what are what are the particular details of the the the refunding or the restoration of these tax credits that help people afford health coverage through the ACA? How does it operate? And and and specifically, what is the credit? And what sort of income ranges are we talking about? Because I I think folks have have mixed ideas about who it is that that that needs this help. Yeah, absolutely. Um so we’ve always had these um we call them premium tax credits. These tax credits that have been available to help to lower people’s monthly premiums if they’re buying health insurance through the marketplace. And the amount of help that you get is based on your income and your household size. And we do a little calculation to figure out what the right amount of help is for somebody um based on how many people are getting covered, how many people in their family, and what’s what their income is. Um the marketplace doesn’t lock somebody into a specific plan. It says we’re going to calculate how much help you get. And then this is America. It’s called a marketplace after all. You take that credit and you can apply that to whatever plan you want on the marketplace. somebody thinks they don’t have a lot of needs, they can go for a less expensive plan. Somebody knows that they have a lot coming up this year or just have expensive prescription drugs, maybe they want something that is going to offer more benefits. So, there’s a lot of choice. Um, but at the end of the day, what we have had happen over the last few years and what’s at the center of this debate is that we made those credits more generous in 2021, marketkedly more generous, including um allowing people with very low incomes below 150% of the federal poverty level to get a a silver level what we call it a benchmark plan for um without having to pay a premium. So the tax credit would cover the whole cost and does cover the whole cost of the premium for those folks. It’s particularly important in states that haven’t expanded Medicaid because you have folks it doesn’t fill the entire coverage gap like we call it, but it does it does allow people with income right around the poverty level to have an affordable option and a way to get health insurance that otherwise wouldn’t exist. It also the enhancements also made coverage or made the tax credit available to people with income over four times the federal poverty level that had been the hard cuto off before 2021, but only if your premiums exceeded 8.5% of your income. So, we’re talking, you know, $600 a month for for a a um two two person family. So, it’s it’s a high bar to get any assistance at all at that over 400% level, but it helps smooth what is otherwise a cliff where if I make, you know, $50 more this year, then all of a sudden I can’t get any help at all. So, those are two really important kind of bookends in how this credit this this enhancement was structured. But everybody in the middle is getting more help right now, too. And if that help goes away, then you’re going to have millions of people who will say, “I I simply can’t afford it. I’m going to go uninsured because this is this is not something that fits in my budget. It it’s shocking to me some of the estimates, you know, say a a married couple uh around the age of 60 making $80,000 a year. They’re looking at premiums going from somewhere in the ballpark 5 6 7 $8,000 to 22 to 24 plus,000 a year. That is simply not doable on a household income of 80,000. No one can pay 25% of their income for health insurance. Um we’ve been hearing from listeners that um for the first time have to access health insurance through the marketplace who have uh chronic disease or have very highcost prescription drug needs and they are petrified of what’s going to happen. I have yet to hear, Jennifer, any response other than we’ll talk about that later from MAGA representatives in the halls of Congress or in the White House, especially from the president. Has have you are you aware of any plan to address this uh soon to occur? I mean, we’re talking about November 1st when the exchanges open. Have you heard anything from uh Maggas about their proposed solution when tens of millions of people wake up and realize they can’t afford anything uh close to the health insurance that they were able to afford previously, right? You know, it’s Congress. They can always come up with a reason to kick the can. I talk about it as thinking about these tax credits as in their expiration as a house on fire. Yes, you could wait. You can wait to put Sure, you don’t have to put the house out right now. Let it burn, but the damage will be greater the longer that you wait. And in fact, people are starting to see their premiums right now. We have a handful of states where they run their own marketplace. So, not healthcare.gov. And they have started to post their premiums for 2026. So people can look there and get a side by side and start to see, oh my goodness, hundreds of dollars more a month, thousands of dollars a month in some cases. Um, and when people get that kind of sticker shock, they their reaction is typically not, well, Congress will probably fix this. I’m just going to I’ll come back in a few months. This will probably be better in January. Um, people are going to get scared. And the more people that start to see this, the fewer people are going to wait around or expect that things are going to get better. they’re going to decide this is not for them. And getting people to to come to the marketplace full stop is an effort that happens every year, a big outreach effort. And getting people to come back again and sort of convince them that we fixed this thing that was very scary that you saw a few months ago or a few weeks ago is going to be a gargantuan task. And that’s why the expectation is that if we push this down the down the road, even more people, 1.5 million more people will become uninsured if this doesn’t get acted on until the end of December. That was a Congressional Budget Office number from a little while back. Yep. Folks, we’re talking with Jennifer Sullivan. She’s the director of health coverage access for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. You can find some of their most recent analysis by going to their website. Um, and we’ll put the the link to their most recent study in our show notes for today. Folks, here’s one tidbit that I wanted to pick up on here, Jennifer. It is completely absurd for MAGAs in congressional leadership to talk about, well, we’ll have this discussion after the government reopens. one because as we just talked about those exchanges open for the states that don’t run their own exchanges on November 1st and guess what folks the exchanges open only open for a limited window of time. So, if we can’t fix this, at least before the first or during the the window of time that the ACA exchanges are open in the vast majority of states, people won’t be uninsured for an entire year’s worth of time, which means people will get sicker and freaking die. I just wanted to check my analysis on that. Like, this isn’t, oh, well, we’ll fix it and then everybody can can access the exchange. That exchange is open for a very short window of time. November, December, which by the way, the big brutal bill made a shorter window of time. Um, so this isn’t it it’s it’s a lie to say we can just deal with this later. The only time to deal with this is right now. That’s absolutely right. Um, the credits, the enhancements to the credits expire at the end of December. Open enrollment ends on January 15th. Um, I’d want to make a quick point, which is that more than half of enrolles don’t actively come back every year and look at the website. They sit hit the set it and forget it button like most of us do to make our lives easier. More than half of people aren’t going to find out what their premiums are until they get a notice in the mail the last two weeks in December when there’s a little bit going on for most of us. Then they come they they get sticker shock and they have two weeks to take action before they are locked out of coverage for the year if it’s not affordable for them. And that will be a disaster for again tens of millions of Americans, folks sicker, folks that will die because Republicans don’t want to have a good faith conversation about this problem right now, which is when we need to deal with it. I want to talk about uh when we come back, we’re going to have to take care of a couple of of short messages here before we come back. But on the other side, I want to get to these two concepts with our special guest this this half hour. The first is dwindling insurers willing to provide coverage through the exchanges and what that means long term for premiums. Hint, they’re going to go up more. And secondly, is this a a not so subtle effort to crash the entire ACA? They couldn’t legislate it away, so they’re going to kill it by making it unsustainable. We’re going to discuss that next here on the Maggie Dawn Show on the Civic Media Radio Network. Stay with us, folks. [Music] [Music] Things are not going to be all right. They’re going to be very messed up if Republicans and MAGAS in Congress are not willing to have a good faith conversation about the the cliff that we are hurdling ourselves towards as a country when it comes to healthc care accessibility and I mean affordable highquality health insurance. Um we’ve got a special guest with us this half hour. She is Jennifer Sullivan the director of health coverage access for the center on budget and policy priorities. You can find out more about the uh the center and their work specifically on the ACA and health insurance premiums for folks that access their health insurance through the ACA exchanges by going to cbpp.org. Right before the break, uh, Jenny, we talked a bit about and I was queuing up the fact that it it, for example, in the state of Wisconsin, we have had for a long time a nonprofit health insurance carrier that provided insurance to folks through the ACA that was participating in the ACA. It’s called Common Ground. There are a few other nonprofit health insurance carriers. These health insurance carriers are dropping out of the exchanges because the risk pool of folks that will access health insurance at these extraordinarily increased premiums because of the big brutal bill. When something gets much more expensive, those that think they can go without health insurance aren’t going to ensure. which makes the folks that are still going to try to figure out a way to get health insurance the folks that will have greater needs, meaning it’s more risky. So, the nonprofits that didn’t uh uh register to raise their prices at the 30 plus percentage level, which is what we saw here in Wisconsin for the for-profit health insurance carriers, they’re dropping out of the exchanges. So, I wanted to talk a little bit about what’s going on there and the fact that the fewer carriers we’re seeing in the ACA willing to provide insurance through the ACA exchanges makes the ACA frankly more vulnerable and over time, not just in this next insurance period, will make it more likely that folks will continue to see higher and higher premiums because again, these are for-profit companies, not the nonprofit health insurance carriers. Am I getting that right? Yeah, absolutely, Maggie. It’s insurers don’t exist out of the goodness of their heart. They are businesses and they have to um make business decisions and when it looks like a whole lot of customers are going to go away and aren’t going to be paying premiums, they make decisions based on that information. And what we saw with rate filings over the summer at spring summer heading into this year for next year um was insurers obviously jacking up rates enormously more than we’ve seen um in in many many years. They have to explain what they’re doing when they do that. They have to have a justification. So we can read these justification statements and they’re reacting to medical inflation. They’re reacting to tariffs and they’re reacting to changes in regulations and in the law that are going to reduce the number of people who get coverage through the marketplace. And so it’s it’s a chicken and egg, but they react to that news and say then we have to increase increase our rates so that we can continue to have enough money coming in our doors to provide coverage. And at the same time um they know that or pe people will see those higher rates and be less likely to keep coverage. So, it’s it’s a really um it’s sort of an obvious thing when you think about spreading risk, right? There’s only so many people in the marketplace. You reduce the number of people. The people that are left have to pay more and the people that are left tend to be people with higher health care needs. And so, this process repeats from one year to the next where you see premiums continue to go um go up and up. And that folks is why you saw in the original version of the ACA the the mandated coverage because everyone was in it would keep cost down because the risk there would be just a lower overall level of risk when everyone is getting health insurance. Um this leads me to to what I think is actually going on. While many Republicans I don’t think have a grasp of the facts, right? They they I think they’re being lied to by leadership. We saw Marjorie Taylor Green jumping ship this week and saying, “Oh, wait. We actually need to do something about this.” I I’ve never agreed with her. Finally, wow, okay, a blind squirrel does find a nut every once in a while. My theory has always been that the the nerds, the wonks in the MAGA regime from the Heritage Foundation, the folks that authored Project 2025, their objective has always been to to create death by a thousand cuts of the ACA. You get rid of the mandate. There’s now this this retracting, this pulling back, this defunding of these premium credits. This again increases risk levels, makes it all much more expensive. This has this cycling impact, this domino impact, this pernicious circle that you just described. Do you perceive, does your organization perceive that the ultimate aim here may be to break the ACA. They couldn’t legislate it, but if they can make it collapse, they still get to where they wanted to go. We we are seeing that play out. We’re seeing that play out in what’s in the reg the the regulation and the the law on the marketplace. We’re seeing it play out in what’s to come for Medicaid. The worst has not started in that place, but it is certainly coming and it’s coming for rural hospitals. We’ve already started to see some of that impact. And what I will say is in this moment as the government is shut down and this issue of premium tax credit enhancements is at the center. This is a policy choice and premiums can go up and they do and the marketplace always sort of we knew that when we designed it. Creating the premium tax credit the way we did helped insulate people from that and we are right now if the enhancements aren’t continued we are choosing to take away that shield and expose people to all of this. So we have a policy solution. This isn’t an unsolvable problem. It is a choice. It is a choice. A choice that Republicans and MAGAS are making every day to not negotiate in good faith and to not tell the American public and Wisconsinites the truth. And make no mistakes folk f make no mistake folks. The uh congre congressional delegation from the state of Wisconsin Brian Style, Derek Van Orton, Scott Fitzgerald, Glenn Growthman, Tom Tiffany, and Tony Weed combined have let’s see here, I’m doing some math uh on the air have about 80,000 of the 96,000 Wisconsinites that have insurance at risk because of the big brutal bill that every single one of them signed on to. If you live in their congressional districts and you get a shock near the holiday time because your ACA premium is now unaffordable, unaffordable, you know who to thank. The MAGAs in the Wisconsin congressional delegation and the one in the White House. Thank you so much to Jennifer from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Stick around folks. Ask Maggie up next right here on the Civic Media Radio Network. Hey, Jacob. Hello. Hi Jamie. Can you hear me? There we go. I can. Great. You sound good. Just making sure. So Maggie, were we going to do a little different order this time? Yeah, I’m going to um finish the farmer thing. Jacob, we’re going to play cut 20 in its entirety so folks can hear it and then we’ll be off to the Ask Maggie races. Okay, sounds good. Thank you, sir. [Music] The first thing I remember is that facts matter. The truth matters. Um, welcome back everybody. I’m Maggie Dawn. Big thanks to our last guest, Jennifer Sullivan from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities for being with us this Friday afternoon. We’re going to get to Ask Maggie in just one second. Uh, but I wanted to get We had a couple of callers, Kathy from Cambridge and Dale from Wasa. I want to take them in just a second. Dale, hang on there. Kathy, if you’re still listening, I do want to catch get your call in if we can. I wanted to just finish right before the top of the hour. I had played some sound from a farmer uh who was asked a question about Trump’s promised bailout of farmers. Um and listen, the economic analysis is pretty simple here. The tariffs are basically robbing from farmers. It makes all of their operating costs much more expensive. It is also hurting their business because they can’t export their products. So literally Donald Trump is sticking his hand into family farmers pockets and robbing them. And he’s going to make up for it by what? a bailout. A and just so you know what’s happened in the last half an hour more or less is that Donald Trump waited for the stock market to close and then announced a 100% tariff on China over and above any tariff that they are currently paying. Um wow. So, the markets are completely freaking out. Even before that um announcement just off of his indication that he might do more tariffs, the NASDAQ was down 3.6%. The Dow Industrials down about 2 and a half two 2.8%. This is not good. And again, all of that before he said he’s going to put another 100% tariff on top of the already like 30 plus% tariffs. This is going to kill farmers. So, I wanted to play this sound of a farmer addressing the fact that literally Donald Trump is robbing them blind and then saying, “That’s fine because I’m going to give you a bailout.” Take a listen to this farmer addressing that point. I have to ask, where do you stand on the White House’s idea of helping farmers with tariff money that is being collected? That’s the most ridiculous thing. Let me let me explain to you. Okay, your listeners, excuse me. Those tariffs I’m paying on inputs. Um, just this spring and and and all all of our parts, many of our parts come from uh from other countries. All right. Just this spring, I go to my local John Deere dealer. I need a chain for my for my corn planter. I take it out of the box, John Deere box. Dealt with these people for 40 years. John Deere part number. Turn it over. It says made from China. Okay. I’m thinking, “Wow, that’s odd. I just paid a tariff on that dog one thing.” So, here’s the deal. I’m paying that tariff because my importer John Deere paid it. They paid it directly to the Treasury. Now, the the president of the United States is going to take my money and give it back to me and call it and call it a bailout. That’s that’s just comical. And I tell you what, this administration has got agriculture has got farmers exactly where they want them. and that is in need of what only Trump can deliver and that’s a bailout. What a terrible place for for agriculture to be. Farmers are independent. They are independent businessmen and women and they want to live off the land. They’re creating income off the land for their communities and President Trump has them right where he wants them in a place of need. Absolutely ridiculous. Banga Agelori, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, described it this way. It’s like robbing Peter to pay Peter. Terrible. And I wanted to make this point uh additionally, this has not been reported in any mainstream press that I have been able to find. The Labor Department in a federal filing uncovered by the American Prospect has said that we are about to face a food system emergency due to the mass deportation program. Again, this was in a federal filing uncovered by the American Prospect. The Trump Labor Department wrote this. There is quote significant risk of supply shock induced food shortages. The department does not believe American workers currently unemployed or marginally employed will make themselves readily available in sufficient numbers to replace large number of aliens. Oh, great. So, yeah, that inflation and and maybe food shortages, I’m sure that’ll bring grocery prices down. Dale from Wasaw, thanks for your patience, sir. Go. Right ahead. Yeah. Uh Maggie, uh one thing I w wanted to ask is, uh Mike Johnson is refusing to confirm a newly elected House of Representatives woman. I believe it’s from Arizona, and I’m wondering what can be done to force him to confirm her. It’s a great question, and the answer is nothing. Um to be clear, and we played sound of this earlier in the week, um Mike Johnson confirmed Republican newly elected Congress people during a pro- former session. Uh a Democratic representative moved to have that done in in the House’s last uh pro-form session. He refused to do so. And Mike Johnson continues to keep the House out of full session while there is a shutdown. Make any of this make sense? I certainly cannot. very briefly, Cam, because we want to get to ask Maggie what you got for us, Cam from Apple. Hey, thanks. I’m just so tired of people blaming everyone but themselves when it comes to uh politics. The uh the thing that you just read right there didn’t even take blame on the government’s behalf. It took blame and said, you know who has it? It’s the US uh people that are not going to work quick enough. Yeah. Yeah. It it’s this is this is the rooster is coming home to roost. Um and again, you’re seeing this in in federal filings that the the administration admits in in some places and in courtrooms uh about what’s actually going on, but then they get on national news programs and lie about it. Um folks, we’re going to put a pin in this. Do not worry, we’ll be back next week. We’ll continue the shutdown uh lookout and updates for everyone, but we do want to get a little bit of lightness in here on Friday afternoon to send you all into the weekend. Thank you, Kathy from Cambridge. We didn’t get to your call. Tyler from Wisconsin Rapids, of course, Dale from Wasa. And just as a postcript, folks, I did send our good friend CJ some of my sources for the information that I’ve been providing. Asked him to provide a link to whatever he was referring to. We have yet to get that. But we also tried to diligence CJ’s claim that there was a court that concluded that Joe Biden violated immigration laws. We’ve been able to find none during the pendency of our program. I’ll continue to look for that. But Jamie, man, I’ll take a fact check from a listener. I I’ll look at anything, right? Full and full and complete information. That’s what we’re trying to do here. We’re always transparent here. And who’s surprised that we haven’t heard back? Crickets. H very quiet on a Friday. But folks, that that that’s smooth those smooth delta tones. That is Jamie Martinson, my senior producer here. She helps cobble together your questions for me. Remember, you can send those in all week to ask Maggie at civic media. us, and you can always shoot them in via the text line at 8557524842. We got a a bit of an abbreviated version this Friday. We do. We do. And that’s that’s great because uh I want to start out uh with a comment actually that we got from Lynn in Milwaukee and Lynn is actually listening on our brand new W AUK 100.3. So thank you for that Lynn. We’re very excited about that. Friends, we’ve now got the powerful FM 100.3 all 100.3 all across southeastern Wisconsin. So so excited to have that added to the civic lineup. Uh, but she she says this. She was listening to what she says was our last guest, Jennifer Sullivan from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. And Lynn says, “I’m really concerned about the ACA price increase. Both my parents and grown adult children, young adult children, I should add, use the ACA. I just don’t know how anyone is going to survive this.” Sorry. She says this isn’t really a question. It’s just a worried observation. And, you know, I’ll be honest. uh you know going through a process with my mom herself who is on Medicare. Uh we’re already starting to see some of the ramifications of what’s going to happen. Medicine that she needs to keep her heart healthy. Um she has congestive heart heart failure. We’re now looking at potentially $1600 a month when those were basically just a small co-ay before. And you know, I also have a young adult son, uh, graduated from college, still trying to make his way and figure out a job because if you haven’t noticed, there’s not a lot of those to be had. So, it’s very hard for college graduates and really anybody who’s job hunting right now. He’s also using the ACA. And this is a conversation that we just had over the weekend because right now that is his main source of insurance and uh we’re trying to navigate that. So, Lynn, thank you for the comment. Uh, I I think a lot of us are kind of in the same boat and hoping somebody does the right thing. I don’t know if that’s possible though at this stage of the game. Your take, Maggie? Yeah, I I’ve been having a lot of these these conversations with folks. Um, I had one last night. People know what I do for a living that I care about this stuff. And I’ll talk to anybody anywhere from any political persuasion about this. And I had a friend of mine, her name’s Danielle. I was catching a beer watching that disappointing Cubs Brewers game and Danielle was asking me about the ACA tax credits and she said, “Maggie, I’ve heard people say that the big brutal bill is cutting Medicare and Medicaid and I’m 68 years old. Do I need to like what’s I’m I rely on Medicare. What’s going to happen to me?” Mhm. And all I could say was I I think you’ll probably be okay because you’re at that older tier, but I have no idea. I have no idea what’s going to happen. We know that people are going to be pushed off of Medicaid and Medicare. Um we know that there’s going to be basically more paperwork requirements. Um, and we know that Donald Trump and the MAGAs in Washington DC were very cy in how they did the big brutal bill. It’s not those impacts aren’t all going to come online January 1st. These ACA tax credits, that’s the most immediate thing that’s happening, right? In addition to thousands of tons of food rotting in warehouses because Donald Trump cut the portion of chips that allowed local farmers to sell their food to food pantries to help people get get fed. Setting that aside, what they did with the Medicare and Medicaid cuts is that most of those aren’t going to start to have any impact until we start trickling to 2026, 2030, 2028 and beyond. So, what they’re doing is they’re trying to distance themselves from the impacts, which begs a question, if you were so gosh darn proud of what you’ve got going on. Wouldn’t you have the impacts take that that would happen immediately? You’d be like, “Hey, as of January 1st, 2026, this is what we’re going to do.” No, no, no, no, no. They want that spread out so that they can disclaim responsibility and blame Democrats for it. Um, just like Donald Trump has taken credit for the Biden infrastructure bill, uh, the Biden chips act, different sorts of chip, the chips act about building our nation’s uh, technology uh, uh, arm. So, again, same old same old. If it has president in front of it, apparently it’s just a free-for-all. Everybody’s responsible for it, right? I mean, that’s kind of what this administration feels like. And and yeah, it’s sad. Now, I know we’re running out of time and Terry Bar is going to be joining us in just a moment to hopefully uplift us on a Friday, so I do have to get to this one really quickly. This comes to us from uh Tony who is in Piwaukee, and he says, “Our brewers need some good luck.” Yes, they do. Uh, any superstitious traditions to get them over the hump, Maggie? Anything that you can leave us with today? Oh, I I don’t know if you got a pair of socks from the last time they chocked up the win this past Tuesday that you haven’t washed, maybe put those stanky socks on. Uh baseball is rife with those superstitions, folks. So, I go with the stinky socks. Whoever you watch the Tuesday game with, watch watch the game tonight with those folks. And uh good luck to the Brewers. Thank you so much, Jamie, for this quicker version of Ask Maggie. We got Terry Bar coming up next with what’s good, local, and overlooked in Wisconsin to send you off on a positive note for your weekend. Stay tuned, folks. This is the Civic Media Radio Network. [Music] [Music] Hey, Terry. Hey. How are you? I’m good. How are you? Good. I’m doing well. Finally, Friday. Yes. God. Hey, did you go to the game on Monday? I was there. Was it Monday or was it Tuesday? Monday night. It Yes, I was there on Monday. It all runs together these days. Oh, these games are so late. I know. Oh my gosh. I feel like an old woman, man. Yes. Ex. Well, I I And the game on Monday took a long time. those uh commercial breaks with the whatever the MLB. Holy smokes. I know. It’s ridiculous. I got some pocket pancakes on Monday, though. Hey, that’s amazing. I love that. Yeah, I went with a bunch of friends. My husband was there working. Um so I couldn’t go with him, but a bunch of friends went and they asked me to come along, which was really nice. Oh, that’s great. And you went with your dad, didn’t you? Yes, I did. my heart. I love that. It was It was good fun. It was good fun. All righty. We got uh let’s see uh about a minute and a half before we’re live. Okay. And I did send in some audio. Oh, great. I’m sure Jacob’s got it. I’ve got it. Super. Thank you. Oh, careful. Live in 20 There’s something good. [Music] Welcome everybody. We are in the last segment of this week and it is my favorite because it’s positivity that we all need. Um, and I’m always joined by my good friend and colleague here at Civic Media, Terry Bar, for a little bit of what’s good, local, and overlooked in Wisconsin. Welcome, Terry. Hello, Maggie. And hello to all. I have my flag or my towel, I guess I should say, from the Brewers win on Monday night. Monday with Jamie, but it was Monday. All these days are just running together. Well, the games have been late and I think we’re all tired. Yes, absolutely. But let me tell you this, there is going to be something new for all of us to cheer for next year. The first and only women’s professional soccer team is coming to Wisconsin and they’re going to kick off in Madison next May. This is so exciting. Now, I talked with team owner Connor Colloya, and uh he’s also a partner in the men’s professional team already in Madison, and here’s kind of how he explains this good news for us. Since we launched the men’s side forward in 2019, we knew when we launched that team, we wanted to bring women’s soccer here. And uh over the last 10, 15 years of pro soccer and soccer uh at the spectator level in the US has really evolved quickly. You know, if you look back 15 years ago, there’s maybe 40 50 pro teams in the US. Now there’s about 150 on the men’s side. Uh there’s 23 women’s pro teams, and that’s quickly growing. So, we’ve wanted to do this for a long time. The game continues to evolve. We didn’t want to be on the sidelines any longer and really excited to have women’s soccer here. We’ll launch with a pre-professional team next May and play at Breeze. And then I think as the women’s game continues to grow, we hope to grow with it. Best soccer in the world on the women’s side is played here in the US. That’s why we’re so excited to get on the women’s women’s side. Mhm. Ah, so exciting. Isn’t this wonderful? Now, get this. Connor says 20,000 kids right now play soccer in just the southern part of Wisconsin. But they also are finding that a lot of kids get left behind because it can be an expensive sport to play. There’s travel involved even at a young age. So, here’s something that they are going to do as part of the women’s program. They are starting a foundation. And when the women kick off next spring, this foundation is going to give away $90,000 worth of scholarship money to get more kids and give them, you know, the ability to be able to play soccer. That’s amazing. Isn’t that one? I mean, this is good news. And you know, I also want to reference something that Connor talks about. They don’t have enough coaches. Of course, they don’t have enough referees that actually know the game of soccer. So, that’s step they’re going to take and they’re going to be doing this across the entire state. I love this so much and happy to share this news with you, Maggie. Absolutely. I you know there in sport right there are all sorts of access limitations for kids that don’t come from families that can afford frankly just even baseline equipment um the the fees to play on these teams and it is so different than when you and I grew up Terry right like it used to be you could join a wreck league there’d be a a a a team that you could join. Very cheap. Those still exist. But for kids that are especially talented or have particular interests like these traveling teams, you got to buy like three different uniform sets and all the different colors. It’s thousands and thousands of dollars to get your kid all over the place. And we haven’t even talked about the one-on-one specialized coaching and the clinics and the camps. It’s so expensive. Yeah. And one thing Connor mentions too, just because you can afford to send your kid, make sure it’s something your kid wants to do, especially when there might be all these other children that want to play and can’t afford to. But now, if there’s going to be scholarship money out there for some of these kids, there needs to be room on a team for them to play as well. Yeah, that’s that’s a big deal. I was very lucky when I was growing up in that I I did enjoy sports. I played a lot of different sports. Um, but legitimately my parents were were very handsoff about the whole thing. It was kind of like, well, if you want to do that and you enjoy it, like that’s great and if you don’t, you know, that’s all right, too. And for folks that might be around my age from the Milwaukee Land area, like my great claim to fame in my hoops career was the fact that the very famous uh former coach of the Lady Popes, the PIXi pious the 11th high school, Joel Classen, one of the winningest coaches in all of high school basketball history, men’s or women’s. Wow. try thought about or approached me to come play with PAS when I was coming out of 8th grade. Wow. And I think most parents today would have been like, “Yeah, you’re going into that program.” And my folks were like, “Well, do you want to even go to high school at P? Like, is you want to play basketball basically all year round and that’s the only thing you do?” And the answer for me was no. I I didn’t really want to make that the only sport I ever played. And as it turned out for me, by the time I was a senior in high school, I had decided I needed to step back from basketball, that I needed a break between sports seasons, and I decided to go fullbore into theater. And to this day, um I’m so so thankful that my parents didn’t apply that pressure on me to like be the best that you can be in the sport and you got to do. It was such such a a relief for me. And as it turned out, I was able to find my other sport love that I had never played until I got to college, which was rugby. And we ended up winning a national championship in in women’s rugby. Yes. Uh May 5th, 1997, uh Marquette women won a national championship in the next day, I have to tell you this part. We flew home that day from Pennsylvania. We were playing at Penn State. came home. My dad gave me a a couple of a couple of Ben Franklin said, “Go have fun.” And I had an accounting final exam the next morning. And my dad said to me, “Maggie, just guess C.” Thank you so much, Terry Bar. Have a blessed and safe and happy weekend. Same to each and every one of you. Go Crew. Thanks for the folks on Facebook saying yes and YouTube saying the crew’s got it. Remember, I’ll stand up for you. I hope you stand up for me. But it’s always better when we stand together for the Milwaukee Brewers.
Commentary and analysis you will not find anywhere else. Listen to the Maggie Daun Show across Civic Media, weekdays from 4:00-6:00 PM! Join Maggie via call or text at 855-75-CIVIC, or 855-752-4842.
