Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will see periods of clouds and sun with a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:22 and sunset is 8:22 for 15 hours of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 87.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1987, an 18-year-old West German pilot Mathias Rust evades Soviet air defenses and lands a private plane in Moscow’s Red Square.
Wisconsin’s leading officials (Gov. Evers, Speaker Vos, and Senate Majority Leader LeMahieu) proposed a plan to spend down the state’s budget surplus only to meet opposition from WISGOP candidate Tom Tiffany, many WisDems legislators, and a few WISGOP backbenchers. That opposition sank the proposal.
An analysis — published after the deal failed — from Wisconsin’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau found that the spend-down would have led to a state budget deficit of $2.9 billion. See Bob Lang, Director, Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Memorandum (May 20, 2026)
Polling from Marquette Law School conducted May 20-21 suggests that most Wisconsinites favored the surplus spend-down:
A new Marquette Law School Poll finds 80% of Wisconsin adults say the legislature should have passed a proposed bill using the projected state budget surplus to reduce property taxes, increase special education funding, and provide rebates to taxpayers. Eleven percent say the legislature should have defeated the bill, and 9% don’t know whether the bill should have passed or not.
See Charles Franklin, Marquette Law School Poll finds 4 out of 5 say Wisconsin legislature should have passed Evers/GOP property tax, rebates, and special education bill, Marquette Law School, May 26, 2026.
What to make of support for a proposal that a reliable projection estimated would lead to a multi-billion dollar budget deficit? Crucially, even when respondents were told that the proposal could produce a future budget deficit, the spend-down still received wide support:
Table 4: Pass budget surplus bill now or wait until next year, by party identification
Among adults
Party ID Pass now or wait Better to delay special education funding, property tax reductions, and rebate checks until next year Better to provide special education funding, property tax reductions, and rebate checks now Don’t know Among all adults 21 69 9 Republican 24 68 8 Independent 22 67 11 Democrat 18 74 9 Marquette Law School Poll, Wisconsin survey, May 20-21, 2026 Question: Some have argued that the bill was fiscally irresponsible for spending a projected surplus now that might lead to a deficit in future budgets. Would it be better to delay providing special education funding, property tax reductions, and rebate checks until next year, or would it be better to provide them now, even if it might affect the budget next year?
(Emphasis added.) Respondents from all major political affiliations favored spending down the surplus today even at the risk of a deficit tomorrow.
That retiring leaders Evers, Vos, and LeMahieu were closer to the popular will than Republican Tiffany and many Democrats in the Legislature should give Tiffany and those Democrats pause.
Perhaps they don’t understand Wisconsinites’ views so well as they thought — something for all of us to consider when assessing the popular mood.
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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.
Watch Scorsese Make a Mean Sandwich in ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ | Anatomy of a Scene:
That’s the case with the character Hugo Durant, who serves up a flat meat fry to Mando (Pedro Pascal) in this scene from “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu.” If the name Hugo sounds as familiar as the sound of the character, that’s because he’s named after the movie “Hugo,” which was directed by Martin Scorsese, who lends his voice to the scene. Narrating the sequence, the “Mandalorian and Grogu” director Jon Favreau discusses how he and his team animated the character to Scorsese’s audio improv.
About that flat meat fry: While it’s a fictional sandwich and is created with computer graphics here, Favreau worked with the chef Roy Choi (who also consulted on Favreau’s food-truck comedy “Chef”) to come up with a recipe for the sandwich. The ingredients include hairy egg, which is actually an Easter egg from the second episode of the first season of “The Mandalorian.” Order up!