Evers’ State of the State Focus: Make 2025 the ‘Year of the Kid’

Republican leaders promptly and insultingly dismiss the governor’s priorities and pledge to pursue more tax cuts and support President Trump’s targeting of immigrants.

Gov. Tony Evers’ annual “State of the State” address on Thursday centered on a message that elected officials can do more to improve the lives of Wisconsin’s kids. In fact, he designated 2025 as “The Year of the Kid.”

Evers wants the Legislature to increase resources for public schools and mental health resources, provide state assistance to make quality childcare more affordable, pass initiatives to reduce gun violence, and just in general work to make family life more affordable.

But Republicans who control the Legislature made clear, yet again, that they have no intention of adopting Evers’ ideas. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos used the GOP response to sharply criticize Wisconsin’s public schools, push for more tax cuts (which in the past the GOP has attempted to weight toward the highest income brackets), and salute President Donald Trump for targeting immigrants for deportation.

Evers said a key factor in keeping kids safe involves reduced access to guns—used in both homicides and suicides. Citing a recent school shooting just six miles from the Capitol as well as the firearm suicide last year of a former legislator, Evers called for universal background checks for gun purchases, restoring a 48-hour waiting period for gun purchases, banning the purchase of “ghost guns,” closing a loophole that allows for domestic abusers to own firearms, and adopting a “red flag” law that would allow judges to take guns away from people determined to be a risk to themselves or others.

Republicans said they would not approve any of those proposals, despite overwhelming bipartisan support for many basic gun safety measures.

Evers called on Republicans to approve $500 million to lower the cost of child care. The bulk of that would go toward funding the Child Care Counts program for the next two years. Without more funding, the program — which was created during the COVID-19 pandemic — is slated to end in June.

Republicans said they would not support that additional funding.

Evers also called for creating new programs designed to set price ceilings for prescription drugs and improve oversight of drug companies, removing the state sales tax on over-the-counter medications and capping the copay on insulin at $35.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.