☀️ Good morning!

It’s Sunday, November 9, 2025

🗳️ What did last week’s elections around the country really mean?

💵 It’s truly not complicated. The buzzword is “affordability,” but it’s not solely about inflation. It’s about choices — the ones made in Washington, DC and in Madison that hit us in the wallet and even our stomachs. 

You don’t hear much lately about that “big, beautiful” boondoggle, but voters did take away one lesson that carried over to November: seeing a president and a Congress so eager and willing to transfer wealth from the middle class to the very wealthy in such a brazen way. No money was saved — deficits were actually made worse. It was a transfer. I prefer the word “heist.”

Voters said they’re tired of being told anything that helps them must be “socialism.” It’s not.

Free bus fares aren’t going to cripple New York City; it’s going to make the workforce more reliable. Affordable education in this country isn’t going to break the bank; it’s going to create a new wave of workers, who are also the creators of the future. Free school lunches for every child — how is this even still a debate? And health care for everyone isn’t going to bankrupt America; that’s what will happen if we keep giving massive tax breaks to the upper crust while more hospitals close and medical bankruptcies shoot back up to pre-ObamaCare levels.

We’ve seen time and again that the money is already there to afford these things. It is a choice for politicians not to fund what would give us economic security and a chance at prosperity. Just because Elon Musk came closer this week to becoming the world’s first trillionaire doesn’t mean the system is working. It’s not — and voters are ready to clean house.

As always, we invite you to stay up to date with our social media posts and morning radio show, too.

Have a great day!

⏮️ Last Week: What’s your economic outlook for the next 12 months, just prior to the 2026 midterm elections?

📈 🄰  7% said the economy will be healthier by then. 

↔️ 🄱  9% said the economy will be about the same.

📉 🄲  84% advised buckling your economic seatbelts.

Kurt S. – (A) Mainstream media is negative, negative, negative coverage. This country’s economy is headed in the right direction. It’s also in flux with an AI revolution just starting to evolve.

Nancy B. – (C) More tech jobs are being cut due to AI.  Companies are reorganizing and cutting positions.

Jeanette P. – (A) Personally, it’s not looking good right now, but it has to get better… SOON!

Tim S. – (C) Trump’s tariffs will come home to roost with job-killing inflation.  The federal debt will continue to skyrocket due to revenue reduction and no “trickle down” growth to compensate.  Trickle-down economics is a long debunked farce, yet we continue to punish our economy with it in order to heap vast additional wealth on the already obscenely wealthy class.

⏭️ This Week: Whether or how to legalize marijuana.

Legislators are again debating whether to loosen legal restrictions on marijuana, also known as cannabis. Some say it should be fully legalized and also become a source of revenue for the state. Some would lift restrictions to allow for medicinal use only. The 50 states are all over the board on the legal status of weed. Where should Wisconsin be, in your view?

🟢  A)  Fully legal, including recreational use.

🟡  B)  Only allow low-THC cannabis oil for personal use. (Current WI law)

🏥  C)  Tightly restricted to medical use only.

⛔️  D)  Fully illegal.

To answer this week’s question, hit reply or email me directly at pat@couriernewsroom.com, and we may share it in a future newsletter or on our radio show.

Insisting, wrongly, that prices are coming down around the country, President Donald Trump made a bold statement from the Oval Office about last week’s election results — one reminiscent of past premature presidential proclamations like, “Read my lips, no new taxes” and “Mission Accomplished.”

“I don’t want to hear about the affordability,” Trump ordered.

Voters last Tuesday made sure he heard all about affordability concerns in a slew of races across the country won by Democrats.

“Donald Trump isn’t doing the job the American people elected him to do and they’re furious about it,” said political analyst Joe Zepecki on our radio show.

“Between the tariffs and the fight on health care and taking food assistance away from kids and every crazy thing like tearing down parts of the White House, people have had it,” US Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth) told us Wednesday. 

“People can’t afford things and they don’t understand the chaos in Washington,” said Civic Media’s Todd Allbaugh, a former Republican staffer in the state capitol. “All they know is they can’t put food on their tables, their health premiums are going up, and they can’t find anybody to watch the kids when they go to work. And they’re ticked off.”

It’s not that Republicans are helpless about affordability matters. In Washington, they could end the government shutdown and prevent a massive hike in health insurance rates. And in Madison, Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) pointed us to a list of Democratic bills that could be taken up. 

“We know people are feeling especially squeezed given what’s going on at the federal government and with tariffs,” Neubauer told us.” And so we are working hard every day to address the costs of education, including higher education and career training, housing, groceries, prescription drugs, and health care.”

Democratic legislation includes more state support for schools in order to end a record string of school referendums that increase property taxes. Other bills would raise wages by eliminating some anti-worker legislation signed by former Gov. Scott Walker.

1️⃣  What would Jesus sign? – Rep. Lindee Brill (R-Sheboygan Falls) faced opposition or doubt from fellow Republicans over her bill to ban absentee ballot drop boxes. Brill specifically thanked President Trump “for leading the charge on this.” 

When Rep.Scot Krug (R-Rome) noted that there’s little chance Gov. Tony Evers would sign such a bill, Brill agreed but said as a “follower of Jesus Christ” she believes there’s a chance the governor could have a change of heart — and, she said, “I’m taking this head-on because our Republican president believes this is the direction we should be heading.”

2️⃣  Another backdoor abortion ban – Republicans took time last Wednesday to consider a bill its authors say it would alleviate concerns by women and doctors about procedures that are necessary to save a woman’s life – by removing those procedures, like removal of an ectopic pregnancy, from a new definition of abortion.

The bill’s critics see it as more micromanagement of women’s healthcare and a foot in the legal door to passing a new abortion ban. It would only add to the anxieties of women and physicians who could face legal prosecution if medical care that terminates a pregnancy is needed but not listed in a politician’s bill.

3️⃣  Pushback against billionaires – Our Courier Newsroom colleague at The Keystone in Pennsylvania, Sean Kitchen, joined our post-election program to highlight how voters in his state beat back an effort to unseat three Democratic state Supreme Court justices. The effort was largely the result of one man — a very rich one, Jeffrey Yass – worth an estimated $65 billion thanks to his investments in TikTok. 

Kitchen said Yass was looking to allow state tax dollars to be used for private school vouchers and undo a court ruling that broke up political maps that had been gerrymandered by Republicans. But Yass himself (and his checkbook) was made a focal point of the campaign by groups calling voter attention to his efforts — as was done in Wisconsin in April when another billionaire tried to influence a state Supreme Court race.

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🏁 Thanks for reading our update.

Have a great week!