David Crowley's 'Number One' Priority Is Destroying Wisconsin's Budget and Raising Taxes

David Crowley put out a list of priorities for his campaign and somehow the $2.1 billion price tag attached to his top one didn't make the cut. That's not an oversight. That's a decision. When you're asking Wisconsin voters to trust you with the state budget, leaving out the part where your signature policy blows a multi-billion-dollar hole in local and school district finances every single year isn't sloppy messaging, it's the messaging.

Act 10 has been law for over a decade now. Whatever you think of how it passed back in 2011, school districts and municipalities have spent years building budgets around it. Repealing it isn't a symbolic gesture, it's a structural change that ripples through property taxes, staffing, and services in every corner of the state. Crowley knows this. His own list of priorities just doesn't mention it, which tells you he'd rather campaign on the applause line than the invoice.

Voters deserve to know what a policy actually costs before they're asked to vote for the person promising it. Two billion dollars a year isn't a rounding error, it's the kind of number that shows up on your property tax bill and in your kid's classroom size. If Crowley believes repealing Act 10 is worth that price, he should say so plainly and let voters weigh it. Burying it instead suggests he already knows how that math would sell.

This is the same old pattern dressed up as reform: promise the benefit, hide the bill, and hope nobody in Madison does the arithmetic before November.