Gov. Evers signed new two-year budget

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed a new two-year budget in the early morning hours Thursday in a race against Congress to ensure the state gets a federal Medicaid match that it would lose under President Trump’s tax and spending cuts package. In an extraordinarily rapid succession of events, Evers and Republican lawmakers unveiled a compromise budget deal on Tuesday, the Senate passed it Wednesday night and hours later just before 1 a.m. on Thursday the Assembly passed it. Evers signed it in his conference room minutes later. Democrats who voted against the $111 billion spending bill said it didn’t go far enough in meeting their priorities of increasing funding for schools, child care and expanding Medicaid. But Evers, who hasn’t decided on whether he will seek a third term, hailed the compromise as the best deal that could be reached. Wisconsin’s budget would affect nearly every person in the battleground state. Income taxes would be cut for working people and retirees by $1.4 billion, sales taxes would be eliminated on residential electric bills and it would cost more to get a driver’s license, buy license plates and title a vehicle.