The Observatory (https://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/author/pnaidu/)
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin says President Donald Trump’s decision to send military troops the border with Mexico is aimed at keeping out immigrants, not fighting drug smugglers. The Observatory finds this claim Mostly True.
“Our governor cut $1.6B from education … now is putting back $638 million. That’s not progress, it’s an insult,” Mahlon Mitchell, Democratic candidate for governor and president of the state firefighters union, said in a tweet. In examining Mitchell’s claims, the Observatory found it is true that the current budget contains about $638 million more in K-12 spending compared to the previous year. But it is not 100 percent accurate to claim that Walker cut education spending by $1.6 billion in his first two-year budget.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mahlon Mitchell claims that the state spends more on its prison system than on the University of Wisconsin. We find his claim to be true.
Even before he took office in 2011, Gov. Scott Walker rejected $810 million in federal stimulus funding to build a passenger rail route between Madison and Milwaukee. Now, as the state is spending millions to draw more millennials, experts say what these young people want is more trains — and other mass transit.
“Why are we spending $8 million on advertising to persuade people to come back to Wisconsin?” State Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, asked on Jan. 24. We check out her claim that the state will spend $8 million on advertising to persuade people to come back to the state.