We are listening to our readers and our community; tell us what you think
To your gut, your heart, your parents and, especially, your community.
In our newsroom, we talk often about two imperatives: Be connected and be essential.
Listening is a key element of both.
That's why we recently had a team at the first-ever Milwaukee Intertribal Circle Spring Powwow and you will find us at Milwaukee's Juneteenth Day celebration on June 19.
If you spot us — just north of Burleigh Street, on the east side of Martin Luther King Drive — we hope you'll stop by for a chance to meet some of our journalists, share your thoughts on our coverage and even snap a selfie.
There are many other ways to engage with us as well, as we work to create an ongoing conversation with our community.
We offer regular chances to get your questions about the Packers, Bucks, Brewers, state politics and more answered through our regular 'mailbag' features.
You can vote in our weekly polls for Athlete of the Week and Student of the Week, as well as polls we spin up around stories in the news, such as new rules on wake boats and whether the new drone show is the answer to Milwaukee's defunct July 3 fireworks show at the lakefront.
Those polls are typically handled by our Ideas Lab team, which has dramatically increased the number of of opinion pieces and letters to the editor we are publishing, in print and online. You can fill out a form or send submissions to jsedit@jrn.com.
Sidenote: If you send me an email complaining you don't agree with the letters you see, my response will be to ask if you have submitted one yourself.
Meanwhile, our investigative team has been holding training sessions on how to use open records laws, a tool that we use regularly but is available to all to get access to government information. (If you would like reporters to join your neighborhood meeting to talk public records, let us know – you can email Ashley Luthern, our deputy investigations editor, at ashley.luthern@jrn.com.)
And our Public Investigator team is busy chasing down your tips, from helping a kidney donor get paid leave from the U.S. Postal Service, to getting a dying man his disability benefits from Social Security to exploring why patrons of a Bay View restaurant kept getting parking tickets.
Reach them at: watchdog@journalsentinel.com or call 414-319-9061. You can also submit tips at jsonline.com/tips.
On a recent day, we had a group from the Milwaukee High School of the Arts visit us to learn about journalism – one of many to visit us during the academic year.
Meanwhile, we've worked with students from Elmbrook and Wauwatosa high schools through their LAUNCH program, which gives students real-world problems to solve.
And you may see us out and about as volunteers, from sorting food at Feeding America to picking up trash at a park as part of the Milwaukee Riverkeeper cleanup.
In short, we are listening consistently and listening relentlessly.
I can assure you of this: We're also listening sincerely.
In return, we only ask one thing of you – share your views in a thoughtful way. It is easy to blast off an email that says: 'You're biased' or 'You're racist' or 'Your website sucks.' It is far more helpful to provide specific examples of problematic headlines, or suggestions of topics to cover.
LIkewise, don't just tell us you love us or that we're great – though we definitely like to hear it. Tell us why. What features do you enjoy? What journalists do you follow? What is a recent story that caught your attention? What did you like about it?
What do you want to see more of? Or less of?
So, with that in mind, we invite you to take a moment to fill out a short survey at https://bit.ly/MJS_poll. Share a thought, ask a question. Let us know what you think.
We'll read all the submisisons and respond to as many as we can as quickly as we can.
With sincerity, and gratitude.
Greg Borowski is executive editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. You can follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @GregJBorowski and reach him via greg.borowski@jrn.com.
Connect with the Journal Sentinel
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Support our reporting on neighborhoods, the environment, education and other key issues: givebutter.com/milwaukee-journal-sentinel
Send a news tip: projects.jsonline.com/tips
Reach the newsroom: jsmetro@journalsentinel.com or 414-224-2318
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Journal Sentinel staff is listening. Tell us what you think, Milwaukee
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We need more budget bipartisanship, not less
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President Donald Trump's tax and spending package introduces annual inflation adjustments on many new items that will give Americans much needed help to better keep up with rising prices, even if it may reduce government revenue for programs. The mega tax law, dubbed Trump's Big Beautiful Bill,has made more items 'indexed to inflation,' or set to receive an automatic cost-of-living adjustment each year. Americans already see these annual inflation adjustments in Social Security benefits, for example. The adjustments help preserve purchasing power or stave off an increase in tax burdens because of inflation. Without indexing, the value of benefits would decrease over time, analysts said. How Child Tax Credit lost value Th popular Child Tax Credit (CTC) is a prime example of how an unindexed tax provision gets eroded over time, analysts said. From 2018 to 2024, the CTC's $2,000 maximum value and its income eligibility thresholds have remained the same. "The bout of unexpectedly high pandemic-era inflation means that the CTC's real value has been eroded in recent years," wrote John Ricco, associate director of policy analysis at The Budget Lab at Yale, in April. If it had been indexed to inflation, the CTC's value would have been $2,600 by 2026, he said. Additionally, fewer parents in 2026 (87%) would have benefitted than in 2018 (91%), he estimated. "But the per-child average benefit, expressed in 2026 dollars, would fall from $520 in 2018 to $400 in 2026 − a decline of one-quarter," Ricco said. What new items will the new tax and spending act adjust for inflation? Items that will begin being indexed for inflation in 2026 include: Beginning in 2028, the $5,000 so-called "Trump account" and $2,500 employer contribution to such accounts will become inflation adjusted. 'This is something we've needed for some time,' said Rob Burnette, investment adviser representative and professional tax preparer at Outlook Financial Center. Americans are hurt without inflation adjustments, he said. Why isn't everything indexed to inflation? But even though inflation adjustments are positive for taxpayers, the Treasury loses necessary revenue to fund programs when they're in place, some financial experts say. 'Indexed for inflation is always good for a taxpayer,' said Richard Pon, a certified public accountant in San Francisco. 'Unfortunately, not all amounts are indexed for inflation as that would increase tax benefits and decrease Treasury revenue.' For instance, those lawmakers who drew up the legislation in 1983 to tax Social Security chose not to adjust the thresholds to inflation so that eventually everyone would pay income tax on benefits, Senate records show. More revenue collected from taxing Social Security help keep the fund solvent. In 2023, 3.8% of the Social Security trust fund's income came from taxing those benefits, according to the 2024 Social Security Trustee Report. That's forecast to rise to 6.6% in 2033 as more people pay taxes on their benefits. Income thresholds to determine who must pay taxes on Social Security benefits have not been adjusted for inflation since taxes on the benefits were introduced in 1984. That means with each passing year, an increasing proportion of seniors have been reaching those low thresholds and paying taxes on their benefits. In 2021, about half of beneficiaries paid income tax on their Social Security benefits, according to the Congressional Budget Office. By 2050, that's expected to rise to more than 56%, a Social Security analysis said in 2015. 'To be responsible about it, there would be a need to find revenues to replace what would be lost,' said Jordan Gilberti, senior lead planner and certified financial planner at financial advisory Facet. Medora Lee is a money, markets, and personal finance reporter at USA TODAY. You can reach her at mjlee@ and subscribe to our free Daily Money newsletter for personal finance tips and business news every Monday through Friday.
