David Crowley Has Expensive Plans for Wisconsin – Main Street Will Be Footing the Bill

David Crowley’s plan to make Wisconsin more affordable would also impose new costs and requirements on Badger State job creators.

His agenda would more than double the minimum wage, expand organized labor’s power and create a new statewide paid-leave program. Crowley can call those policies benefits, but someone has to pay for them. Often in his plans, that someone is a small business owner.

Start with wages.

Crowley wants to immediately raise the minimum wage to $15, with plans to increase it to $20 by 2030. His plan would also prevent large employers from restructuring jobs, reclassifying workers or reducing hours to avoid the new wage floor.

While government can mandate a $20 wage, it cannot create the revenue businesses need to pay it.

For small businesses, higher mandated labor costs could affect decisions about prices, hiring, employee hours and expansion. The effect would vary by business and industry, but those costs would ultimately have to be incorporated into each employer’s finances and may fuel inflation.

Crowley would add other costs and constraints to the employer-employee relationship. He wants to repeal Wisconsin’s right-to-work law and Act 10 in full, restoring broader collective bargaining rights. He also supports at least 12 weeks of statewide paid family and medical leave. If a small business can’t afford it, Crowley’s plan apparently considers that the business’s problem.

His record in Milwaukee County raises another question: fairness.

Crowley has also faced criticism over his handling of Milwaukee County’s inmate tablet program. He approved the original 2022 contract and a three-year extension in 2025. The program came under scrutiny this year after a jailed inmate used a county-issued device in more than 1,500 attempts to contact a domestic-violence victim, while other alleged abuses prompted questions from a county judge.

Think about the contrast. Wisconsin business owners work to cover payroll, insurance, rent and taxes. Then government imposes still more costs on them, while county resources support a jail technology program that has been abused to terrorize the very people the justice system is supposed to protect.

Crowley can promise higher wages, new benefits and more government programs. He cannot promise away their cost.

He calls it affordability. Family-run businesses on Main Street would be left figuring out how to afford it – or they may be forced out of business.