Here & Now; 622

November 30, 2007

Here and Now, Badgercare Plus, Badgercare Plus, a state plan that provides healthcare coverage to children and low-income families, got the green light from Washington. Enrollment starts in February. Badgercare Plus, Joining us now to walk us through Badgercare Plus coverage and enrollment is Wisconsin's Medicaid director Jason Helgerson. Governor Jim Doyle has called a special session of the legislature on Campaign Finance Reform. The Governor says legislation out of the session would modernize Wisconsin's public financing system by increasing candidates' spending limits and public grant amounts. Attorney general J.B. Van Hollen announced the state will not take the case of Assembly speaker Scott Jensen to the Supreme Court. An appeals court overturned Jensen's conviction on Misconduct in Public Office charges. Instead, the case will return to the trial court, where the District Attorney says he will be asking to schedule a retrial at the earliest opportunity. Rusty and Jerome, Wisconsin Public Television Producer Art Hackett recently learned that Rusty and Jerome, who worked at Wisconsin Public Television a long time ago, are in a tough spot. Who are Rusty and Jerome? Rusty and Jerome were puppets who worked with The Friendly Giant, which began here on Wisconsin Public TV in 1954. In 1958 the show moved to the CBC and continued until 1985. Since then, Rusty, Jerome and The Friendly Giant's Castle have been a popular exhibit at the CBC's museum in Toronto. Until this week. The museum allowed the puppets to be used in a sketch on this year's Gemini Awards, the canadian equivalent to the emmys. Puppetgate, As Art suggests, the story now known in Canada as Puppetgate has taken off there like a twister. At the center of the storm are the Homme siblings, the son and daughter of the Friendly Giant himself, Richard and Ann Homme. Fragile Consumer Confidence, Consumer confidence is in a fragile state around the country, we're told. Top that off with what some are calling a mortgage crisis and it may be a long holiday. We want to unwrap these topics now with the director of the Economic Education Center at Edgewood College, Bill Duddleston. Wisconsin State Debt, According to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Wisconsin's $8 billion debt grew over the past ten years at a rate of 87 percent. Todd Berry of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance has watched it grow and is here to tell us how it happened.