AB165 would have banned political subdivisions from making “regular periodic cash payments that are unearned” to individuals under a “guaranteed income program.”
The Senate passed AB165 on November 18, 2025, by a vote of 18 to 15, prior to the Governor’s veto. We have assigned pluses to the ayes because “guaranteed income” (i.e., “universal basic income”) programs are manifestly socialist wealth-redistribution schemes. They rely on immoral, anti-constitutional acts of government-imposed theft, disguised as taxation, which take from hardworking citizens the wages they have actually earned. In other words, there exists no right to an income apart from a person earning it themselves, through their own labor or investment. The reality is that government has no money of its own to handout. Taxation in the name of “social welfare” is neither just nor charitable, for it turns citizens into slaves. A person’s property, including their income, belongs solely to them—not the state. The Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment guarantee that “No State” shall “deprive any person” of “property.” Wisconsin needs to reject tyrannical government by protecting the “pursuit of Happiness," particularly the right to enjoy the fruit of one’s own labor.
