When you drive, your car gradually wears down the road, wears out asphalt, and puts stress on bridges. Since bigger cars and longer trips use more gas, paying a tax every time you fill up is an easy way to make sure everyone pays their fair share of road repairs based on how much they drive.

As Halloween approaches, neighborhood lawns transform into landscapes of cobwebs, glowing Jack-o’-lanterns, and makeshift graveyards. We delight in pretend monsters, ghost stories, and haunted houses. But as night falls and autumn chills over the Great Lakes, a far more terrifying reality lurks in plain sight—one that doesn't vanish when we take down Halloween decorations.

For years, the city’s response to crumbling roads has felt like a loop of temporary repairs. A hot-asphalt patch might fill a hole for a season, but winter freeze-thaw cycles rip it right back open. As a Milwaukee official bluntly put it: "You fix your pothole problem by investing in infrastructure, not by just putting Band-Aids on it."

When we reduce creation to a balance sheet, we lose sight of its intrinsic value and our duty to protect it. We are not owners of the earth; we are its stewards. We are called to live life’s more worthy path—one grounded in responsibility, reverence, and justice for current and future generations.

For Copeland and her fiancée, that night cost $11,500 in immediate damage to their basement and foundation. Insurance covered most of it, but only after an argument about what was actually covered.

Whether utilities absorb massive energy demands or local taxpayers shoulder the staggeringly high costs of transitioning away from fossil fuel dependence, the model remains the same: We are all forced to subsidize private profits.

It's time to talk about something fundamental: the very air we breathe, the health we cherish, and the future we envision for our...