House Republicans have presented a budget plan that, no surprise, takes money from school districts and local governments. They say that this is the way to cut the deficit without raising taxes. Of course, much of this will result in increases in local taxes and fees.
Here’s the fun part. This is from the Republic’s account of Andy Tobin’s comments yesterday:
Tobin stressed that the plan is preliminary and that legislative leaders aren’t yet suggesting they have enough support for passage in the House and Senate.
So, in other words, this amounts to just another idea they are throwing out there, albeit a more detailed one. These guys have been working on little else but the budget since January and they still haven’t put together a group that can pass something?
I shouldn’t be so hard on Tobin. It is silly to expect him to have any idea whether or not something will pass in his caucus. That’s the job of the whip. Oh wait, he’s the whip.
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The Republican War on Education at work, ladies and gents. They would rather see class sizes skyrocket on the south side of Tucson than pay an extra three or four pennies in sales tax to buy a gallon of milk on the north side.
It’s the never ending campaign against governmental tyranny in which the children and teachers seem to do most of the fighting. The best thing is that it is easy to stick it to a classroom full of 40 8th graders…they can’t vote yet.
My theory is that the GOP members are getting a bunch of flak from parents who are ticked off about the cuts in education. They (the parents) didn’t care when the GOP went after public education indirectly through vouchers, tax credits, and charter schools. But when the parent are being told that there won’t be anymore athletics, music, and other programs, not to mention increased class sizes, they tell their rep’s-most of whom are GOP. So they’ve boxed themselves into a corner. They’ve got what they wanted-total GOP control of the Legislature and executive branch and now they’re too afraid to walk the walk. If the consequences weren’t so tragic this would be more fun to watch.