OPINION & EDITORIAL
Educating a Harvard man
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Also by Badger Herald Editorial Board:
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- Farewell, Chancellor (December 10, 2007)
- $$FC (December 6, 2007)
- In a bind (December 5, 2007)
- Entitlement Town (December 4, 2007)
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- Until death - or budget cuts - do us part (February 8, 2005)
- Doyle attempts to undo GOP gaffes (January 31, 2007)
- Better than a C (January 25, 2006)
- Tuition 'on the move' (February 9, 2005)
by Badger Herald Editorial Board
Monday, January 17, 2005
When Gov. Jim Doyle delivered his State of the State address Wednesday evening, he dedicated a relatively small modicum of time to higher education and the University of Wisconsin System. But the most revealing part of his speech was the portion he left out.
Advance copies of the address distributed to the press included one sentence in the gut of the UW portion that stood alone as its own paragraph, “For the first time in more than 10 years, the budget I will submit to you next month will add more state money to the UW and financial aid than to the corrections budget.” Yet when it came time to utter these words, the governor whispered into an aide’s ear and allowed the teleprompter to reset while the audience applauded a previous comment.
One would hope Doyle omitted this portion because he didn’t enjoy the subtle admission that all his previous budgets granted priority to prisoners over students. And sinister as it may be, this option actually stands as preferable to the comment the governor’s office gave this newspaper the next morning: “It is something that we’d like to be able to use as a principle … but we had to wait for the revenue numbers to come in.” In other words, Doyle isn’t sure if the UW can beat out the prison system next month.
Regardless of the final budget, that one sentence left hanging on the teleprompter Wednesday evening spoke more about Doyle’s record on higher education than any of the phrases he did lend his voice to. Any record that funds yesterday’s criminals over tomorrow’s leaders is one that the governor ought to be ashamed of.
So we will be watching when Doyle’s budget comes out next month. We hope that the governor will see the school at the other end of the lake, but history tells us that he probably has his eyes set on the prison just up the road.
Anonymous (January 17, 2005 @ 1:47pm):
I can't wait to get my degree and leave this ass-backwards state forever.
Jim Doyle is the worst kind of Democrat. He describes the UW system as "the state's economic engine" in one breath, then guts it by fiat, causing long-term damage to both our economy and our educational system.
Wisconsin Republicans are no better. John Gard is to the right of President Bush. If he runs for governor in 2006 and wins, Wisconsin will be on its way to becoming a smaller Christian version of Saudi Arabia -- a theocracy that routinely denies basic rights to its citizens.
And the other parties are even worse. The so-called Greens and Progressives are somewhat to the left of uber-leftie Vladimir Lenin. And we all know how well Lenin's little experiment turned out.
It's no wonder there's such a brain drain here. All the smart people leave as soon as they can, leaving only the idiots behind.
