Budgets are nothing if not about priorities. The funding decisions that our elected leaders make are a reflection of their own priorities. It is therefore understandable that the ongoing state budget conference committee debates would be heated and intense. It is not understandable, however, for members of the committee to cross the line of decency.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what Senate Majority Leader Judy Robson, D-Beloit, did just a couple of weeks ago.
Apparently, Sen. Robson is a bit upset that the Assembly Republican version of the budget only increases the UW System budget by $63 million. When the issue came up in a committee meeting, did Sen. Robson rely on reason and good judgment to argue for increased funding for UW? No.
Instead, Ms. Robson said that if the Republicans got their way, people would die. She claimed that unless UW gets more funding than the Republicans are willing to spend, a Virginia Tech-style massacre is almost guaranteed here in Wisconsin. Why? Because without more funding, the UW System cannot implement a new security plan to deal with such tragedies.
Here are her exact words: "We had the UW System President Kevin Reilly, who after the shootings at Virginia Tech convened a school safety task force, and they came up with their recommendations… You can bet that if something happens on those campuses and there is a student that is harmed, after these recommendations are going to come out, who is going to get blamed? It's not going to be the Republicans… they should be… you know, because [they're] going to cut the University, but they're going to blame Kevin Reilly."
That's right, if anyone is hurt on a college campus as the result of violence, it won't be the shooter or the mugger or the person who actually commits the crime who is at fault. No, it will be the Republicans who allowed it to happen.
Sen. Robson's comments are despicable, not to mention false. The Republicans did not cut the university budget as she claims; they actually increased the UW System budget by $63 million.
To accuse an entire political party of turning their backs on student safety or allowing innocent people to be hurt or killed is beyond contempt. But perhaps this is simply the way political discourse in our state is headed. In essence, what Ms. Robson is saying is either you vote to massively increase spending, or people will die, and it will be your fault for not going along with the spending.
Pure and simple, this is the politics of fear. It is the cheapest and most degrading form of political rhetoric because it has nothing to do with fact or reality and everything to do with emotion. Do we really want politics to end up being which side can scare enough people into voting for them?
In a larger sense, this goes to the issue of priorities I mentioned earlier. Sen. Robson's comments suggest that without significantly more funding for the UW System, there is no way campuses in this state can implement a new security policy.
The UW System can largely choose to designate funding however it sees fit across each campus. Indeed, much of the specific funding decisions are made at each campus, not in the halls of the state Capitol. If Mr. Reilly and the rest of the Board of Regents believe that lives are at stake if they do not implement their new plan, then they will prioritize their budgets accordingly.
State Rep. Steve Nass discovered earlier this summer that UW-Madison was conducting research on the decision-making habits of people who play fantasy baseball. With groundbreaking research like that going on, it is no wonder the UW System needs more money.
In all seriousness, Rep. Nass' example can be used to illustrate a more important point. Maybe, just maybe, if UW cut back on some of the more frivolous research — by which I mean fantasy baseball, not cancer research — there would be some more money available to pay for truly important things like the new security plan.
We have to remember that the state still faces a budget deficit of over $1 billion. That means we have tough decisions to make and not everything can be funded to the maximum extent. We can increase the UW System budget further, but we must cut something else to balance it out. Still, no matter which way you choose to look at the budget, the cheap exploitation of tragedy is not the way forward.
Mike Hahn ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in history and political science.
