Gazette Operatives Working "just in case"

Tweet

After whining about Sen. Judy Robson’s open letter promoting a Buy Local movement to help boost the state's regional economies in their Wednesday editorial, the Janesville Gazette then crafts an open letter of their own promoting one of their political endorsements, Rep. Neal Kedzie (R) about a pet policy issue completely out of focus relative to the pressing state budget battle. But just three days earlier......

JG Editorial Excerpt:
If policy issues are contributing to the delay, remove them from the budget process and consider them separately after a budget is approved.

Unlike Kedzie, Judy Robson doesn't have an entire newspaper editorial staff working on her behalf. This is quite a trick by the Gazette, stuffing their editorial column with political propaganda and having people pay to read it. I only wish I had it that easy.

But by deriding Robson and the importance of the “Buy Local” subject matter, the Gazette gave us all a better understanding of their true feelings towards their own. Ironically, today's issue contains an article about "local" although not in the same context.

Icing on this cake: The Gazette posts Kedzie's original too-important-to-ignore-at-budget-time "bully" proposal on page 9A of today's paper, the day after they editorialized about it.

Worth Noting Again: For the second time, not one comment about the state budget impasse or the Janesville teachers negotiations in the anonymous Sound Off column of the Gazette, while the newspaper runs stories and editorials about both issues almost daily.

---

And then we have Stan Milam’s column about the budget battle where he writes of a alternative scenario that closely mirrors one I posted here Thursday morning.

But there are some serious differences. Milam’s “just in case” proposal avoids the obvious linkage of Republicans with “funding cuts,” and he suggests school districts can cut “their” spending not as a result of his no-fault Republican funding cuts, but as a reaction to “increased costs.” So, not only are we winding down assuming the same level of funding, Milam's corrective measure serves up a double-whammy by reducing school spending while simultaneously facing increased costs. Sort of like President Bush’s idea to cut taxes during wartime – only worse. And No.2, Milam, actually believes that school districts could craft workable budgets by ignoring all the realities of increased costs, to just continue at the same level of funding just to “see” what K-12 education would look like. But whatever you do, leave those football and basketball programs alone, take a more honest approach. Heh-heh.

In the end, Milam returns back to the commitment that eventually, the Republicans state may simply cut back on funding. Some experiment, huh? His “just in case” plan ignores reality and – personally, at this time I think it’s much safer to ignore the Republicans.