Republican Crown Jewel - A Lump Of Coal

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The state budget proposed and passed by a Republican majority on Tuesday will devastate health care, the environment and education – including a potential loss of 28 teachers in Janesville schools according to one local Democratic legislator. An area Republican – left unidentified by the newspaper chimes in with this consolation for Janesville schools.

JG Excerpt:(link not available)
But an area Republican pointed to a 4 percent UW System tuition cap and $119 in UW spending cuts as evidence that Republicans “prioritized the ability to pay for students, families, and taxpayers.”

Pardon my french here, but what the hell does Republicans "prioritized the ability to pay for students, families, and taxpayers” mean? Oh wait - students, families and taxpayers make up just about everyone - so lets make the teachers pay.

JG Excerpt:
Nass, chairman of the Assembly College and Universities committee, described the tuition cap as the "crown jewel" of the Republican proposal that will increase tax support for the UW system by 3 percent in two years and bring relief to students who have faced an average of 8.5% annual tuition increase since 1997.

Oh you're soooo generous. Here we go with the "short the schools and more money will flow in" logic, when in fact tuition may have to rise at a faster clip to make up for the state shortfall.

These potential cuts should be BIG news for Janesville. But you never know what Janesvilleans are thinking lately.

To ensure this story was positioned properly, it was presented by the Gazette Staff as low key as possible. The story received some additional consideration in the paper with a supplemental piece detailing differences in the Democratic and Republican budget proposals, but the draconian cuts proposed by the Republicans headlined as “Assembly approves less for education” on page 3 of a 6-page local section. Two weeks ago the Gazette headlined the "Healthy Wisconsin" plan as a Democratic plan - not a Senate initiative.
Although the Republican Assembly budget story was highlighted on several Wisconsin news stations, you wouldn’t know it was even in this newspaper as the Gazette thought it better to keep it out of plain sight, omitting it from the front-page sidebar top story index of their hardcopy. Instead they thought it was more important for readers to know that the local school board may have to cut a sport out unless they raise ticket prices by $2 beginning in September 2008. What can be viewed as an attempt to cover this, they post a different article and headline on the Republican budget written by the AP for their on-line version.

Gazette favorites Mike Huebsch, Brett Davis and Steve Nass all voted "yes" to cut more teachers from schools and essentially destroy Wisconsin.