Today is

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Walker's School Vouchers Turn Wisconsin Families Toward Government Dependency


Once a politician discovers they have created an impossible to win argument, they usually quietly back away from it from fear of being outed as a hypocrite or a liar and hope nobody noticed.

Not Governor Scott Walker.

He recently said Republicans "need to embody courage." An apparent call to boldly stand with their wrong-headed convictions long enough, even double-down on them if necessary, to provoke those who care deeply about the country into a frenzied rage just so republicans can paint themselves the victims to win support from generally sympathetic American voters. That appears to be the core of Scott Walker's "stealth" campaign inside Wisconsin. But I suggest there's more to that than meets the eye.

Such an example was another projection of Scott Walker's when he told a crowd of Alabama Republicans that it's President Obama and his allies who “measure success in government by how many people are dependent on the government.”

Probably unknown at the time to the GOP crowd a few days earlier, it was discovered Walker's signature school choice voucher program will push nearly 1,400 children, previously untethered to government, into the realm of government dependency.

JS Online Excerpt:
Among the 2,069 eligible students who applied to the top 25 schools — located in cities such as Green Bay, De Pere, Kenosha, Manitowoc, Oshkosh, Sheboygan and Wisconsin Rapids — only 503 students attended public schools last year.

The majority — 67%, or 1,393 students — were already attending a private school last year without the help of taxpayer dollars.

I have no idea how Walker reconciles that argument with his "pushing Medicaid patients out from government aid empowers them" narrative - but whatever he says will likely be taken without challenge. He also makes the claim that his priority is about education, not the bureaucracy.

“We care about (children's) education, not about the education bureaucracy,” Walker said.

Apparently then, Scott Walker doesn't care about the health of Medicaid patients enough to place them into a heightened state of government dependency - like he does about children's education.

The contradictions his school voucher rhetoric offers to his Medicaid positions are astounding enough to make my head spin around. An inquiring press at the least should ask Walker to explain how placing more people, nearly 1,400 additional children (and by extension their families), who were previously not part of the "education bureaucracy" he speaks of, into a state of government dependency - measures success in government.

That's a start.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Taking medical services away from families who need assistance, in order to pay for private education for families who already manage to pay for it themselves, is unjustifiable bordering on criminal. Because it means children will suffer needlessly. Children don't die from not going to private school. Children may very well die without healthcare.

Post a Comment