Author: jnweaver

Dear Editor: I found the anger in your Feb. 16 editorial “Put state students first” heartening, if entirely misplaced. If you’re truly concerned about middle-class taxpayers being priced out of a University of Wisconsin education, rather than asking the Board of Regents why it’s trying to rip off out-of-state students less, you should ask legislators like Mike Ellis why the university’s portion of the state budget is a half-billion current dollars short of what it was 20 years ago….

The magic cure-all offered by those who favor minimalist government is a constitutionally mandated tax freeze. And Republican state legislators were back at work last week on their latest version — now called the Taxpayers Protection Amendment, or TPA.

This time, though, they’re running into inconvenient facts that reveal the real ingredients of this odious unguent.

As GOP leaders opened invitation-only hearings on their proposal last week, Professor Andrew Reschovsky of the LaFollette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison published a disturbing analysis of the TPA’s likely consequences.

“Let the people decide” is the slogan being used by those pushing for the latest version of a taxpayer bill of rights in Wisconsin. Fair enough. But make sure they have all the facts at their disposal when they decide. And be sure to conduct a full debate of all the issues involved in the 2,500-word proposed constitutional amendment so that everyone gets a fair hearing.

More important, let’s make sure that whatever is submitted to the people for a vote is a proposal that Wisconsin can live with. Mentions a study by UW-Madison economist Andrew Reschovsky.

Dear Editor: Reading that tuition at the University of Wisconsin System campuses (with the exception of UW-Madison) may drop for out-of-state students really ticked me off.

I thought “charity begins at home,” so why are we trying to help out-of-state people?

Legislators fought a first, preliminary skirmish Wednesday over whether the state constitution should be amended to limit revenue of state and most local governments – although officials said most towns, accounting for 23% of the state’s population, would be exempt from those controls. Also quotes UW-Madison economist Andrew Reschovsky.

Presume two things are true. That Milwaukee benefits from a top-drawer research university and that UWM can benefit from more state help. We need to be certain that getting more state money for UWM doesn’t involve taking money away from Wisconsin’s existing top-drawer science research university – the one in Madison.

Any discussion of Milwaukee’s future starts by noting that one hour away is, by any measure, one of the nation’s top centers for science and engineering research. Madison isn’t exactly our suburbs, but it’s close.

Investigators have subpoenaed one or more members of Doyle’s re-election campaign to appear before the federal grand jury in Milwaukee that indicted Georgia Thompson, according to an anonymous source. Authorities have executed search warrants for additional records from the Department of Administration in connection with an ongoing investigation of alleged “pay-to-play” practices in state government, according to a source familiar with the probe.