In my home state of Arizona, the legislature just passed a budget deal that many of my outspoken liberal friends are criticizing on social media. The biggest issue comes from cuts to education and social welfare, in the form of $99 million cut from university funds.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2015/03/04/arizona-budget-deal-universities/24397351/

Within this deal, an anticipated $75 million cut to Arizona's universities has blown up to $104 million, or 14 percent of the universities' overall allocation from the previous year. The community college districts in Arizona's three most populous counties — Maricopa, Pima and Pinal — would lose all their state allocations, a total of $19 million.

Much has been made of the fact that these are tough times. State revenues are way down. Between fiscal 2015 and next year, Arizona faces an estimated $1.5 billion shortfall.

But this deeper-than-expected raid on higher education is not a consequence of scarce financial resources. It is the result of ideological absolutism — and misplaced ideology, at that.

[...]

The governor had planned to use the fees to increase state Department of Public Safety funding by $65 million. Some budget analysts believe the additional cuts to the universities are being used to offset the loss of those higher MVD fees.

The cause of these cuts is a projected $1.5 billion reduction in state tax revenue requiring across-the-board cuts to nearly every facet of the budget. Democrats are claiming that the education funding would have been recouped if Republicans had passed a proposed bill to tack on an additional fee for vehicle registration at the DMV --  $7-9 per registration. Republicans claimed the fee was tantamount to a tax on vehicle use, which the democrats denied; ironically, this is the same party that decries requiring voter IDs, often provided free by the state, as a tax or discrimination on voting.

What irks me the most is that our universities are doing fine; Arizona State University is beginning a $265 million renovation of its football stadium is on a long spree of constructing new buildings on all four of its Phoenix campuses.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/politics/2015/03/06/budget-balance-lawmakers-press-votes/24523317/

Republicans applauded the budget as putting the state on a path toward a truly balanced budget, devoid of tricks and gimmicks to make state spending match state revenue.

But Sen. Katie Hobbs, D-Phoenix and the Senate minority leader, called the budget "a ransom note to the people of Arizona," decrying the cuts to education, health care and the social safety net.

This just seems par for the course when it comes to Republicans making budgets during periods of economic slumps. Hard choices have to be made, and Democrats seem more than willing to begrudgingly pass budgets by a thin margin while simultaneously slamming Republicans for cutting necessary money. Debts and balanced budgets are serious issues, and money can't just magically appear from thin air and wishes. So it feels like fiscal conservatives are fated to always be the bad guys in the economy; when things are going badly, they'll push for the hard cuts that nobody wants but everybody knows need to be made.

the private ones with no state regulation

lol

good one

If you can afford a car, you can afford $7 or $9. Those cuts seriously impact education in the long run. When they start being stingy, the universities will start being stingy and fucking students over.

But sure, go ahead and support cutting essential parts of America. I agree universities get too much funding, but cutting the ever living fuck out of the funding isn't the answer.

Universities have been making bank on students for years.  They get heavily subsidized by the government and then go on to charge outrageous tuition rates, not including housing or even fucking textbooks.  The fact that $265 million is going to a football stadium and not to lower costs for students is telling.

Quote from: challengerX on March 07, 2015, 04:08:15 PM

If you can afford a car, you can afford $7 or $9. Those cuts seriously impact education in the long run. When they start being stingy, the universities will start being stingy and fucking students over.

But sure, go ahead and support cutting essential parts of America. I agree universities get too much funding, but cutting the ever living fuck out of the funding isn't the answer.

Universities have been making bank on students for years.  They get heavily subsidized by the government and then go on to charge outrageous tuition rates, not including housing or even fucking textbooks.  The fact that $265 million is going to a football stadium and not to lower costs for students is telling.

Then maybe the problem is that the Government isn't telling the college how to spend their money properly. It's like throwing welfare at drug addicts when you know they're just gonna blow all the money on drugs rather than just giving them food stamps.

Mindlessly throwing money at problems isn't going to go anywhere.