Posted on 02/03/2015 6:17:48 PM PST by abb
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s 2011 fight with public-sector unions sparked huge protests—and elevated him into a national figure in conservative politics. Now, as he eyes a run for president, he is targeting another group on the public payroll: university professors.
Mr. Walker, a Republican, has proposed a two-year tuition freeze and a $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System’s budget—about a 13% drop next year from current funding levels. Under the plan, Mr. Walker would shift control of the university system from the state to a new independent authority. He has also said that he thinks faculty needs to work harder.
Faculty have defended their work ethic and denounced the proposal as providing inadequate support for higher education that could lead to eventual tuition increases for financially pressed students.
“Some have raised concerns about this proposed reform,” Mr. Walker said in prepared remarks for his Tuesday night speech on the budget to lawmakers. “These are some of the same claims we heard four years ago when our Act 10 reforms were enacted.”
That 2011 law ended most collective-bargaining rights for public employees and prompted a recall election that drew participation from national labor groups and conservative activists around the country. Mr. Walker prevailed in the recall and then was re-elected in 2014.
The new proposal could give a boost to Mr. Walker’s expected bid for the Republican presidential nomination. While he hasn’t announced his candidacy, he is hiring staff and attending events in neighboring Iowa, home to the nation’s first presidential caucuses.
“I know Iowa, and I know the voters in Iowa, and a fight with university professors is certainly not going to hurt him in that state,” said former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, who briefly ran for the GOP’s 2008 presidential nomination.
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(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
I love it.
Run Scott run
I've listened to his speeches and it seems he's speaking through his upper chest. He needs to shorten up his sentences, reach for air in his gut and lean forward.
Old time broadcasters (like the Gipper) knew how to do this to their benefit.
Busting up the Marxist cells at the universities will be a tough job but it will be entertaining.
There are a lot of things that I don’t like about Scott Walker. There are also a lot of things that I do like.
His talent for seriously pissing off liberals is at the top of my like list.
Walker is starting to add lots of RNC hacks and McCain 08 staffers to his potential campaign. That’s a disaster waiting to happen. They will either control him or ruin his campaign with their incompetence. They’ll take his money and leave him in debt
While I think the cut is a good idea, he will need an iron-willed agency to do the cutting, because the bureaucratic response to cuts is always to “cut the meat and leave the fat”, figuring that the meat will get defenders.
So this agency is going to have to take a scalpel to the fatty parts of the system, and guide them into the waste bin to insure that nobody saves them. While at the same time protecting the important things from harm or having their funds diverted.
Walker caught them hiding $600 million dollars while asking for more tuition increases. Greedy bad actors, the lot of
them.
Oh, and profs, you and Obama taught Walker a lesson he picked up on. Reward your friend. Punish your enemies. Bad idea to pick your boss as an enemy.
Talk about an advance strike on Fauxahauntas!
His ability to turn a state around is at the top of my list. If he can do it for a state, mayhap he can do it for a country. There is not one potential candidate in the offing that meets all my personal criteria. However, at the present time, Walker comes close.
Dr. Thomas Sowell has often written about how profs are over-paid and that it is a closely-held secret.
97% of perfessers are driven by gov’t funding wrt
CAGW.
He has all the right enemies.
That would be the kiss of death.
“His talent for seriously pissing off liberals is at the top of my like list.”
Walker is busting neo-Nazi liberal nuts. What’s not to like about that?
Ooorah!
BOOM!
I’ve been reading up on it and its going unnoticed by conservatives. So all of these establishment advisors are joining his campaign and I see a train wreck coming, especially for someone who’s new to national campaigns and national issues.
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