Posted on 01/20/2011 9:40:00 AM PST by Army Air Corps
AUSTIN — Outraged groups — from doctors and health executives to teachers, the elderly, advocates for abused children and even some Republicans — ripped the proposed House budget Wednesday, saying it would send the state backward.
Critics heaped scorn on the House GOP leaders’ all-cuts approach to the state’s giant budget hole, particularly for reductions in education that would eliminate pre-kindergarten programs, shutter four community colleges and close university opportunities for tens of thousands needing financial aid.
Any advancement in curtailing high school dropout rates, improving college graduation statistics and preparing Texans for future jobs would be, at best, placed on hold, budget leaders conceded.
Rep. Jim Pitts, who heads the budget-writing Appropriations Committee, said that while the initial blueprint cuts spending by nearly 17 percent, it’s simply “a starting point” and almost certainly will be changed before the session ends in late May.
Pitts, R-Waxahachie, conceded that the plan would cut by 69 percent the number of college students who receive Texas Grants, the main college scholarship program for youths from low- and moderate-income families. The program serves 87,000 students this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Maybe someone would actually end up getting educated.
Maybe they’ll understand that higher education is not everyone’s calling! Increase the requirements. Be more selective of recipients. Just because it’s public money doesn’t mean it should be given to the lowest common denominators to blow 4 years drinking and smoking pot to finish with a Bachelor’s Degree in Art History.
close university opportunities for tens of thousands needing financial aid
I wasn't aware of an obligation we Texans had to finance the education of everyone's children.
Do what I did - GET A JOB!
In other words, all of the usual left-wing, re-distributionist suspects don't like the idea of downsizing bloat in government. Eff 'em.
I think the new legislative session is off to a good start, and is moving forward with the People's agenda, which is decidedly conservative.
If the left are screaming, it must be working right.
The lefties in Austin are whining about government programs being cut and how it will affect the ‘children’.
The lefties are more concerned about state grants drying up.
These grants from the state are used to fund the many non-profits these same lefties run and who pay THEMSELVES six figure salaries from such grants.
Their complaining has nothing to do with helping the children but rather self preservation.
It’s always fun to put a leftist on the spot when they use terms like “progress” and “progressive”.
“
When you use the term “progress”, that inherently implies a goal.
What is your goal towards which you are progressing?
Please be specific about what this would look like
and how it would be implemented.
“
Same old story - - nothing is said when the ticks vote in their Democrat politicians to confiscate money from me and other productive taxpayers at gunpoint so that it may be handed over to them in exchange for their votes, but when I and other taxpayers vote in politicians who will swat the grabbing hands away from our pockets, we are “effecting millions of people”.
Funny how the ticks and their politicians are never “effecting millions of people” when they confiscate money from them.
Sounds good to me. I think its a good idea.
The idea of merging districts into countywide districts sounds bad, at least in the urban counties.
Ending grants to all NGO’s should be a top goal.
You hit the nail on the head. The fact of the matter is that the state universities are being asked to cut about 5% in their budgets. The big cuts are coming from “social spending.” Social Spending being the bread and butter for a great many grifters who feed upon the public coffers.
These people are dangerous to a well-ordered, healthy society. With examples of the failures of liberal gov't policies abounding across the nation, they still refuse to see that those policies create effects that are destructive to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all.
We need to tell such people that if they want big gov't, Socialist solutions to the problems of life, that they should move to a blue state and see how well that works out for them.
Pre-Kindergarten is nothing more than tax payer funded babysitting.
Kids should not be going to school until they are within one year of being admitted to Grade 1. Period.
If you cannot afford your kids-—stop having them!!!
Quit asking taxpayers to support them & to pay for your glorified babysitters.
Grifters only complain when they are no longer able to ply their trade. And you are correct, when they have their hand out, no amount is to great. When a cut, no matter how small, is proposed in “social spending”, then it is the end of human civilisation as we know it.
Let me guess, Austin-American Pravda is deeply saddened.
Texas Constitution, Article 7 sets the obligation to fund education.
I'm OK with that, what I'm not OK with is using that funding for causes promoting liberalism and high dollar high school sports programs instead of just using it for actual education purposes.
Maybe but gives a more complete list of cuts than any other article I’ve seen so far.
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