Dear Citizens of Wisconsin,
I am writing to express my deep concerns over Governor Walkers budget proposal and the Wisconsin Legislatures plans to fast track the "Right to Work" legislation this week. With the tax cuts and give backs to corporations, Wisconsin now faces a manufactured budget crisis. The Governor's budget proposes cuts to everything that makes Wisconsin a special place.
1) Cuts to the UW system - this is a wonderful, affordable way for local Wisconsin citizens to get a quality college education. My family is filled with generations of Wisconsin citizens that obtained UW college degrees which allowed them to get good jobs with good benefits and be productive, tax paying members of this state. These cuts are going to cause departments to close, limit education choices, and make this proud system go down in quality. The idea that the UW system is responsible for the massive amounts of student debt is not true. The UW system graduates students with lower or no debt ratios. The majority of student debt now comes from private, for profit "universities" that exploit the federal student loan system, and have extremely low graduation rates.
2) Cuts to public K-12 education and the plan for accountability - the repeated cuts to Wisconsin public education are impacting the ability of teachers and school districts to maintain the high standards that Wisconsin has had to educate our citizens. The expansion of the voucher system is going to pull even more money from public education, and has not been shown to improve the test scores of students. The state should be funding public education well instead of funding a private and public system poorly. Educated citizens get better paying jobs, which then pay more taxes that can support a quality system. The school grade system of accountability has been shown to not be effective. We should be helping people in poverty, helping people with drug addiction, and providing quality health care. This will make a huge improvement in student test scores.
3) Cuts to environmental protection laws and funding for the DNR, cuts to state parks and trails and land preservation - Wisconsin was once a progressive state viewing a healthy environment and water as a right for our citizens. Our state is built on having healthy lakes, rivers and streams and recreational lands for fishing, hunting, hiking, skiing and the numerous outdoor activities we thrive on. This new budget cuts the DNR, cuts funding for state parks and trails, cuts funding to preserve open land and more. How can we preserve our natural beauty if we do not make the effort to fund these programs? Just weakening the number of people enforcing manure regulations is going to have a huge impact on our water and air quality.
4) Cuts to Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television - Public radio and television are so important in our state. This is the only way to have non-commercial, unbiased programming to get information to our citizens. These media discuss farming, gardening, animal care, books, financial advice, computer and technical advice, educational programming, government information and allow a platform for music that is not available anywhere else. Cutting funding for Public radio and Television will have a negative lasting impact in Wisconsin.
5) Fast Tracking "Right to Work" - Even the main national figures promoting the right to work legislation have admitted that these right to work laws do not improve the economy or jobs available. These are laws designed to limit union resources and lesson the ability of workers to negotiate for rights in their jobs. They increase profits for corporations and CEO's while driving down wages and benefits for workers.
Please hold Wisconsin to a higher standard and strive to make this a place that our citizens can be proud to call home. Look carefully at corporations and tax cuts for the wealthy. Do they want a quality place to live, or a cheap source of uneducated labor?