No Clear Signals on Budget, UT/TT Poll Finds
Four months of hearing about the state's budget problems hasn't changed the minds of Texas voters. According to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll, registered voters still want lawmakers to cut the budget, but they still oppose the major cuts in education and health and human services that cutting the budget requires.
Legislators are working out the final details of a 2012-13 state budget that cuts $15 billion from current spending, including $4 billion in cuts to public education and huge cuts in variety of health and human services programs. A final vote on that budget ...
Comments (13)
casie feight
Spending must be cut. If the Rainy Day Fund is used now what will be used in the future? That is like using all of your savings to buy a fancy house but not have any money set aside for emergencies, etc.
Ric Michaels
As a good friend of mine from Oregon often says -- Texans are stupid.
This middle-aged native Texan wishes he could say the Oregonian was wrong ....
Phillip Sanders
Casie, the RDF replenishes itself off of the oil and gas revenues from the state. Just watch, RDF will be spent on one of Perry's pet projects. He lied during the election about the state of the funds and now he will do it again.
Adam Silva via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Dear voters: You can't be against all cuts and against almost all ways to increase revenue as well. Otherwise, you get tea party Republicans gutting education like we have now.
Karen Cummings
Remember this in 2005? Perry was up for re-election. Why has he flip-floped? He is possibly a POTUS or VP GOP candidate.
Perry flip-flops to meet his own political agenda
David Huang via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I wonder how many of those polled identify themselves as tea party conservatives or Republicans, and voted for the politicians who are currently gutting the education and social services budget.
Karen Cummings
Casie,
No, this is like some of these teachers, school employees and public employees will have to do due losing their jobs thanks to these budget cuts. They are possibly going to have to use some of their savings to pay their mortgage and keep them afloat until they find another job. Would you lose your house because you didn't want to tap into your savings? I don't think so. You have no idea how devastating these budget cuts may be to the people who are losing their jobs. This is what the RDF is for.
As Phillip said, the RDF is being replenished as we speak.
Marc Lippincott via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Seems to me this is a pretty clear symbol that you won't get there by cutting programs.
Holly Kinnaird Korbey via Texas Tribune on Facebook
There's a line of thinking in Texas that goes like this: "I want pols to cut the budget, but not MY budget, because my schools, health care, nursing homes are important to my community. Surely there are other community budgets that are wasteful, etc, and THEY should be cut." We have kids that can't read? Don't raise my taxes. Grandma has nowhere to go? Don't raise my taxes. We must change this line of thinking, it doesn't make any sense!
Beverly Nuckols via Texas Tribune on Facebook
So, I'm assuming that about 10% are sending substantial donations to their local schools, their local indigent clinics and nursing homes. Or maybe they're offering gift cards and balanced billing to their doctors and hospitals? Or, perhaps, just sending a nice check to the Comptroller in Austin, to support their causes and/or in anticipation of increased taxes?
Autumn Williams Keiser via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Such pretty graphs to show what is really the ugly truth - we are spoiled and out of touch with the true costs of our way of life. To be sure, the burden always falls on the shoulders of the weakest, poorest and youngest. Most of us are willing to turn a blind eye to that reality as long as it doesn't impact us personally. The only reason folks are FINALLY paying attention is that they've so successfully shifted the burden for so long that there's nothing left to plunder but public schools, nursing homes and children's health insurance.
Scott Chase via Texas Tribune on Facebook
We are paying the price for allowing politicians, for too many years, to demagogue about the cost of government. It will be interesting to see if the tea party legislators can withstand the reaction when their friends and supporters realize what the cuts really mean.
Dave Mundy
Just out of curiosity, did the survey include anyone other than UT students?
As always, our Legislators are deferring the REAL problem with the increasingly high cost of education by not dealing with its source: the "New Standards" system swiped from Marc Tucker and Hillary Clinton and implemented by George W. Bush under the guise of "accountability" in 1995-98. This system is designed to ramp up the "need" for non-classroom "specialists" and administrative personnel, providing more and more career pathways for educators and enduring employment for administrators. Combine that with the vast increase in non-academic school resources which are duplicated in the community -- from meal programs to sports to fine arts -- and it's small wonder we can't get education spending under control.
For the tea party critics who seem to think the tea party is running this show, perhaps you can tell me why every single tea party-priority bill got stalled this session?