Where's Tim Eyman When You Need Him?
by Bill Lyne www.ufwsblog.org

The one sure thing in Olympia this year is that nobody wants to take the rap for the way that the budget is going to turn out. Republicans picked up some seats in the last election and the welcome present they’re getting from Democrats is a commitment to “bipartisan” budget proposals.

So when the State Senate budget proposal dropped on Wednesday, Democrats all over Olympia were quick to point out that the latest plan to plunder our state universities was a Republican idea.

Imagine going to a restaurant, paying for your meal and getting no food. That’s what the senate budget proposal does to our students.

This plan, apparently brought forward by Senator Joseph Zarelli, breaks creative new ground in trying to fill the state budget hole. The proposed Senate Budget takes $25 million of tuition that our students have paid to state universities and uses it to backfill state obligations to financial aid.

Here at the blog, we are obviously not as sophisticated or nuanced in our thinking as Senator Zarelli and his constituents from Clark and Cowlitz counties, but in our neighborhood we would call that a tax (some of the surlier residents of our neighborhood might even call it theft). But of course it can’t be a tax, because we all know that all of our state’s republicans would rather stick pins in their eyes than vote for a new tax.

Tuition is the money that students pay to receive the quality education that our state universities provide. Every dime of that money should go to their education.

And even though this might be a Republican plan, some of the Democrats are going to vote for it. Apparently stealing from students and their parents is also a bipartisan idea.