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Education cutbacks dim future brightness
© St. Petersburg Times During the recent gubernatorial campaign, Democrats generally thought the class size amendment was a good idea, although they were hazy about how to pay for it. Republicans generally thought it was a terrible idea and said there was no way it could be paid for. Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican who got caught on tape before the election saying he had a "devious plan" to derail the amendment, now says he thinks he can make it work, although specifics aren't exactly forthcoming by the truckload. I'm sure that it was just a coincidence then, on Tuesday, that a state education panel recommended drastic cutbacks in financial aid and dramatic tuition increases at public universities. To the uneducated -- and I am, alas, a product of the Florida educational system -- this smells fishier than a salmon cannery cat's breath. I'm not a conspiracy freak, and I actually don't think state government is organized enough for the two situations to be connected, but I do get a sad chuckle out of a system that seems to be deciding that one way of helping pay for smaller class sizes at the primary and high school levels may be doing so by ensuring that the kids educated in those smaller classes will have less chance of furthering that education. Of course, if tuitions go up, the prepaid plan is gutted and scholarships are cut, then at least we won't have to worry about how to reduce college class sizes 20 years from now. College educations can once again become a privilege of the financial elite; the rest of us will go about the Epsilon-Minus Semi-Moron existences that Aldous Huxley promised us and, if properly drugged and sleep-taught, it shouldn't bother us too much. Big picture? Like an overwhelming percentage of the rest of Florida's problems, nobody in government is willing to face the harsh reality that government costs money and money comes from fees and taxes and people who will only pay for substandard services should just shut up and get used to substandard services. It is virtually impossible to get elected to public office in Florida today by telling the truth (and I offer most current office-holders as evidence) about taxes. No further than I am into this column, conservatives are reaching for their pens to jot down "tax-and-spend," an insult they hold to be on the same level as "liberal," for inclusion in the e-mails I will get when this is published. Devoid of any real industrial base, Florida hasn't had much to sell for the past 50 years other than sunshine, low taxes, and, interestingly, a peachy-keen bankruptcy haven. Add an influx of mature citizens who have already paid for building infrastructures in other states and feel put upon in being asked to do the same in their new home, and a bunch of politicians who preach incessantly to that very choir, and you get what we have. You get interstate highways that look like war zones because they are constantly under tardy construction. You get a system charged with the care of dependent children that is woefully inadequate. You get underpaid cops, firefighters and teachers. And you get an educational system that turns out people who think the best way to spend more for things we need is to use less money. When you are literally reducing the amount of money you will spend for a scholarship program you (perhaps hastily) named Bright Futures, you can only be talking about dimming some of that brightness. I don't doubt that tuition costs (they are called fees, and fees are first cousins to taxes) need to be increased. I do doubt that nobody knew that six weeks ago, before the election. And I do doubt that cutting programs that help working-class kids get to college is a smart thing to do. Bush urged supporters before the election to "say no to new taxes," eerily echoing his father's nationwide promise in 1988 of no new taxes. And we know how that worked out.
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