Here’s an easy quiz, that makes liberals in Washington State uneasy: Who is responsible for our state being under Supreme Court order to meet its constitutional duty and fully fund public education?
Answer: Democrat Governors Booth Gardner, Mike Lowry, Gary Locke, Christine Gregoire and Jay Inslee.
And that answer should be obvious, except for the fact that often the media often forgets to report that a Democrat Governor has signed every state budget since 1985. We are in Year 30 of liberal Democrats putting other priorities ahead of public education in our state – pay increases for public employees, increased social service spending, more costly environmental regulations, etc.
Every year since Ronald Reagan was starting his second term, it seems Democrat Governors in Washington State have decided that our children’s education should take a backseat to one of the special groups that fund their election campaigns. And of course they have been helped by Democrat state legislators, who have had (or shared) control of at least one legislative body for 28 of the last 30 years, and so helped make sure those budgets helped their special interest buddies more than schools kids.
That’s why it is so laughable that Jay Inslee is now complaining that Republicans don’t want to fund our schools. After all, he doesn’t want to spend more money on kids in the classroom – in his budget proposal he would raise taxes to give a pay raise to the union members who gave a $1 million to his last campaign.
Perhaps even more humorous is how media headline writers treated the release of the bi-partisan Senate budget yesterday. The Everett Herald called it for what it was – “Senate budget writers give schools a boost”, noting that the Senate budget proposal included over $38 million more in spending on technology for public schools and $45 million more for higher education. The online publication Crosscut instead decided to let the teachers union write its headline: “State Senate Unveils a budget: Sorry, Teachers”
Of course, it’s the liberals in Olympia who should be apologizing. They have short-changed public education for a generation. Now all they are left with is a court-ordered mandate to increase education funding, and an extreme need to lie about the choices they have been making for 30 years to avoid the wrath of voters.
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