Corbett

Why is education always the first thing to be cut?

We NEED educated people to make sure these kinds of things never happen again. Duh.

Pennsylvania Gov. Corbett, in his infinite wisdom, wants to implement serious cuts to education, reducing funds by 52%. PASSHE (PA State System of Higher Education) already suffered big cuts in the last year. I know that at my school, IUP, there was a lot of work done to put a cap on new hires, and try to do away with majors and entire departments that didn't have a specified number (I think it was 30) graduates in the past five years. One of these departments was philosophy...I don't think a university could be called a university without a philosophy department.

But Corbett wants to continue to make it harder for kids like me to get an decent education:

"The Republican wants to slash funding for the 14 State System of Higher Education schools from $444 million to $232 million. State-related universities don't fare any better. Penn State's funding, for instance, would drop from $304 million to $152 million." from here.

Also, Penn State president Graham Spanier called it ""a near-total abandonment of higher education," in this article (same as above). Penn State may even have to close some of its campuses.

Higher education cuts aren't the only ones. Public schools have a lot to lose too. The Pittsburgh Public School District stands to lose $34 million with Corbett's budget plan.

On top of all this, Corbett refuses to even tax Marcellus shale natural gas, saying that it would hurt the budding industry. Ridiculous.

"The amount the Legislature spends on itself would decrease 1.4 percent, to $296 million, a smaller percentage cut than at least 13 other agencies including the departments of Agriculture, Education, Emergency Management and Health."

Read more: Corbett drops budget ax on education, state employees - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_726380.html#ixzz1GDaB7NP4 (this article also has highlights of all of the cuts if you scroll to the bottom)

So, Corbett's paycheck is more important than our education, heath, food and emergency funding. Awesome. I'm glad to know that my state really cares about my well-being. I'll probably post a follow-up to this as I find more info. This will be my last post for a couple days because I'm off to D.C. tomorrow for the 2011 National Young Feminists Leadership Conference!

Also, here's a couple videos from WTAE about the spending cuts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4WvgYfdm9w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD9_dAhMJNA (focuses on education)