On Frank Lasee

Frank Lasee, the legislative ally of Steve Nass, has a blog too. Remember, this is the man who spoke so flippantly recently about cutting funding for the Law School by 2010: "We have a plethora of attorneys that clog up our courts; they invent work for themselves, chase ambulances and generally we don't need as many as we have."

Over at Lasee's blog, he takes a quick jab at Chancellor Wiley for his disapproval:

Chancellor Wiley must have been educated in Washington. Only in Washington (now Madison and the University of Wisconsin) is an increase in funding a slash in funding. Kind of like [sic] —I voted for it before I voted against it.

The facts: Republicans in the Assembly are proposing a 3% increase in the funding for the university [sic] in this budget. University of Wisconsin [sic] receives and spends about $1 billion in [sic] our hard-earned tax money each year.

Taxpayers subsidize about one quarter [sic] of the University of Wisconsin’s operating budget. The Assembly has proposed to increase the University’s tax funding by “only” $62 million.

Well, hooray for Lasee. First of all, Wiley's response is nothing like John Kerry saying "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it." But Lasee takes the opportunity to allude to a condescending, unfunny political reference that's almost four years old.

Yes, there's a 3% proposed budget increase. But the budget amount itself is not Wiley's chief concern with the Assembly, and Lasee knows it. Nobody has accused the Assembly of proposing a net tax funding decrease. As I've written before, we don't want the Assembly breathing down our necks, deciding which professors are too controversial and which programs may not fit the Assembly's random standard for academic relevancy. If there's a net budget increase -- even a very large one -- that doesn't excuse the cuts being proposed and the bogus rationales for doing so. We're not going to be spoken to like children.

So thanks, Rep. Lasee, for choosing to increase funding for expenditures you and Rep. Nass find unthreatening. Start funding the threatening parts, too, and you'll earn more of our respect.