Last summer, the Wisconsin Legislature was mulling over a proposal for a Taxpayer Bill of Rights. TABOR is a Republican-led initiative intended to constrain state spending through the adoption of a constitutional amendment. TABOR stems from the aspiration for fewer and lower taxes, but it is a drastic proposal that spares no consideration for those reliant upon state services. The proposed TABOR would strip the UW System down to its bare bones and force UW-Madison to become a private university.
However, by the end of the summer, it looked as if TABOR had run its course. Former Senate Majority Leader Mary Panzer, R-West Bend, and a modicum of GOP moderates refused to press forward with the TABOR initiative, and the beast appeared to have been slain. But it was not to be. Emboldened by a favorable Nov. 2, GOP legislators are resurrecting their TABOR creation.
Panzer herself was ousted in the Republican primaries by a TABOR proponent, Glenn Grothmann, and the new Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, has publicly committed to reworking TABOR. TABOR has officially been resuscitated.
TABOR proved to be good politics, but it won't be good policy. Proponents of TABOR argue excessive tax burdens in Wisconsin are hindering economic development in the state. Tactfully absent from their rhetoric, however, is the catastrophic impact TABOR would have on UW-Madison.
Currently, state appropriations account for approximately a third of UW's annual funding. TABOR has the potential to dramatically reduce the quality of UW while increasing the cost. TABOR would transform UW from one of the most prestigious public universities in America into either an average state university constantly operating in a sea of red ink or a private university. To prove this point, all one has to do is to mosey out West to take a look at the deepening financial crisis at the University of Colorado.
In 1992, Colorado became the only state in the nation to ratify TABOR into its constitution, and its public universities are in a ghastly condition because of it. Since 1992, there has been a gradual reduction of state funds, and CU has been forced to drastically reduce the number of advanced courses in less popular majors. The university has become increasingly reliant on federal grants and philanthropists to keep lesser-taught programs afloat and to expand the grounds of the university.
Colorado State University was recently caught in a scandal when it was revealed the university routinely asks athletes to take up a second sport because there is not enough scholarship money to support all of the university's student-athletes. To compound its problems, under TABOR, public universities like CU are strictly limited in setting tuition rates because tuition is considered state income, just like tax revenue. When CU faces budget deficits, it is unable to raise tuition to offset the revenue loss. If you think the current budget crisis is depleting the quality of our education, you had better step it up and graduate, because if TABOR goes through, budget woes will become the status quo.
Under TABOR, state funding for higher education in Colorado has slowed to a trickle, and it is getting worse. The Colorado Legislature allocated $686 million in fiscal year 2003, to be divided up among the 46 public intuitions in the state, but the budget forecast of 2009 only sets aside $83 million for higher education. University of Colorado President Betsy Hoffman said the severe reduction of spending would force CU to \become a private university by 2010.""
Not only would TABOR induce the UW System into a surreptitious decline, but K-12 education would suffer as well. In 2001, Colorado spent $6,515 per pupil, which was more than $750 dollars behind the national average. Wisconsin, in contrast, spent $8,158 per pupil. No matter what the beneficial fruits TABOR would bear, nothing justifies shortchanging Wisconsin's schoolchildren.
TABOR would not solve the state's budget crisis-it would exponentially exasperate it. With only 23.8 percent of its residents having at least a bachelors degree, Wisconsin lags behind the national average (26 percent). Our economic outlook is dependent upon our quality of and access to education, not the amount of taxes we have to pay.
Students should be involved in the impending TABOR discussions, because the result will directly affect students just as much as any other category of the population. If you would like to see UW remain in the top tier of America's public universities, then I suggest you start paying attention. But hey, that's just me-I don't know how the University of Madison sounds to the rest of you.
