Citizen Staff Writer
RealFAST ONLINE COMMENTS
Compiled by PAUL SCHWALBACH
pschwalb@tucsoncitizen.com
The story: Arizona’s new budget is shameful and unimaginative legislation that will cut education, welfare, social service programs and state parks while moving Arizona one step closer to becoming a moribund, Third World backwater, the Citizen says in an editorial. Particularly nauseating is the $130 million gash in K-12 education.
Your take: Actually, the comment atop this column represented the minority view among the Citizen’s online community, which mostly lamented the budget cuts. Some samples:
• “(Gov.) Jan Brewer has not . . . been noted as a friend of the poor or underprivileged.” PFM
• “Shameful behavior on the part of state government – including the past governor – is what caused the current budget crisis.” Spirit of Zenger
• “The products of Arizona’s terrible public education system are voicing their mistaken anger on crippling a once-to-be admired higher education system.” Catcher
• “I’m so glad we’re moving out of this state in three weeks. My fourth-grader is probably a solid year behind his cousins living in Illinois as far as what he’s learned through the fourth grade in Arizona.” 2236
• “As a retired person on a small fixed income I would far prefer to pay higher taxes to keep public education alive. . . . This budget is disgusting and hopefully will mean that a whole lot of legislators and our new governor will be out of jobs after the 2010 election, if they aren’t recalled first.” Barbara
• “The Tucson Citizen is going belly up. You can’t even stay afloat in the private business world, yet you have all this insightful knowledge about how the government should conduct financial affairs?” ltrevino
The big debate:
Arizona budget cuts
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