As a political science major, it is my job to understand what motivates political actors to make certain decisions. The natural inclination is to assume that political actors — like, I don’t know, let’s just say the Arizona Legislature — base their decisions on a well-informed, rational basis — or, at the very least, a basic sense of fundamental human decency.
And then media outlets such as Gawker run headlines like this: “Arizona Completely Abandons Its Community Colleges.” Well then.
Linking its story from a report published by Inside Higher Ed, a Washington, D.C.-based online publication that primarily covers news regarding education, Gawker’s article details how “Republican state legislators have chosen to cut support for entities that educate hundreds of thousands of the type of Arizona students least able to pay increased tuition and fees.”
As recently as 2009, two Arizona community college districts, Maricopa and Pima, received up to $59.5 million and $19.6 million dollars annually. But under the proposed Arizona education budget, they would now receive precisely $0. Yes, zero dollars. The Arizona Republic notes that these cuts stemmed from a “Republican legislative leaders’ rejection of a $6 or $7 increase in auto registration fees at the Department of Motor Vehicles.” Yikes.
Thankfully, this draconian budget still needs the approval of Arizona’s House and Senate to be put in place. But even without a formal approval, the very fact that such a budget was drafted speaks volumes about the character and priorities of Arizona’s Republican Legislature.
In these polarizing times, both politicians and the laymen alike have called for more cooperation and collaboration between the two dominating political parties in the U.S. To this I say no. As I mentioned earlier, one would think politicians, of all people, would be ones to act with rationality and purpose.
The last 15 years of Republican legislation, and indeed, stretching back to the Reagan era and beyond, have shown the utter opposite is true. In our ostensibly democratic society, politicians are elected to serve the interests of their constituents. Anyone who has ever turned on a cable news network, regardless of ideology, can tell you this has not been the case for some time.
As these proposed budget cuts so succinctly illustrate, conservatives have no time for, nor interest in, the common man — nor do they have interest in crossing the aisle. They desire compliance, not compromise, with regards to drafting legislation.
In case it was not abundantly clear: Yes, I have tremendous beef with conservative politicians. They are jive turkeys, and I sincerely hope that a Jay-Z/Nas-esque rivalry between conservative students and myself emerges from the publication of this piece. As Nas wrote in “Ether,” conservative politicians “traded your soul for riches.”
I encourage anyone with a passing interest in politics or the sanctity of public education to reach out to Arizona officials and make their thoughts heard. This proposed budget gets a zero out of 10, would not do again.
Zach Schlein is a UF political science junior. His column appears on Fridays.
[A version of this story ran on page 7 on 3/13/2015 under the headline “Republican legislators in AZ not interested in compromise”]
