Walker Education Scheme: Close Middle Class Toolbox, Reward Corporate Class

MADISON, Wis. — Gov. Scott Walker’s unprecedented attack on the public education of children across Wisconsin is part of a dismantling of the middle class tool box to enrich the wealthy and corporate America and Wall Street. Gov. Walker’s budget actions would cut $834 million from public education, skyrocket tuition for students in Wisconsin and dismantle the technical college system – all to pay for unprecedented tax breaks to corporations and the wealthiest.

“Gov. Scott Walker’s budget is a threat to our way of life for the middle class and our children in Wisconsin,” said Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now Executive Director. “Gov. Walker’s idea of ‘shared sacrifice’ is sharing our kids’ education dollars with corporations and sacrificing their future to reward his corporate donors.”

Gov. Walker’s dismantling of the state’s public education system to pay for tax breaks for corporations includes:

• Walker’s budget cuts an unprecedented $834 million from our kids’ public education including the first time in history schools’ local revenue is current below present funding levels.
• Walker’s budget puts college education further out of the hands of Wisconsin students by hiking tuition at UW-Madison by an astonishing 20 percent, privatizing the university and putting it under lockstep control by his hand-picked partisans.
• Walker’s budget slashes hundreds of millions from early childhood education programs, including cuts to the program designed to combat fraud and improve child care in Wisconsin.
• Walker’s budget slashes $100 million in student aid, targeting disadvantaged and minority aid in particular and completely ends the Wisconsin Covenant college affordability program.
• Walker’s budget raises taxes on low-income Wisconsinites by $51 million by gutting the bipartisan Earned Income Tax Credit and the Homestead Tax Credit.

What makes Gov. Walker’s cuts to the middle class most offensive is that Walker has pushed for over $200 million in new tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy, at the same time he is threatening the future of our children, as well as unemployed workers trying to get new skills to rejoin the workforce.

“Gov. Walker’s wholesale destruction of our public education system and our higher education and technical colleges is done at the same time he is passing hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest,” said Ross. “Gov. Walker talks about giving people the ‘tools to succeed,’ but it is he who is taking a sledgehammer to higher education and technical colleges, a chainsaw to our children’s educations and turning the screws even tighter on the middle class.”

One Wisconsin Now has launched an online petition to oppose Gov. Walker’s assault on the middle class and Protect Wisconsin Education, available at: https://secure3.convio.net/pn/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=913.