Quote:You need to read more than just the Facebook blurb.


 

1. The state will pony up $80M, not $250M. The rest is paid for the DEMOCRAT CONTROLLED city of Milwaukee. I see this as a magnanimous gesture by Walker to a place that mostly voted against him.


 

2. The $250M cut to education saves that much every year. By contrast, the money spent on the Bucks will cost the state slightly more than $4M per year on a 20 year bond. So you're talking about a factor of 60, not "the same dollar amount."


 

3. Taxes on the salaries of the NBA players will result in more than the $4M per year going back to the state.


 

4. Very little of the increase in tuition and subsidies since (say) 1980 have gone to faculty. Higher education has spent far more on parking garages, Taj Mahals, and lush offices for the administrators.


 

I'm all in favor of banning governments from spending money on sports arenas. I'm all in favor of banning government from spending money on lots of other things too. But our 'elected' rulers will never agree to giving up the opportunity to buy votes.

 

Excellent points and if the new NBA t.v. deal is as big as expected then the direct tax revenue will be even greater and we're not even talking about secondary impact.  Also, The Bucks can decide to leave the state, UW can't.  

 

Quote:Wait, what?

 

Who exactly is buying whom in this situation????  Walking/Elected rulers is buying votes by cutting higher education?  

 

Or did the billionaire owner of the Bucks buy the politicians????

 

This is the flaw with you guys on the right that I agree with.  You guys are blaming the government for the corroption, I'm saying the government got corrupted by the money of the elite (yes 1%) class...  

 

Your example proves my point.  

 

This is the problem with the left when having these discussions.  We're talking about a 2% cut to a budget over two years.  Who here at one point or another hasn't had to deal with a 2% cut to their budget?

 

Think about this the entire state government of Wisconsin spends an average of 8k per citizen in the state and that's for all state services schools, police, etc. etc.  the University of Wisconsin spensds 33k per student on campus...  That's just the universities budget.  Let alone the cost of books housing etc. etc.  now you're looking at real cost (not just tuition) of a 4 year degree ranging from 120k to 150k and half the kids graduating can't get jobs.  That's unsustainable!  I mean think about it, they have a sports team in the second and fourth most popular sports in the richest country in the world, they don't pay the players, they keep all the revenue and they still need a billion dollars from the state to keep their doors open.  

 

The first derivative of x^2 is 2x the second derivative is 2 the third derivative is 0. It can't cost us 33k as a society for a freshman to learn that.  

 

Anyone with common sense would say that this is excessive spending, but you put the words higher education in front of it and some people loose all objectivity.  

---