Blame Obama for cuts
I would like to remind my fellow progressives who are so adamant about investing in public education that the cuts in federal funding for UW research are the result of the actions of President Obama and his cronies ("Where Has All the Funding Gone?" 1/8/2015). This is his presidency, and the Republicans only recently took full control of the legislative branch. Let's think about that as we creep closer to 2016. Because I for one am a progressive who is not ready for Hillary.
Nathan Relles (via email)
Right-to-whatever
I'm in total agreement with Ruth Conniff's opinion piece "Welcome to Wississippi, the Right-to-Work State" (12/18/2014), but I'm surprised that no one is talking about the elephant in the room. We can take the exact same arguments for right-to-work and apply them to new legislation for "right-to-live-in-a-community." If a person shouldn't be required to pay for the democratically installed union at their workplace, then no one should be required to pay property taxes. Of course, they would still be able to take advantage of all of the local government services. Hell, we could even take it a step further and make state income taxes voluntary. I'm asking my Republican state legislators to add this amendment to any right-to-work legislation. They would be hypocrites if they don't agree.
Randy Golz, Fort Atkinson (via email)
