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A former math teacher was at a microphone, arguing that it would cost $1 billion for the state to carry out the law's requirements, while the federal government gives Utah only about $100 million.

"That's like sending a child for $10 worth of groceries and giving him just $1 to buy them," the former teacher said.

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Senator Dave Gladwell, a Republican who is the Utah bill's Senate sponsor, said many of his colleagues felt ambivalent about the measure.

"We don't want to embarrass President Bush or his administration, and yet we're kind of sensitive to our state sovereignty," he said.

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Last month, the Republican-controlled Virginia House of Delegates passed a resolution, 98 to 1, urging Congress to exempt Virginia from the law. That vote came after Rod Paige, the education secretary, and other administration officials met with Virginia lawmakers, said James H. Dillard II, chairman of the House Education Committee.

"Six of us met with Paige," Mr. Dillard, a Republican, said. "He looked us in the eye and said, `It's fully funded.' We looked him back in the eye and said, `We don't think so.' "

"We got platitudes and stonewalls, but no corrective action," he said.

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Result: a big mess.

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Originally posted by DrConway:
Repubs have done this since 1994. They call it "devolution", but what it amounts to, all too often, is dumping federal responsibilities onto the state governments, and then making them unfunded mandates, which means the state governments are in a no-win situation. They can't get the dough from the feds, and they can face financial penalties if they don't fund the program and get it going.

Result: a big mess.

(The Repubs also like to do things like claim they're not making cuts to programs, but then in the actual appropriation legislation, stating the amounts in nominal dollars. If you work them into projected constant dollars, often they've factored in the expected inflation rate so that in reality, what appears to be an increase is not an increase at all.)

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I'm confused... what, praytell, does Dubya hope to gain by creating no-win scenarios and big messes?

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Originally posted by DrConway:
Repubs will stiff anyone on the tab for expenses if it means they can give a few more bucks to their rich buddies.

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I'm confused... what, praytell, does Dubya hope to gain by creating no-win scenarios and big messes?

I have my doubts that he is actively trying to destroy himself politically, so what IS the reason?

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The scenario - simplistic, I know, but no one is paying me for this so deal with it - is simple: Run on a campaign of 'fiscal responsibility', as opposed to those dastardly liberals and their campaign of 'fiscal whee-we-got-lots-and-lots-of- money-boy-how-are-we-gonna-spend-it-all'; initiate funding cuts in the name of 'efficiency'; institute mind-boggling tax cuts which further dry up the public purse; spend like a goddam fiend on every special interest that paid for your political position (fair is fair)further depleting the ability of government to fulfill its responsibilities; by this point, an anemically underfunded public program should be shouting in pain- not to mention the citizens who rely on these services; sit back and nod with sober seriousness as all of this is blamed on the inability of the public sector to 'cost-effectively' deliver services; institute some kind of private-public partnership to bring 'real world' know-how into the socialist dystopia of public services; give huge subsidies to the private side of this equation to ensure that these corporate interests are seen as a higher-level of service provision.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Username: babblers8
Password: audrarules

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