The Political Insider explains the tuition conundrum for me. It looks like the Gov. needs to get his Easy Rider helmet on for some rough riding ahead.

In a 10-3-04 post -- yesterday -- I said I think I am finally sort of getting the picture. It is not going to be the executive and legislative (read Terry Coleman, the Lt. Gov. and the Gov.) vs. the Chancellor as I once thought, but rather the Democrats (read Terry Coleman and the Lt. Gov.) vs. the Gov.

Rather than a foe, the Chancellor had assisted in giving the Democrats a hot campaign issue; hot with a capital "h"; hot with parents of students; hot with students.

The 10-3-04 post was entitled "Democrats take your mark, & increasingly it appears to me that the Gov. appears to be the mark vs. the Board of Regents. -- HOPE & tuition increases."

Earlier that day I had done a 10-3-04 post entitled "Reading the tea leaves ??; politics as usual ??; Sid's promised duels apparently dissipate ?? Dern if I know. -- Proposed Tuition Increase," wherein I confessed ignorance on who was going to be on what side of the "v."

Earlier in a 9-22-04 post speculating that the executive and legislative branches would line up against the Chancellor.

Well, today the 10-4-04 PI comes through for us and provides the answer, confirming my last post, and at the same time providing the background and explanation of why I have been so confused on who was lining up with and against whom.

The PI notes:

"Some weeks ago, Speaker Terry Coleman said he thought a mixture of layoffs, program cuts and tuition increases would be necessary to absorb the $68 million budget cut ordered by Gov. Perdue last month."

This sounds as if he is going to oppose the tuition cuts, does it not. Thanks, it did to me also.

Continuing, however, PI notes that "[t]he speaker has since reconsidered — and has now allied himself with Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, a fellow Democrat, who's opposing the 10 percent midyear tuition increase that Chancellor Thomas Meredith says is the only out for the University System.

"Late last week, the speaker called on the Republican governor to defuse the budget crisis by 1) recommitting himself to shifting one state payroll into the 2006 budget, as he agreed to do this spring, or 2) raising the state revenue estimate for the year based on this fall's increased collections."

If the Gov. did as requested by the Speaker, then a tuition increase would not be necessary, and University System's $68 million share of his prescribed $179 million in cuts would be restored.

And hot potato wise, it gets even better:

"Coleman noted that since 2002, the state has reduced per-student funding for university students by 21 percent — excellent fuel for the legislative races ahead of us this month."

Baxter & Galloway observe: "It's clear that Democrats think they've got the governor boxed in on this one — and some Republican lawmakers privately admit they're worried."

They continue:

"The speaker and lieutenant governor aren't the only ones beating the drum.

"Former Gov. Roy Barnes — not that he would ever criticize a fellow governor — has been testing this line in front of several audiences: "I would have scraped the gold off the Capitol before I cut funding in education."
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Jim Galloway stood in for the Dean this week on The Georgia Gang, and during the show had the occasion to note that Gov. Barnes had made the above statement about scraping gold off the Capitol.

I thought to myself; I have heard Roy say that before. He used the line when addressing the huge, huge crowed of well-wishers at a campaign rally for Charles Walker in Augusta the day after the fed's made public the 142 count indictment. The topic: how Gov. Perdue has more than doubled the premiums for PeachCare (the program providing comprehensive health care to children who do not qualify for Medicaid), a program dear to Roy Barnes' heart.
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And while speaking of the Dean, and in the context of the Speaker's observation saying that in the past two years the state has reduced per-student funding for university students by 21%, did you see Bill Shipp's recent column on some of the first Georgia is currently suffering from.

His mid-September column began:

For 40-something years, Georgia government took pride in calling itself a trailblazing state. Our boosterism knew no bounds. We said we were the energetic heart of the New South, claiming an almost embarrassing list of primacies in a wide range of endeavors. Looking back over the past few months, however, few Georgians will find anything to crow about on the latest list of firsts.

Consider:

For the first time in more than four decades, higher education in Georgia is considering a no-growth policy even as the state's population spirals upward.