Funny, isn't it, how the slogans and ideological mantras that win elections can come back to bite your derriere.
Sloganeering, after all, is why the ghosts of the disastrous 2003 Legislature continue to haunt Texans who just want to join — or stay in — the middle class. In 2003, you may recall, the Legislature came under the firm control of ideologues driven by the mantra that government is so inept, it needs to be starved, and that market forces and the private sector will do everything better and more efficiently.

In the buildup to this takeover, little attention was paid to the fact that unregulated campaign contributions from big-bucks donors were putting shortsighted ideologues in power, and that the sugar daddies expected to be rewarded for their political largesse.

And worse, the sloganeers hadn't figured out that when their ideological congressional counterparts helped out the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans by suspending the so-called "death tax," revenues from Texas' own inheritance tax — which are tied to the federal levy — would dry up, too. Nor could they conceive that markets might cause retail sales and sales-tax revenues to drop.
No, it wasn't until they convened in January 2003 that the ideologues faced the fruits of their poor public policy: a $9.9 billion revenue shortfall.

Painted into the corner of balancing the budget without raising taxes — and delivering tax relief and other goodies to the wealthiest of Texans — they resorted to smoke-and-mirrors and shortsighted quick fixes.
For starters, they raised every license and fee they could find, effectively shifting more of the tax burden from the very rich to the poor and the middle class.

But that wasn't enough. So, they dramatically cut social services and health care programs for the old, disabled, poor and working poor. And when things like cutting dental care for poor children, and taking away psychiatric and podiatric care for elderly Texans in nursing homes — where depression and diabetes are rampant — they looked for other ways to save some money.

They voted to fire thousands of the state's social service workers and replace them with a privately run eligibility system, and a new computer system that has already cost $600 million but still does not work.

And they decided that instead of coming up with the money needed to fund the state's public universities — which were already bursting at the seams — they would "deregulate" tuition by splitting it into "statutory tuition" the legislators would set, and "designated tuition" that university regents would determine. In essence, they authorized universities to gouge students to cover rising costs that aren't funded by the state.

Earlier in the week, it was announced that tuition at the University of Texas at Austin may rise at least 8 percent in 2008-09 and 7 percent in 2009-10. For the average undergraduate taking 15 credit hours, that would mean another $636 next year and yet another $606 in 2009-10.

But that isn't the whole story.

Let's face it, similar recommendations are likely to be repeated in most, if not all, of the state's universities, and not only because UT is a leading institution among them, but because the state is simply not keeping up with costs that are rising because of inflation and expanded enrollment.

But the other part of the story is that these tuition increases aren't the first at Texas universities. From fall 2003 to fall 2006, designated tuition at state universities had already risen an average of 79 percent, and at UT, a startling 139 percent.

And tuition isn't all that students must pay. At UT, mandatory fees have risen 22 percent since 2003, but statewide, they have risen 32 percent.

How much more money will be extorted from students — and their families — just so they can join or stay in the middle class?