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20% is easily the difference between "this is a successful and growing venture" and "we need to do mass layoffs or risk being shut down". I also pointed out in my comment that they can do what they want with student/donor money, so obviously I know there are other funding sources. And if I am wrong and the budget from the state is so small and not worth mentioning, then certainly they won't make a big fuss if they lose that funding. But I think we both know that a very large fuss would be made.
Do you want a functioning market, or do you want state funding? The more state funding the worse the market.
And I can want my tax dollars to not be spent for bad reasons. Two different professors at GMU have written books about the subject of rotten academia.
I specifically said "Cut all state funding" and "Republicans [should] wash their hands of the university system". I suppose my last line could be interpreted as wanting a line item veto, and I'm not opposed to that. But its not really the point I was making in this comment. As long as we don't get a line item veto I think its reasonable to say "I hate this thing" as a reason why that thing should receive 0 funding. In fact, if there was line item vetoing by individuals my comment would be dumb and pointless and you could just respond "if you don't like it then just line item veto it, and the rest of us can continue to fund it as we like".
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