The Republican budget proposal announced today would cut Wisconsin schools by at least $400 million - the largest cut to education in decades.

If this is the budget that comes to me, I'll look at what I can do with use of the partial veto. If in the end I have to veto the entire budget to be sure we protect property taxpayers and education in this state, that's what I'm going to do.

They have given us a budget where the only people that get hurt are schoolchildren and property taxpayers.

Our community must protect basic education for its children. Today, our schools can still deliver a quality product. But with more than $15-million in tough cuts already made and more coming, that quality is at risk. To protect education, and the investment we have made in our homes and in our community, we need to pass our issue in May.

If [Republican strategist] Karl Rove is watching today, Karl, I want you to hear me loud and clear: I am going to provide tax cuts to ease the burdens for 31 million American families -- and lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty -- by raising the taxes on 0.1 percent of families -- those who make more than $1,000,000 a year. You don't have to read my lips, I'm saying it,

Literacy is not, as it is considered in our schools, a PORTION of education. It IS education. It is at once the ability AND the inclination of the mind to find knowledge, to pursue understanding, and out of knowledge and understanding, not out of received attitudes and values or emotional responses, however worthy, to make judgments.