Wake up and good morning. This is a call to arms to the Tampa Bay business community. One of Tampa Bay’s most treasured institutions and, frankly, its greatest economic engine is under direct attack right now.

The University of South Florida has been targeted by remarkably petty and vindictive Senate budget writers who want to punish USF for resisting the bullying efforts of lame duck Sen. J.D. Alexander (left) to spin off USF’s Lakeland branch campus as Florida Polytechnic and make it an independent university. By not kissing Alexander’s ring quickly and often enough in this quest, the Senate now seeks to gut USF’s budget from state funding by nearly 60 percent. By contrast, the same budget cuts in state funding mean trims of just 26 percent at the University of Florida and 22 percent at Florida State University. A new Polytechnic would suffer no cuts at all. … Read more

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Post by Robert Trigaux of Tampa Bay business news blog: Venture | Tampa Bay Times read more of this blogger's posts at http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/venturebiz