In education politics it has recently seemed to me that my first impression of things is always wrong. I attended a recent meeting of experts concerning Senate Bill 1 (the voucher bill). It is stalled right now in a number of ways. It is stalled in the Senate keeping it from final approval. It is stalled in the House of Representatives because they will not take it up unless the Senate votes for it. The governor seems to be for it, but is hanging back in a way that is not very helpful. If you are for school choice (and I am—although if I were doing it myself I would do it differently than this), this would seem like bad news. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘taxes’
Senate Bill 1
Wednesday, May 11th, 2011Report from the Slow Train
Saturday, January 29th, 2011I have written a number of times on the impending judgment day type economics that are facing public school districts in Pennsylvania and (through the pensions) the entire state. I recently lauded Bob Hollister for making painful, but necessary decisions in Garden Spot. The next day another story popped up that made me want to write again:
Hempfield School District forum looks at deficit
I have a lot of respect for superintendent Becker, but there are a couple of things about this story that concern me. I think that getting people together to “air grievances” might be a good tactic, but I cannot imagine doing something like this. (more…)
Talk Softly and Carry a Big Debt
Thursday, January 27th, 2011If you were wondering what unbelievable levels of debt sold to the Chinese means, answers were offered by President Obama’s reception of the Chinese President Hu. President Obama did talk about human rights, but the comments that I saw were far from strident. They were all that we could afford to say to the country that holds a good portion of our debt. We have lived beyond our means. Now, we cannot speak truth to wicked nations. Welcome to the beginning of slavery. We need to quickly change our tune. Right now, it seems, we have no moral ground on which to stand. The Chinese Communists might be more capitalist than us. They are aborting mountains of children; we probably can’t match them. The temptation is to feel that “in the dark night of sin all cats are gray”. This was the feeling I got from President’s Obama’s interview. “We call the Chinese to honor human rights. Which are principles embedded in their Constitution.”
The borrower is slave to the lender. We are the borrower.
A Political Disconnect
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010Today, as I was driving home and leaning right (I always lean right when I listen to NPR), I heard another explanation of why taxes should be raised for the rich—i.e., those having an income above $200,000.
As the fellow laid out his case, it hit me why conservatives and liberals have trouble agreeing on these things. The reason that this liberal fellow gave for taking more money from these people were almost completely unstated. In logic, we call an unstated part of an argument an enthymeme. Usually people don’t state enthymemes because they are so obvious that they need not be stated. (more…)
Liberalism as a Suicide Pact
Tuesday, September 14th, 2010The paper reported today that President Barack Obama has committed himself to repealing some of the Bush Administration’s Tax Cuts—particularly those that cut the taxes on people with incomes of $250,000 a year. (FYI, my tax cuts will be restored.) He is committing to this again the advice all Conservative and most Liberal economists. The comment usually goes something like this: “Why would anyone raise taxes on anyone during a recession? Don’t we want to stimulate the economy?” President Obama’s deafness at this point is instructive…very instructive. President Obama is quite willing to stimulate the economy with further government spending—further, vast, endless, gargantuan, at-times-pointless, government spending. He, however, is willing to oppose the most normal type of stimulus—letting people keep and spend their own money. (more…)
The “Jesus” Problem, Part 3
Thursday, August 26th, 2010In The “Jesus” Problems, Part 1 and 2, we have seen that corporations—especially large ones—are now very willing to support any cause except one that names Jesus Christ. We have seen, also, that the political left is siphoning off money from people on both the right and the left to fund schools that keep Jesus out. Now, we come to an examination of the political right.
The right, it seems to me, competes with the left to see how supportive it can be and how much money it can give to the schools that keep Jesus assiduously outside. Candidates are on the fringe if they are in favor of school choice or vouchers. No candidate on the political right simply calls for decreases in funding or deeper levels of accountability (i.e., accountability that could result in systemic failure) for the public schools. Why not? The answer is simple. They are trying to get elected or stay elected and this sort of view will not aid them even though someone saying this and doing this will be necessary fiscally if we are to survive. To put a finer point on this: our public schools cannot continue to survive economically into the short term future. Here is a story from the Reading Eagle (Reading!?!?! As far as I can tell the Intelligencer Journal whiffed on this one) that was forwarded to me by a friend: (more…)
