Anyone who thinks we don't have enough money to fund education in California is just plain wrong..
From this point on, ANYONE, who says to me that we need to raise taxes in California to fix our education system, will get jabbed in the neck.
This report is from an interview with State Senator Tom McClintock on a libertarian news show I listen to everyday. You may know the Senator from the news earlier this year when he led a bunch of Senators to boycott the state budget due to overspending. He was branded as a neo-con trying to score points with his base by not reaching a reasonable conclusion… Here are some of his explanations on why he led that charge.
In the 1960s California had a 30% higher population rise than we do now and FAR less revenue per capita coming in. At that time California had the best highway system in the world, the largest growing economy, water and power were so efficient and cheap that many cities didn’t even keep track of it, and we had the best education system in the country. Since that time, adjusted for inflation, we are paying 3 times as much per year for every student in our education system. Every year we pay $11,000 per student to be in our public education system. What has changed since then? In the 60s schools were more or less privately owned. The teacher was responsible for the kids, the principle was responsible for hiring and firing and discipline of teachers (not kids) and the principle had a school board breathing down his neck to make sure everyone was doing their job. In the 70s the government took control of the schools and it became a gigantic money hole.
The way that schools get their money is called categorical block grants. What that means is they get a certain amount of money but they need to use it on specific things or else they don’t get it. For example, I heard a teacher say that his school built a multi-million dollar football field yet he needs to ask for a $10 lab fee from every one of his students in order to pay for supplies. When he asked the administration why they can build the field but not supply his classroom he was told that the school got the money but it was only allowed to be used on construction, so they had no other choice but to use it on the field. By contrast they could have funded the entire science department at the school for 100 years with that money instead if the government would have let them.
The same teacher did the math, if we are paying 11,000 dollars a year to keep a kid in school and there is an average of 32 students per class, then that classroom should have about $352,000 worth of budget going into Sacramento for the school. The teacher earned about $42,000 a year, plus about $28,000 a year in fringe benefits. So that means that there is about $282,000 left from the budget to pay for supplies, rent, fees, whatever else.. Yet the teacher only got $3.60 per student, per year, to pay for ALL supplies and materials to teach his science class. So that means that 66% of our tax money disappears in this giant government bureaucracy before it reaches the students. Even if the school needs to pay for rent, supplies, food, insurance, salaries, construction, dances etc. there is no way that $11,000 per student per year does not cover that.
People want to say I’m not compassionate because I tend to have fiscally conservatives views, guess what, I’m compassionate as hell. How many times have you heard sob stories about kids in Oakland who can’t get an education because they can’t afford books or supplies? For $11,000 dollars a year we sure as hell should be able to afford books. In the 60s we afforded books with 3 times less money. I’m not fiscally conservative because I don’t want to pay taxes, or because I want people who don’t have jobs to suffer, I am fiscally conservative because I want the government the hell out of my life. I am sick of paying a dollar to the government only to have 40, 50, 60 cents of it disappear and never be used for what it was intended for. You want to fix our education? Help the unfortunate poor man who can’t get an education? Then get the government the hell out of my schools. This is the exact reason why I think government run health care will not work by the way.
Some other interesting facts about how the government takes thousands of dollars from you every year and wastes it:
- In California there are about 6000 government jobs that are not filled yet the government collects salaries for those 6000 people and uses it to fund other things. That is about 200 million dollars every year. In other words we are paying for about 6000 government jobs, yet there is no one doing those jobs.
-In California we pay about 5 million dollars every year on Caesar Chavez day.
- We would instantly save about 325 million dollars if we conformed to the Federal Welfare laws. Most people don’t know that back in the 90s the radical right winger Bill Clinton made some big welfare reforms which most states conform to. California is not one of those states. So we are violating federal law, and wasting millions of dollars at the same time.
-In Southern California they installed seven $300,000 automatic flushing toilets which speak to you in 6 different languages. As of today, 2 and a half years after the project was started, only one of the seven toilets work costing the taxpayers 1.8 million dollars plus the cost of upkeep and repair.
It is estimated that California can save over 3 Billion Dollars tomorrow just by cutting out wasteful spending, but instead this year, our government is going to ask to raise taxes because they don’t have enough money to pay for our state debts. The legislative fiscal analyst for the state of California has said that “The budget deficit this year is going to be much larger than previously noted, the time for easy choices are over.”
The power to fix our schools, our budget, our welfare, our healthcare, everything is in our hands. It is our responsibility, not the governments, who is going to make the hard choices? Fabian Nunez and Don Parada will not, will you?
I welcome debate on this subject, just make sure you have facts before you start yelling at me Also if you want more info, I have a 37 page booklet about government waste in California that I can send to you in PDF form.
This report is from an interview with State Senator Tom McClintock on a libertarian news show I listen to everyday. You may know the Senator from the news earlier this year when he led a bunch of Senators to boycott the state budget due to overspending. He was branded as a neo-con trying to score points with his base by not reaching a reasonable conclusion… Here are some of his explanations on why he led that charge.
In the 1960s California had a 30% higher population rise than we do now and FAR less revenue per capita coming in. At that time California had the best highway system in the world, the largest growing economy, water and power were so efficient and cheap that many cities didn’t even keep track of it, and we had the best education system in the country. Since that time, adjusted for inflation, we are paying 3 times as much per year for every student in our education system. Every year we pay $11,000 per student to be in our public education system. What has changed since then? In the 60s schools were more or less privately owned. The teacher was responsible for the kids, the principle was responsible for hiring and firing and discipline of teachers (not kids) and the principle had a school board breathing down his neck to make sure everyone was doing their job. In the 70s the government took control of the schools and it became a gigantic money hole.
The way that schools get their money is called categorical block grants. What that means is they get a certain amount of money but they need to use it on specific things or else they don’t get it. For example, I heard a teacher say that his school built a multi-million dollar football field yet he needs to ask for a $10 lab fee from every one of his students in order to pay for supplies. When he asked the administration why they can build the field but not supply his classroom he was told that the school got the money but it was only allowed to be used on construction, so they had no other choice but to use it on the field. By contrast they could have funded the entire science department at the school for 100 years with that money instead if the government would have let them.
The same teacher did the math, if we are paying 11,000 dollars a year to keep a kid in school and there is an average of 32 students per class, then that classroom should have about $352,000 worth of budget going into Sacramento for the school. The teacher earned about $42,000 a year, plus about $28,000 a year in fringe benefits. So that means that there is about $282,000 left from the budget to pay for supplies, rent, fees, whatever else.. Yet the teacher only got $3.60 per student, per year, to pay for ALL supplies and materials to teach his science class. So that means that 66% of our tax money disappears in this giant government bureaucracy before it reaches the students. Even if the school needs to pay for rent, supplies, food, insurance, salaries, construction, dances etc. there is no way that $11,000 per student per year does not cover that.
People want to say I’m not compassionate because I tend to have fiscally conservatives views, guess what, I’m compassionate as hell. How many times have you heard sob stories about kids in Oakland who can’t get an education because they can’t afford books or supplies? For $11,000 dollars a year we sure as hell should be able to afford books. In the 60s we afforded books with 3 times less money. I’m not fiscally conservative because I don’t want to pay taxes, or because I want people who don’t have jobs to suffer, I am fiscally conservative because I want the government the hell out of my life. I am sick of paying a dollar to the government only to have 40, 50, 60 cents of it disappear and never be used for what it was intended for. You want to fix our education? Help the unfortunate poor man who can’t get an education? Then get the government the hell out of my schools. This is the exact reason why I think government run health care will not work by the way.
Some other interesting facts about how the government takes thousands of dollars from you every year and wastes it:
- In California there are about 6000 government jobs that are not filled yet the government collects salaries for those 6000 people and uses it to fund other things. That is about 200 million dollars every year. In other words we are paying for about 6000 government jobs, yet there is no one doing those jobs.
-In California we pay about 5 million dollars every year on Caesar Chavez day.
- We would instantly save about 325 million dollars if we conformed to the Federal Welfare laws. Most people don’t know that back in the 90s the radical right winger Bill Clinton made some big welfare reforms which most states conform to. California is not one of those states. So we are violating federal law, and wasting millions of dollars at the same time.
-In Southern California they installed seven $300,000 automatic flushing toilets which speak to you in 6 different languages. As of today, 2 and a half years after the project was started, only one of the seven toilets work costing the taxpayers 1.8 million dollars plus the cost of upkeep and repair.
It is estimated that California can save over 3 Billion Dollars tomorrow just by cutting out wasteful spending, but instead this year, our government is going to ask to raise taxes because they don’t have enough money to pay for our state debts. The legislative fiscal analyst for the state of California has said that “The budget deficit this year is going to be much larger than previously noted, the time for easy choices are over.”
The power to fix our schools, our budget, our welfare, our healthcare, everything is in our hands. It is our responsibility, not the governments, who is going to make the hard choices? Fabian Nunez and Don Parada will not, will you?
I welcome debate on this subject, just make sure you have facts before you start yelling at me Also if you want more info, I have a 37 page booklet about government waste in California that I can send to you in PDF form.