California has a budget problem. So does Alabama. I wish Trevor Stokes, writer at my local newspaper, could use boldface in print:
Frustrated residents, about 40 strong, gathered Thursday to protest a proposed property tax increase that education officials hope will float the underfunded school system.
The residents’ message: Find money within schools’ pockets, not ours.
The meeting, headed by Muscle Shoals businessman Joe McKinney, was a rally against a 6-mill tax increase meant to help bridge the gap in an education budget deflated by state proration.
City officials have said the tax increase would mean an additional $90 in property tax annually on a home valued at $150,000, which is the median home value in the city.
“I am not against the Muscle Shoals school system,” McKinney said. “I helped raise money for the schools.
“This is not a negative against the school system, our school board or our administration.”
McKinney’s main criticism was that federal, state and local pools of tax revenues gave the false impression of need and that redistribution of the funds could close budgetary gaps.
McKinney was joined by at least one teacher.
“We’re not happy; the superintendent and administrators got raises just the last five years and I won’t get a raise until I retire,” said Sherry Isbell, a Muscle Shoals High School math teacher.
What was that I said about the south being the epicenter of all wingnutery? In the universe these people inhabit, getting state, local, and federal revenue to line up (with magic?) solves all problems. They are like the mythical taxi driver who knows how to fix the world.
There is a word for these people…what word am I looking for? Oh, yeah. They are examples of the right-wing authoritarian (RWA) personality. They always try to take control; occasionally, they do. The results are always a spectacular failure marked by destructive negligence and failed, aggressive policy.
They are defensive. They are greedy. They are stupid. They are the idiocracy, and their priorities are always out of balance: I deserve a raise, but shouldn’t pay $90 to educate other people’s children.
They do it in public buildings staffed, maintained, operated, and governed by the products of public education. They drive on streets paved and patrolled by former high school students (and many former college students). They rely on fire fighters and EMTs to save their lives with a public education. They assume all of the most critical matters of res publica will just take care of themselves, so there’s no need for me to kick out for the kitty…but by God, I had better start prospering soon or there will be hell to pay.
They surround me.
And there’s this today about my governor, Bob Riley, wanting Alabama to get a larger share in offshore drilling revenue:
“In the state with the lowest property taxes in the country, Alabama depends on offshore drilling in state waters for revenue to help balance state budgets each year. The governor said he is not advocating an end to drilling, just reasonable compensation to help the state minimize future risk.”
Our property taxes are the lowest in the nation (so low we’d have to triple them to become #49). We have a gigantic gap in the education budget. We take $1.69 from Washington DC for every $1 we send. I live in the heart of teabagistan, a welfare state. The failure of government here is complete.
All my life, the excuse for our regressive state system of revenue has been that we are a poor state; and that is true, but only true because we keep choosing to ensure our poverty. To quote an infamous person:
Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. The law “requires” a signature at the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than what is. (sic) If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.
Joe Stack fell for one of those tax shelter charlatans, got caught, and decided to burn his family alive before flying his $30,000 airplane into a building. The above paragraph was in his suicide note, and by “duress” Stack referred to Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.
Collecting taxes is one of the original functions of government; there has never been a government in human history that didn’t collect taxes. Indeed, where there are no taxes there is no government — hence, no law and no order as well as no airport or school system.
And then…there’s the Austin American-Statesman, which reports on a July 4 tea party rally at Georgetown Municipal Airport:
Marsha Farney, who is running for a State Board of Education seat, was not as reserved about where she stood. “I’d rather be here than with those America-bashing Democrats,” she said.
Georgetown Municipal Airport is public infrastructure operated with federal money. It is also the same airport where Joe Stack took off in his $30,000 airplane before flying it into a building (!).
They would like to run the country, and will gladly sabotage it to have their way; they think they are the stalwart individuals, but in fact they’re just greedy pigs.
H/t to Texas Betsy
