Speak Out 06/26/03

Method to madness

SOME PEOPLE keep portraying Gov. Bob Holden's call for the voters to decide whether or not to raise sin taxes and close cavernous corporate tax loopholes stupid, insane and so forth. There is a method to the governor's apparent madness. Trust me.

Scare tactic

STATE LAW prohibits public schools from receiving any less money for the next than for the previous school year. The sky is not falling. Reducing but keeping a surplus of revenue is not a budget deficit. Public schools have been using this ploy for years, and it is a scare tactic with which I am fed up.

Effect of budget cuts

SUMMER SCHOOL programs are not cash cows. That double-count money is used to pay teachers a fair wage. The money is used to help remediate those students who didn't achieve educational success in the regular school session. Some of the classes are enrichment classes that build on what students have previously learned. It really doesn't matter what you think of summer school, though. With the coming budget crisis, it is very likely that there will be no summer school programs in the coming years. Be sure to thank your legislators and governor for that.

No taxes, no refunds

IN RESPONSE to a recent comment by a low-income working mother: You are the one person that child calls Mom, not me, not all the other middle-class women who have worked all their lives, raised their children and paid their bills as well as taxes. We did not give birth to all the children on welfare. Welfare was only supposed to be a temporary financial state, not a generation after generation institution. The reason you did not get a refund is because you received all your wages to spend at the time you earned them. If that is the case, then people who have worked a lifetime shouldn't have to pay taxes on our retirement, but we continue to pay for welfare and poor financial dealings by our government, both state and federal.