No Tax Pledge: Bad Public Policy
- on 03.31.06
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The quote below by Illinois Education Association President Ken Swanson who was addressing the union’s representative assembly on March 9. It is now the quote of the week at the Education Integlligence Agency. (Hat tip: The Champion)
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“The blunt reality is that the way we used to do business with the politicians and policymakers has changed. It’s not working. In a sense we have become victims of our own success. A few years, we could just send our lobbyists across the street to the Capitol and bad legislation was stopped and good legislation passed…. We have a critical election coming up this fall. We need legislators and a governor who legislate and govern in a responsible manner; who get it that a no-new-taxes pledge is unacceptable irresponsible public policy.” |
These 2 paragraphs are very informative. The first and easiest to see is that the Illinois Education Association is doing it’s best to get a Governor and Legislators who will raise taxes and give them whatever they want. They want more of yours and my money. They’ll do what it takes to get people elected to get it.
Second, this shows that Big Ed is having opposition and that even the legislators are now questioning the ever increasing money supply without results. This is good news for all of us who are tired of the tactics, lack of results, and ever increasing money grabs by the education bureaucracy. This is a clear signal to each of you citizens to continue telling your friends and neighbors the truth about Big Ed. They are bloated and lazy. They are not spending the money to educate our kids. They are spending the money on themselves.
Thank you all for your efforts. They are paying off. Keep up the good work you are doing. We have much more to do. We have to continue persuading others to join us. Show them the facts. The truth will set them free after it makes them angry. We will win if we keep up the battle.
As someone who devotes a good deal of his life to educating students in Illinois, I can tell you that you have no idea what you’re talking about. There are a number of public universities in Illinois; they have different foci, and serve different students. The University of Illinois is the flagship, and is a good research university. The other universities in the state have as their primary mission the education of students. There’s no fat left to cut. Janitors aren’t being replaced when they retire; librarians aren’t being replaced; students are spending more money on education because universities need to raise tuition to meet operating costs; buildings aren’t being repaired. Students are graduating with higher debt precisely because of the policies you advocate. Understand this: a no tax pledge is the sign of a childish approach to fiscal policy, and results in the kind of deficits we’re seeing now. Nice job.
Michael said, “There’s no fat left to cut.” Sorry Michael, but you are wrong. There are many examples of fat that I have pointed out on this website. There are many more examples on other websites that I link to as well. These examples are well documented.
Michael said, “Understand this: a no tax pledge is the sign of a childish approach to fiscal policy”. A no tax pledge is not childish. It is a response to a belief that government wastes money and they believe this waste can be routed out and cut away.