Die! Die You Ugly Idea DIE!

[Updates below.]

State's dependence on property tax has to go

Among the many presenters at the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus hearing on public school finances last week in Arlington, El Paso state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh deserved an A-plus for guts and clarity.

A MALC panelist teased that his presentation was a filibuster. On the contrary, his talk was a clearing of cobwebby thinking and empty political promises.

With his parade of statistics and graphs, Shapleigh had the nerve to state repeatedly -- as he had at other MALC hearings -- that the fairest and soundest way to fund Texas schools was to provide property tax relief through a state income tax.

Die, Die, Die!

If Texas passes an income tax, I may just move to New Hampshire.

I want to question Senator Shapleigh in front of live news cameras:

Sir, is it your contention that an income tax is the most fair way to fund Texas schools?

Yes, that is my contention.

Sir, would an acceptable definition of "fair" be equal treatment for all?

Sounds fine to me.

Equally treating all...like how you filed a bill to treat all Texas public junior college students equally in regards to the tutition they owe?

Excuse me?

SB 201, which you authored. It attempted, essentially, to give "governing board[s] of junior college district[s]" located "in count[ies] that border the United Mexican States" the authority to "waive" the tutition fees for residents of "United Mexican States" who "register for lower division courses" and whom "demonstrate" a financial need after the financial resources of the foreign student and the student's family are considered." In place of the standard foreign tutition rates, the bill said the student "shall pay tuition at the rate charged Texas residents who reside outside the junior college district."

To provide an example of the difference between these two rates, Austin Community College charges $408 for 12 credit hours if you live "in district," $1,068 if you live "out of district," and a whopping $2,112 if you are an "out of state" or "international student." El Paso Community College - certainly a more pertinent example, don't you think, Senator? - charges $589 for 12 credit hours for "residents" and $800 for "non-residents." These are serious sums of money for incoming students. Your bill would have given some students cheaper access to these educational resources than other students.

That's equal treatment, correct, Sir?

Now look here...

Because it would certainly be equal treatment to give some students a cheaper ride through junior college and only through junior colleges that are on the Texas-Mexico border. That's fair, right?

Excuse me, but that bill was intended to help the needy, to aid immigrants from other countries in getting an education!

And thereby treating them differently from the rest of the student body, correct?

Well...

Not to mention only junior colleges along the Mexican border get to take part in this fair treatment.

You fucker. Don't talk to me about fair treatment in regards to educational financing. Not when you're prancing about trying to grant tutition breaks to Mexican residents.

Anyway, back to the Star-Telegram article:

A woman in the audience of about 100 shouted "no," but many others nodded. It is time for Texans to own up to their responsibility to pay their fair share instead of relying on regressive local property and state sales taxes.

I bet that woman had a memory spasm of the days (long past) when people provided for their own lives from the fruits of their own labor. Before the State of Texas took more and more control over the lives of it's enablers.

Before idiot commenters like Richard Gonzales spouted bullshit about there being some "duty" that requires me to pay for someone else's education and someone to pay mine. Mr. Gonzales, you've made the assertion so you have to prove it. On what moral and philosophical grounds do you base this "duty" of mine? You lose ten points if you lamely point to the Texas Constitution because it engages in as much arbitrary assertion as you have done, as well as contradiction, for it is antithetical to liberty to require people to provide for the desires of others.

According to Shapleigh's statistics, Texans earning less than $19,500 pay 5.2 percent of their income on property tax; those who earn more than $90,150 pay 1.7 percent. Those groups pay 5.9 percent and 1.5 percent of their income on sales taxes, respectively.

Hey, I'm all for cutting back and getting rid of more taxes. Not on these grounds, of course, but they do add weight to the arguement if your interests lean towards altruism...

According to the Center for Public Policy Priorities, the current tax system has failed to grow with the economy and the need for public services such as education. The sales tax that generates more than half of the state's tax revenue has not kept pace with the volume of actual sales.

Even though Texas has one of the highest levels of property and sales taxes in the country, these taxes don't generate sufficient revenue.

Somewhere, fiscal conservatives and libertarians are screaming, "CUT SPENDING MORE YOU PROLIFIC ASSHOLES!"

But no one seems to hear them. Ignore the superficial cuts made last session. They didn't come close to what's necessary to bring the Texas state government in line with some semblance of reality.

Currently, the state-local tax support ratio for public school education is 38:62, according to Grand Prairie Superintendent David Barbosa. Fort Worth Superintendent Thomas Tocco said the ratio should be 60:40.

Mr. Tocco, you seem eager to spend other people's money. I'm sure such a mentality comes naturally to a public school superintendent. Perhaps, given your enthusiasm for reforming the public education system and for other people to have more say in how much disposable income we should have, I propose this:

You should give up, uhmmm...$184,000 of your $285,000 base salary and give it directly to, uhmmm...Terlingua CSD! It's enrollment in 2000 was a paltry 184 children. That's $1,000 per kid! Or, on the other hand, since there are only about 20 teachers, that's a raise of $9,200 for each of them! Now we're talking! Sacrifice your unnecessary wages...give up your disposable income...do it because I said you have a duty to do it!

It's fun playing with other people's money. I'll address your family's collective wealth next time when someone brings up the inheritance tax. :)

The courts, through the Edgewood verdict or Robin Hood, tried to provide equity in public school funding. However, funding gaps between rich and poor districts still remain.

Via a series of graphs, Arlington Superintendent Mac Bernd demonstrated that his district has a low operating expenditure per student and low administrative expenditures when compared to those of richer school districts.

He said that Arlington provides a good education on the cheap. However, if that district could spend at the same level as the richer districts, it could expend additionally between $18.7 million and $109.6 million each year.

Here's one of the real travesties: A good, early education is important for anyone wanting to get anywhere with their life. And this important service is being bogged down, hashed up, and pulled this way and that entirely due to one thing: the politicians have control over it. It's wrong and it's got to stop.

According to Shapleigh, nine out of 10 Texas students benefit from Robin Hood. The plan recaptures money from 134 wealthy districts and distributes it to not-so-wealthy districts.

Bernd said, "It's not the Robin Hood plan that I'm worried about -- it's the Sheriff of Nottingham," in a sly reference to legislators willing to play politics with school finances rather than act courageously.

Pot, kettle, black.

For many politicians (including Gov. Rick Perry) who have promised voters not to raise taxes, Shapleigh's arguments expose the hollowness of their words. Unless the governor and other no-new-taxers have geese that lay golden eggs, the money needed to raise Texas from dead last among the 50 states in per capita general expenditures will need to come from taxes.

The solution is obvious: Charge for tutition. People don't have a right to an education; it's a service. It's an important service, but that doesn't change it's nature. It's no fundamentally different than an Internet service provider or a pizza delivery company.

If Texas is to raise the average per-pupil expenditure from $6,850 to the national average of $7,463, more greenbacks are needed.

There were over 4 million students (PDF) in Texas public schools in 2001. Gonzales and his side want an increase of $2,495,523,000 ($30,381,873,000 - $27,886,350,000) in state spending on education. And they want it from YOUR pockets.

It's sure easy to spend other people's money.

UPDATE(4/9/2004 12:55pm)
Oppose all state income tax plans!

UPDATE(4/15/2004 2:57pm)
It's Income Tax Day. Read it and weep.

Posted by Drizzten at November 10, 2003 11:05 PM