A new school funding plan was passed by the legislature and signed by Doug Ducey. Emphasis on the word “plan.” There’s no guarantee schools will get any more money than they’re getting now. The plan is to let voters decide whether or not to increase school budgets. Still, Ducey and his legislative buddies are risking injury by repeatedly patting themselves on the back for their generosity. “Landmark deal!” they proclaim. “We’ll lead the nation in the amount we’re increasing school funding!” “We support our children!” “We support our teachers!” “We support our schools!”
Um, no. No congratulations are due. The people who have illegally underfunded our schools all these years deserve blame and shame, not congratulations.
I like to use analogies to explain things, and my favorite on the education funding issue is to compare Arizona Republicans to deadbeat dads and moms. I like it because it’s not really an analogy. It’s a statement of fact. They’ve refused to spend $330 million a year in educational child support that’s required by law. According to the judge, they’re already more than a billion dollars behind on their child support payments, and counting.
Here’s what they’re congratulating themselves for. If the voters give them they go-ahead, they’re willing to pay 70 cents on the dollar of what they owe, and 60 percent of it will come out of the kids’ trust fund.
“This is our offer, take it or leave it,” they’re saying. “We’ll grab 42 cents of what we owe you from the trust fund we set up for the kids’ future, kick in 28 cents from our own pocket, and keep the rest of what we owe, 30 cents, for ourselves.”
“Oh, and there’s this,” they add. “If times get tough, we’ll stop payments, and maybe even ask for some of our money back.”
So I say to each of you deadbeat legislators and Governor Ducey: This deal doesn’t make you a great guy or a great gal. It doesn’t mean you’re supporting your kids. It just makes you less of an asshole than you were before.
And here’s the sad part. There’s a good chance people will take the deal, because they know it could be the last chance to get any more money out of those stingy sons of bitches.
Next: Damning the School Funding Plan With Faint Praise, Part Two: In 600 Years, We’ll Laugh About All That Money We’re Taking From the Trust Fund.
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2015.
…and last night our Congress voted to steal $150B from SS again. Blame and shame? Selective memory, or just partisan chatter? We have been divided and they are conquering.
Safari’s right on one point, we don’t support our children. Billions of dollars are stolen from the taxpayers by liberals to support illegals instead of our children.
How an entire segment, public education, can live with themselves by exploiting the government money that follows the 80% of female crossers that are raped and abused is beyond me.
His name is not Safari, it’s Safer. Check your speeling.
People should not vote on this deal. It is a ripoff to the future of education in the long run. I saw Dewitt on PBS a few weeks ago and he explained this deal with the example of someone cashing out their 401K and spending all that money on a very expensive car that breaks down after a few years and can’t be repaired because you spent all of your money on the expensive car. You don’t have anything to show for all of your misspent money. Ducey wants to use the principal monies from the land trust fund without having any way of replacing that money so in fact; the land trust fund dwindles and that money was used for education in a quick fix scheme.
I thought that every dollar invested in education returned $8 in long term economic benefits. Does this not hold for the dollars from the land trust fund?
Cynthia: false choice. Instead of using our rainy day fund, and following the court’s orders in a timely fashion, this plan begins to dismantle the principle of the trust fund. This is unnecessary and shortsighted. Please read the language of the bills, and understand that JTED funding and university funding is still missing. This is not fiscally responsible. And to What, Again: Arizona does not spend billions of dollars on educating undocumented citizens: we are fighting for, and have promised our young people a world-class education. Please address the topic directly and stop with the unnecessary diversions. Our children deserve better consideration than your rude dismissal of our educators. Be an American. Be civil and stay on topic. Thank you for your kind attention to a workable solution.
When the lege hands out tax cuts using the unexpected general fund surplus, you’ll know why it was structured to use land trust dollars rather than general fund dollars. These R legislators are the stingiest people I’ve ever encountered.
To say they are the stingiest is the nice way to put it. Their draconian ideas about either stealing the money from First Things First (i.e. YOUNGER kids) and stealing from the future of public education all indicate that they really don’t think much of kids. Add to that that JTED is only good enough for them to fix their cars, but not good enough to fund, and that our public Universities ALSO don’t deserve money and it certainly looks like they HATE kids. Maybe the Earth was born all at once, in their world view, and so were they. Did they not have childhoods of their own? Do they not have children of their own?
And then of course there is the pesky notion that they continue a longstanding tradition of criminal legislative theft of public tax money, spending it as if it is their private slush fund instead of designated funds. Where is the OTHER half of the bill? The half that says ok, we accept this because we don’t think we’ll see ANY money for our schools otherwise, but you all go to jail for either being criminals or being accomplices to a crime–the theft of taxpayer funds that were designated for public education. You think I’m joking? I’m not.
Was it less than a generation ago the value of the state land was 20% what it is now, $1B then vs $5B now? How on earth did the deadbeat Dad’s increase that amount? And now that they have you condemn them for returning $2B of that gain back to the schools? You should leave business to those who know business, education to those who know education and commentaries to those who know what they’re talking about..
I’d simply like to point out to this “journalist” that in U.S. divorce and custody matters, mothers are awarded primary physical custody of minor children – when such children are involved – in 91 percent of cases.