5 ms·

I was one of the pols. I agonized over the budgets. What we "wanted to do" was continue to pay our teachers. There wasn't enough money for that. It was simp

by jbooth 17y ago

I was one of the pols. I agonized over the budgets. What we "wanted to do" was continue to pay our teachers. There wasn't enough money for that. It was simple arithmetic, a choice between letting teachers go or raising taxes. What many people did for selfish reasons, and you're doing for ideological purity reasons, is attempt to change the debate to some abstract notion of "government spending my money". Hey buddy, it's your kids in the schools, and you even get to vote on the tax increase. Just don't call me a jerk or a liar -- I'm giving it to you straight. Quote anamax : The "jerk" behavior is to spend the $100 on lower priorities and whine that you don't have enough money to pay for higher priorities. Which lower priorities was I wasting money on here, exactly? You're the expert. And I'm sure there weren't any state or federal mandates involved, legal obligations or anything like that. "jerk" behavior is refusing to educate yourself on things and hand-waving away instead so you can keep your nice simple universe. Mental shortcuts will always lead to uninformed opinions.

anamax 17y ago
> It was simple arithmetic, a choice between letting teachers go or raising taxes. Somehow I doubt that teacher salaries were your only expense. I doubt that teacher salaries were even your only not-mandated expense. (As to "mandated", I've found that some of the "mandates" are an excuse. Yes, I've done this exercise before.) A 20% reduction in income can be painful, but in a world where lots of people are taking a bigger hit....
- jbooth 17y ago
  You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, I guess.
  - anamax 17y ago
    Which reminds me, I like your assumption that govt spending, specifically teacher salaries, are the most important priority. Your tax base took a hit because people took a huge hit, yet for some reason you think that teachers should be spared. Other folks take a pay cut and lose jobs, but .... Which reminds me, do those teachers have defined benefit pensions? Are they fully funded? Few folks in the private sector have such pensions and none of them have taxpayer guarantees. And yes, I noticed that you ducked my questions about budget components. As I wrote, I've gone through this before.
    - jbooth 17y ago
      You didn't ask a question, you threw out a bunch of assumptions, most of which were so far off base that I need a stronger word than "wrong". You're still doing it here. Did you read my earlier comments about how the property tax is assessed and collected? If you had, you wouldn't be talking about how the tax base took a "hit".
      - anamax 17y ago
        > If you had, you wouldn't be talking about how the tax base took a "hit". You claimed that you didn't have enough money to pay teachers. There are three ways to get into that situation. (1) The amount of money that you're paying teachers (as a whole) has gone up. (2) You have less money than you had last year. (1) is dumb unless you have more money coming in, which leaves (2). Should I have assumed dumb? > Did you read my earlier comments about how the property tax is assessed and collected? Yes, I did. The total amount of property tax collected can go down if the total assessed value of property goes down. Of course, not all of that property tax revenue goes for teacher salaries, so it's possible for the teacher salary budget to go down when the property tax revenues don't change. Anad that gets us back to priorities. When total tax revenues go down (or new spending comes in that exceeds new revenues), govts make two lists - things that they threaten to cut and things that they don't threaten to cut. The composition of those two lists tells you want they think is valuable. If your "teacher salary budget" got cut, it's because something else didn't get cut. Why do I keep saying that? Because property tax revenues pay for more than just teacher salaries.

by jbooth 17y ago

anamax 17y ago

> It was simple arithmetic, a choice between letting teachers go or raising taxes. Somehow I doubt that teacher salaries were your only expense. I doubt that teacher salaries were even your only not-mandated expense. (As to "mandated", I've found that some of the "mandates" are an excuse. Yes, I've done this exercise before.) A 20% reduction in income can be painful, but in a world where lots of people are taking a bigger hit....

jbooth 17y ago
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, I guess.
- anamax 17y ago
  Which reminds me, I like your assumption that govt spending, specifically teacher salaries, are the most important priority. Your tax base took a hit because people took a huge hit, yet for some reason you think that teachers should be spared. Other folks take a pay cut and lose jobs, but .... Which reminds me, do those teachers have defined benefit pensions? Are they fully funded? Few folks in the private sector have such pensions and none of them have taxpayer guarantees. And yes, I noticed that you ducked my questions about budget components. As I wrote, I've gone through this before.
  - jbooth 17y ago
    You didn't ask a question, you threw out a bunch of assumptions, most of which were so far off base that I need a stronger word than "wrong". You're still doing it here. Did you read my earlier comments about how the property tax is assessed and collected? If you had, you wouldn't be talking about how the tax base took a "hit".
    - anamax 17y ago
      > If you had, you wouldn't be talking about how the tax base took a "hit". You claimed that you didn't have enough money to pay teachers. There are three ways to get into that situation. (1) The amount of money that you're paying teachers (as a whole) has gone up. (2) You have less money than you had last year. (1) is dumb unless you have more money coming in, which leaves (2). Should I have assumed dumb? > Did you read my earlier comments about how the property tax is assessed and collected? Yes, I did. The total amount of property tax collected can go down if the total assessed value of property goes down. Of course, not all of that property tax revenue goes for teacher salaries, so it's possible for the teacher salary budget to go down when the property tax revenues don't change. Anad that gets us back to priorities. When total tax revenues go down (or new spending comes in that exceeds new revenues), govts make two lists - things that they threaten to cut and things that they don't threaten to cut. The composition of those two lists tells you want they think is valuable. If your "teacher salary budget" got cut, it's because something else didn't get cut. Why do I keep saying that? Because property tax revenues pay for more than just teacher salaries.