 Tax Hikes move quickly through the legislature, before the Treasurer can tell us that they're not needed. | What have our legislative leaders been working on, for the past 6 weeks? We will all see, today. The fog will lift when the House convenes. When the members went home for Christmas, they were 'licking their wounds' from a 3rd failure to raise more additional tax dollars than any previous liberal legislature ever did... in our state's history. Now they're trying a fourth time. This time the barons of Corporate Cronyism were employed to brought in to put a new veneer of 'business sense' on a tired old ploy to send tax dollars in fresh state contracts into the big business world. Oh yes, and don't forget that the teachers are the poster child for this push, just like every other ploy. The fact remains that teacher pay increase is always the justification. Yet these same bureaucrats will NEVER let teachers be paid a satisfying wage. Why? Because they NEED the teachers to stay hungry. How else will they get Susie's 4th grade teacher to march on the capitol? Have you ever heard of a demonstration by the state's 500+ school superintendents? No! Because they already make more than twice the median salary of the rest of us. You can be sure that the top school administrators will get a larger salary hike than the teachers will, if this week's money-grab becomes law. Later this week the State Board of Equalization tell us that most of the shortfall has disappeared due to economic growth. |
The dirty little secret is that the legislature cannot give the teachers a pay raise, at least not directly. The money goes to most of the 500+ school districts. Then those administrators make sure they get their raises before the teachers get a portion of what they were promised on the floor of the capitol. More than 30 school districts are too wealthy to get any state aid. Included among them is the large Pryor Public Schools. Pryor completely runs a decent public common education system without any state aid. They rely on their other sources; namely property tax.
We'll have more to say, later in the day.
We'll have more to say, later in the day.
