Been away from my desk for a day and just getting back to reviewing the local news. In reading the Wednesday edition of the Arizona Daily Star I note that most of the news focuses on Prop 100 and the salvation it will provide toward “stabilizing the economy by keeping people employed and stemming cuts to public education”. There is way too much to cover here so I will get right to the crux of the matter. My take on the “pros” for Prop 100 goes something like this: “although we are in the throes of a moderate recession the only way that we will be able to overcome it is to raise taxes”. So here we are again, back to the “spend our way” out of it philosophy. I’ll just leave it at that and you can take it from there.
There was one really interesting discourse involving Ann-Eve Pedersen, the president of the Arizona Education Network, at a forum sponsored by the Leagues of Women Voters. In response to a statement by former Pima County Supervisor Paul Marsh where he said that “the last thing we want to do is raise taxes in the middle of a recession” she countered that now is precisely when the state needs to provide a bridge to stability. Could someone tell me just how in hell does raising taxes on the public create any better “bridge to stability” than a reduction in spending? Obviously everyone at the forum was so focused on the pros and cons of Prop 100 as a means to salvation that they forgot about the spending side of the coin. Oh well, that in itself is another article.
Now here is where it really gets interesting. Ms. Pedersen’s response to Marsh’s statement was that “in the middle of a recession, the idea of losing one more job is unacceptable.” She goes on to say that “without strong schools businesses won’t want to remain or locate here. If the measure loses and education sustains more losses, she predicted, “it is going to put a closed-for-business sign in front of Arizona for years to come”. Understanding of course that Ms. Pedersen’s background appears to be steeped in education I went looking for some statistics on the relationship between “strong schools and business”. Well guess what? If the data that I found has anything to do with retaining businesses then we are in for an exodus of jobs. Using Google, MSN and Yahoo search engines I ended up at The National Center for Education Statistics and found a wealth of knowledge. Unfortunately I was not able to bring support to the table for Ms. Pedersen’s comments about Arizona having strong schools for businesses to surround itself with. The sad news is that Arizona’s education system is rated in the bottom 5 percentile in 2 categories: 48th in reading and 48th in Mathematics and places 44th in Writing and 43rd in Science for students in Grade 4. I did find that for Grade 8 students there was a marked improvement to 37th-42nd place. So much for the argument that we need to pass Prop 100 to continue on a course for “strong schools”.
It would appear that the backers of Prop 100 are using the “education funding” issue as their trump card by seizing on it as a means to brow beat the voters into submission. Don’t be mislead by the heart throb approach that we are depriving our most precious assets, our children, of a quality education. What is wrong with this picture? Rated as the 48th worse state for reading and math education is not due to lack of funds. Maybe we need to devote more effort exploring merit pay and revising the tenure rules.
In my opinion, Prop 100 doesn’t do anything except burden the taxpayer with continued run away government spending. We need to put an end to frivolous spending, we need to cut waste and we need to demand that we balance our state budget. And that goes for cities, counties and school systems.
I leave you with a short verse for thought: “A fool, a fool, a fool, my coxcomb for a fool.”
VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 100.
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