IPFS Dave Hodges

More About: TAXES: State

Proposition 100

During the past several years, Tom Jenney, the Arizona Director for Americans for Prosperity, and I have crossed paths in agreement on many critical issues involving the misuse of money by our state officials. I have found Tom to be a tireless defender of our money and how it is spent. However,  I now find myself in only partial agreement with Tom as we approach tomorrow’s special election.  
 
Mr. Jenny would have you vote no on Proposition 100 which is the proposed 1 cent sales tax increase which will be decided upon by the voters in tomorrow’s special election. Proponents of the tax state that the tax is needed to save Arizona’s schools, colleges and universities. Opponents of the tax state that the schools will continue to waste the state's money, only at a far greater rate .
 
What Mr. Jenny does not tell Arizona voters is that the state of  Arizona is dead last in the nation in per pupil spending, teacher salaries, teacher workplace rights, and M&O classroom supplies for the school children. Dead last, yes that is right, the worst in the country!

Mr. Jenny also forgets to tell Arizona that next year's university tuition will rise by nearly 20% as many Arizona young adults see their dreams of attending college slipping away. And Arizona’s beleaguered teachers are still dipping into their own pockets to fund the supply needs of their classrooms without compensation.  These are facts that cannot be refuted because they are true.  

Tom Jenney cites the reasons that schools should further go under the budget knife is due to the fact that the  various school districts "have flat-screen computers, pay six-figure salaries to too many administrators, and spend tens of millions of dollars on “greening” their buildings as  they’re cutting  teacher jobs. " The aforementioned statement  by Mr. Jenny is largely hyperbole and lacks a firm statistical base for the claim. However, Tom would be correct in saying that Arizona’s schools routinely practice frivolous spending by taking wasteful trips taken for “retreats and conferences” by various school board members and district administrators.  Tom would also be correct in stating, but does not mention the fact, that many school district offices are tremendously overstaffed, while classrooms in their respective districts cannot afford minimal custodial services.  
 
Tom Jenny’s strongest argument  for defeating Proposition 100 does indeed lie in the fact that money is wasted by the bureaucratic machines running education. However, I feel he fails to identify the root cause of the waste.  The waste is not due to teachers and students . Arizona’s wasteful spending for education can almost solely be attributed to the fact that the ignoramuses running our state government have failed to earmark taxpayer funds for specific education purposes such as classroom supplies and teacher salaries and have allowed districts to misspend the much of the money alloted to them. The state has handed school district administrators a blank check, without many restrictions and this is why education is in the mess that it is in. 
 
The education monies of this state must be earmarked, or the waste and fraud that Mr. Jenny identifies will continue. Mr. Jenny needs to make earmarking funds for specific educational expenditures a requisite part of his AFP platform. 

Mr. Jenny states “they need to stop holding our children hostage and get serious about becoming more efficient”  Come on, Mr. Jenny, let's get real.  Since when does saying it always make it so?  Make no mistake about it, when the voters rightfully defeat Proposition 100 because some feel that we cannot afford to continue to throw good money after bad, the school children and their teachers will be the only ones held hostage by this spend thrift governor and state legislature.  A vote against Proposition 100 will crush the educational dreams for many children. Conversely, a vote for Proposition 100 will be a vote to continue the flawed funding system now wrongfully employed by the state for its school and universities.

Until this spend thrift state government is made to cut their waste as well as earmark education funds for specific classroom specific purposes, Arizona will continue to be the only state where nearly “EVERY CHILD IS LEFT BEHIND.” 

Mr. Jenny, I do not disagree with your position on Proposition 100. However, I would hope that you would be working toward finding a solution which does not devastate our children and their futures instead of just criticizing and blindly defunding the status quo.  

9 Comments in Response to

Comment by Concerned Patriot
Entered on:

 For all the talk of education you guys are really into bashing it. Public education sucks i went to a public school and it was awful so what is everyone supposed tto do? Homeschool? private school? Those are not viable options so what then?

How about a lite - "libertarian" approach? Take your kids to the library sit them down with a book every now and then teach them as they go to "school". You keep bitching and moaning about everything and offer solutions you cannot do anything about.

Parents teach your kids while they receive a government education. Im not saying homeschool thats not an option for everyone but have them read have them look at maps so they can find America and their home state, dont just cry about how poor their education is like a little baby.

Comment by Dave Hodges
Entered on:

 Jet

If I were self-serving, I would have called for passage of 100 which I did not   

 I am not for and I voted against 100.  That was made clear in the article   What I said is that our Arizona schools are the worst in the country, bar none.  I said the schools did not deserve more money because of the waste that I identified which I laid the fault at the feet of the legislature for failing to make districts spend the money for the benefit of the students. So tell me Jet, what article were you reading? It certainly was not mine.  

What is your idea? Step up! Make a suggestion! I agree the educational system in Arizona is very substandard. So, what is your idea?  But please before you suggest anything, please get someone who is actually literate  and has an IQ higher than room temperature to read my articles to you before you put your illiteracy on display again.

It is apparent that you are more interested in personally attacking me, because on 100 we actually agree. No more money  without accountability.  If you are advocating for abolishment of all public education, what would replace it?  Will it be cost free? And please dont tell me that everyone can homeschool their kids. Some degree of literacy, such as being able to understand the main point of an editorial, would be required before home schooling would successfully impart knowledge to the young.   

If you could actually get yourse;f to refrain from your foul language, I would be happy to debate this with you in any forum of your choice like when your hosting Ernie's show.  The question would be whether or not your profanities could be replaced with actual vocabulary designed to convey meaning.   Let me know. 

 Dave Hodges

 

Comment by Nick Saorsa
Entered on:

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I had forgotten that university tuition was going to spike by 20%. As a college junior, I should be mortified. But I'm not. I fail to understand why my elderly neighbor should subsidize my education. I fail to see why the 18 year old kid next door, working at a grocery store, should subsidize my education. When government subsidizes a service, it falsely manipulates the cost of the service and forces people to pay, by penalty of death, for their neighbors' pet projects.

On a slightly different not, its funny how this is all working out. Arizona passes laws to get rid of the "illegal" immigrants and then complains about tuition going up. Well, with the lack of manual laborers we are going to be facing soon, now the middle class kids that can't afford college have a place to work!

Comment by Jet Lacey
Entered on:

Mr. Hodges,

This is a poor argument; a very poor and self-serving argument.  You must be a teacher, right?  Because only a teacher would write this article.

The education system is a broken one and no amount of money society throws at it is going to fix it; in fact, it will only make it worse. 

WE MUST STOP PAYING FOR OUR OWN ENSLAVEMENT!

Schools are nothing more than collectivist indoctrination camps.  There are metal detectors, cops on every school campus, school officials in PA were even monitoring children at home through their laptops; the list of crimes against American children by the education system is literally endless.   If a kid scratches his name on a desk, he goes to jail.  If a kid brings a lozenge or Advil or a plastic knife to school, he goes to jail.  If a kid gets into a fistfight, he goes to jail. 

At the end of the day, no one gives a sh*t if the kid gets an education or not; only how well he or she towed the line.  

I honestly believe our kids would be better off  being illiterate than suffering through this indoctrination.  You can teach literacy to just about anyone at any age, but it is much harder to un-teach 13 consecutive years of day-in and day-out propaganda.

Furthermore, you're not fooling anyone; this monumental-sized f*uck-job that is the educational system is as much the fault of  the teachers as anyone else.  Teachers run the whole thing, they have had the one of the biggest and most powerful unions for at least as long as I've been alive, and what have they done to help the situation?  Nothing.  Teachers have lobbied for their own self-interests and have acquiesced on EVERYTHING the New World Order wants for our children. 

The Nuremburg Trials proved that "I was just doing my job" doesn't cut it.

Teachers, cops, and all other types of government officials should be the FIRST groups that hit the unemployment line; not the last.  Trust me you ain't as important as you pump yourselves up to be.    

Comment by foundZero
Entered on:

The blame lies almost exclusively on state administrators that allowed teachers to deprive student programs of funds in favor of their own salaries and perks? Isn't there something of a contradiction in that?

The critical issue involving money and Arizona seems to be that Arizona doesn't have any, isn't expected to be making more anytime soon and is already in debt for this year's budget.

Our children are already getting stupider with the money we allot for their education. And from what I hear the schools are run more like reformatories that schools. Really inept reformatories.

Comment by Keith Cyrnek
Entered on:

 Dave,

I think the pensions of gov't teachers are pretty good. I think gov't teach's make much more than private teach's.   Gov't teach's get union wages in a monopoly setting. I don't buy "do it for the children". I don't agree with T. Jenny much either - I think he is kinda neoconish. Hey get back to a breakfast club meeting.

Cheers, KC.

Comment by Anonymous Watchman
Entered on:

 I voted NO on Prop 100! Get the Govt out of the school business & give the Educational System back to the States. OR the excellent alternative is home schooling.

Comment by Powell Gammill
Entered on:

AZ: If you have to vote, vote "no" on Prop 100.   The politicians will never have the nerve to cut spending.  But you can keep them from getting your revenue to make up for their incompetence.  They will run out of your earnings soon enough.  Better sooner than later.  Besides they already ready going to call a special session to undo the massive cuts if it doesn't pass.

Comment by DagnyTaggart
Entered on:

Kids getting a terrible education?  Take them out of public school and put them in a private one.  You wanted to be a parent?  Then shut up and do your job.  Educate your children and stop taxing me for it.  Or maybe you should have learned how to use birth control.  Your mistake is not my problem. 

Proposition 100 needs to be voted down.


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