[ExI] End of time?

spike spike66 at att.net
Thu Sep 30 20:22:52 UTC 2010


 

> ...On Behalf Of John Grigg
> ...
> >California public schools are in dire straits, with nowhere 
> to go but down, steeply.
> 
> Spike, considering your considerable life experience as an 
> aerospace engineer, the very fact the California educational 
> establishment balks at enlisting you as a teacher is strong 
> evidence of their total stupidity.  And science teachers are 
> more precious than rubies because many folks with such skills 
> go into far better paying professions!
> 
> John  : (



> ...evidence of their total stupidity...  

Nay sir, the California public schools know they are desperate for science
and math teachers, and they know they need way more than they have, and
better ones.  The problem is not that they don't want us retired rocket
scientists, they really do.  The problem is the schools have even more
desperate and immediate funding problems, and there is no obvious solution
anywhere on the horizon.  There really isn't.  They tried raising taxes last
year, both sales and income, but the revenue actually went down, proving
what the conservatives were trying to tell them: the state is already on the
far side of the Laffer curve.  They can't raise property taxes, for that
requires 2/3 of the state legislature.  They would be lucky to get 1/3 to
vote for that solution.  The state already takes in as much as it can ever
take in.

The kicker is that if they reduce the taxation level to where it was before,
the state's revenue drops again, at least in the short term.  It eventually
goes back up, but it takes a while, perhaps decades, to regain that which
can be slain with the stroke of a pen.  Last year the state harvested the
high-hanging fruit in the easiest possible way: by chopping down the apple
tree.

Perhaps you have heard of our state's 19 billion dollar deficit?  And that
the budget still hasn't passed, and is over two months overdue?  And that
they are not even making much progress?  

What do we do now, coach?

spike

 




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