Thom Tillis, the state rep from Cornelius who will be the next Speaker of the House in Raleigh, doesn’t just want to cut the state budget; he wants to rearrange what citizens expect out of government. On Saturday, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times, Tillis was at a swanky benefit soiree for former GOP congressman Charles Taylor’s political action committee at the Grove Park Inn.
Some of the state officials and other wealthy white Republicans at Saturday’s grand assembly emphasized, re-emphasized, and then re-re-emphasized that their knives will start slashing away at the budget as soon as the legislature is back in session. With claims of needing to cut 20 percent out of the budget, the GOP is trying to ready the state for a bloodbath, and beyond. Every department will be affected, said Tillis and others at the event, an affair the Asheville daily described as “festive.” “Festive” won’t be the word that comes to mind, however, when schoolkids, the poor and the environment are left figuratively bleeding on the floor after Tillis & Co. get through with their cutting. Some Dems are citing the need to raise more revenue, but Tillis made it plain that raising taxes to avoid catastrophic cuts won’t happen on his watch, “because if you do …” … wait for the GOP’s core mantra … here it comes … “it will kill jobs.” Yes, and we all see how many great jobs were created by the wealthy who benefited from Bush’s federal tax cuts, don’t we? Sigh.
The main challenge, Tillis said, according to the Citizen-Times, will be “resetting expectations for people in the state.” Well isn’t that nice? “Resetting expectations for people.” Let me clarify what Tillis and his pals in the General Assembly mean, by putting their views in plainspeak: “If you’re not one of our major backers, or if you’re not a wealthy business owner — in other words, if you’re someone, or something, that actually needs help, and that includes the environment, or students who are guaranteed a sound education by the state constitution — you are soon to be completely shit out of luck.” If that won’t reset your expectations, nothing will. The only foreseeable problem for this exciting new GOP plan is that expectations could be reset in a way they’re not contemplating; namely, the expectation that we’ll need to vote out these weasels two years from now.
This article appears in Dec 7-13, 2010.
“we all see how many great jobs were created by the wealthy who benefited from Bush’s federal tax cuts, don’t we?”
Don’t we see also how well dumping tons of money into a broken public education system has served it’s students?
So what do you suggest, BV, as a solution to the education problem? Letting our public schools deteriorate even more?
I think they should compete for students. I think if there was a way for folks to recoup the taxes they pay toward failed public schools if they chose private that we could see market forces produce better results. And yes, if this resulted in a new level of more affordable private alternatives, the public schools should suffer as a result. Government is the only enterprise that is rewarded with more money and power as a result of failure. Maybe add big banks to that, which are basically adjoined with gov’t at this point.
Ah yes, that tired old idea: “market forces,” the true religion of conservatives — the magic “invisible hand” of the free market will solve everything. Or another way to describe the belief: nearly everything in life should be reduced to the level of profiteering and mercantilism, because the “winners” in this contest, which turns all civic life into competition, will obviously be best for everyone. It’s no more credible than believing in Santa Claus. Moreover, applying this dubious theory to something as vital as public education would create tremendous inequality of education throughout the country, and thus would go against the whole point of public education, which is to create a well-educated citizenry as a great benefit for the whole country.
Ah, you see public education as vital. I see education as vital. I would submit to you that there is tremendous inequality in education now throughout the country, or within a county.
You can dismiss the market because it doesn’t sound like something you believe in. Do you buy more of things that are higher quality? Do you use your freedom as a consumer to reward those that deliver on products and services? Anywhere that we do not have that freedom quality suffers, including public education. There will be better public schools and lower performing ones, just as there are more or less pleasant associates at DMVs or KFCs for that matter. Do you know folks who choose to drive further to get better quality of goods or services? When schools have to compete for “customers”, they will have more incentive to deliver quality. It’s not magic, just common sense.
…and I’m no conservative. As long as we’re labeling, file me under libertarian.