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Back to Quack Off
Quack Off
by
Free Market
Duck
Idaho on the
Verge of Bankruptcy in 2012
Nov 21, 2010
Boise, ID – Idaho is on the verge of bankruptcy in
2012. That's right, B-A-N-K-R-U-P-T-C-Y.
And the major cause is the huge,
never-ending, expanding expenditures for Public Education and Health and
Welfare year after year after year.
The percentage of Idaho's $2.5 billion annual budget
comprising K-12 and university expenditures varies around 65% to 75% year in
and year out. The standard left Liberal excuse for this obscene
taxation and full employment for the AFL-CIO-NEA unions is that (1) only the
government knows how to concoct teaching programs and (2) parents, if left
free to choose, would never provide free market education for their
children.
Both of these left Liberal assertions are untrue but are so inculcated in the minds of the
citizenry that the American people would rather go bankrupt than question the
wisdom of the Pub Ed Folly.
First, education is
too important to be
left to unions and government bureaucracy.
Second, the majority of
parents would, given the choice, gladly take
responsibility for educating their own children. Soon, as
the Recession continues to cut tax revenues, they may not have a choice.
Third, the free market and private enterprise
with new technology such as Internet schools make it much more cheaper
to educate one's own children via Virtual Academies than ever before.
Fourth, it is immoral to confiscate at the point of a gun, taxpayer money to
redistribute to a huge government brick and mortar public education industry and force
children to attend what amounts to a Public Brainwashing System for the left
Liberal Progressives whose major goal, by the way, is not education but rather to create
a citizenry of little authoritarians to learn revisionist history and fall
in line with state collectivist programs.
In Idaho, the current Pub Ed
budget for 2010 - 2011 depends upon $270 million in non-recurring revenue.
School Superintendent Tom Luna is asking for an additional $61 million for
K-12 budget for next year. Idaho's universities want an extra $28.3
million for 2011. Idaho's Health and Welfare wants an extra $70
million for 2011. The total shortfall for budget year 2012 will top
$270 million plus $70 million for H & W plus the $89 for K-12 through university.
Do the math: That's about $430 million more in taxpayer money that the
state legislature would have to cough up just to stay current with today's
Pub Ed and H & W funding "needs."
And, as usual, the left Liberals down at the
Idaho Statesman news rag are sobbing and whining that if this money is not
obtained -- somehow, from somewhere, what... print it up out of nowhere? -- then Idaho's children will be
deprived of one of their basic "rights" to receive a statist education
from the government.
Further, claim the editors at the Idaho Statesman, if Idaho's kids don't graduate from
college -- which now costs upwards of $50,000 per year for student loans to the same
bankers who brought you the current Housing Recession -- then the youth of America will simply fall apart,
not get good jobs, and become
homeless vagabonds pushing Wal-Mart carts up and down main street.
This is all a crock of crap, of course, and Idaho state legislators would do
well to start reconsidering the repeal of Pub Ed from the Idaho Constitution
and moving toward a free market solution before Mother Nature makes that
decision for them. in Fiscal Year 2012. You can either be pro active
or sit on your butts and play the denial game.
And
guess what, all you teachers out there who haven't studied basic free market
economic: YES, girl friends, you will still have a teaching job! If you're a good teacher.
The only difference is that it will be in private enterprise -- oh what a
shock for you, you soon-to-be little capitalist -- plus
a good chunk of your income will not be diverted
by the AFL-CIO-NEA into the union coffers to pay for national socialist
politicians such as Barack Obama who are busy bankrupting the nation with
the Federal Reserve.
AND, big time bonus points...
the citizens of Idaho would solve their budget deficit problem by chopping the
outrageous expenditures and taxes for all the redundant bureaucracy inherent
in Idaho's Pub Ed.
Idaho does not need to come up with an
additional $430 million shortfall for Fiscal Year 2012. And we do not
need to come up with 65% of $2.5 billion to pay for a state run education
system, which pencils out to about $1.6 billion every year. (Hell, it
would be more prudent to invest that $1.6 billion in precious metals futures
or alternative Tesla energy companies but that's another issue and not
available to the state. It is, however, available to parents looking
to protect their savings so they CAN better afford to educate their
children.)
I digress, just to show you the various
possibilities in the market. Back to the scene of the crime.
Public Education costs.
Time for parents to use the free market to take
responsibility for the education of their own children. Time for Idaho
state legislators to think out of the box and cut Idaho's outrageous Pub Ed
and Medicaid spending, before
Mother Nature and the current Recession does it for us.
Idahoans have one of two choices: you can either
play denial and let the Pub Ed bankruptcy happen to you
-- i.e. fall on your head -- and
bankrupt the state, or you can logically plan
out the solution using free market principles, you know, like the ones you
use to buy computers and cars and TVs and pay for informational (i.e.
education) news, etc.
etc.
The free market does not function
differently for education. Try it, you'll like it. And
then use the same logic for private enterprise health care. There are no inherent
parameters in the commodities called education
or health care that exempt them from the
basic laws of supply and demand, price formation, or free market
competition.
Let's get back to fiscal sanity. Let's
get back to the free market in educational and health care choices and avoid
a state bankruptcy in 2012.
– FM Duck
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