🚀 go-pugleaf

The amount you paid in taxes (100K) is the same as the salary for 
someone who inched into the top 10%. Seems you dont have much to 
complain about.

Have never seen the teachers claim that higher salaries would solve 
school problems. Personally I think that the schools are messed up 
because most parents are fucked up, all differently. Save your 
indignation for the "intelligent design" group. They have no concept of 
science and want to foist that lack of knowledge on entire school 
districts. But instead you want to sit there, complain about your taxes 
and not worry about the future since you have at most 20 years left.

Dennis

Tim May wrote:
> 
> 
> As someone who recently paid $6500 in property taxes to the State of
> California, $24,400 in state income taxes, and $65,000 in Federal
> income taxes, (plus various utility, energy, gasoline, sales, etc.,
> taxes), I think I am taxed quite enough, thank you.
> 
> Further, property taxes, which are set by the state as a percentage of
> the assessed value, ARE SENT TO SACRAMENTO, then doled out for various
> purposes. 
> 
> Inviting local school districts to FURTHER tax us, given the bloated
> size of government already, and the kind of obscene tax levels
> mentioned above, is absurd.
> 
> Lastly, I think you were the one who said you just moved here from
> Texas. (If not, sorry.) You may not be aware of the "Lottery System."
> The California lottery was proposed as a way to fund the schools. This
> was how it was sold to the voters ("Our schools win, too!!," the ads
> gushed). I voted AGAINST it, not because I don't like the idea of a tax
> on stupidity--which is what lotteries are--but because it is never
> permissable for government to run an operation (gambling) which they
> outlaw when individuals do it.
> 
> 
> (What's next, state-run brothels? Gives new meaning to "proposition.")
> 
> Our schools are crummy not because they aren't funded well enough...the
> real dollars funding is higher now than it was in 1960, I recently
> read. Which makes sense, given the real dollar taxation rates today as
> compared to 1960. 
> 
> However, unlike in 1960, today's school districts are bloated-up with
> "administrators" and "support personnel," the kind of jobs a lot of
> teachers aspire to (gets them out of the classroom and into cushy,
> unionized, civil service jobs where nobody really knows or cares what
> they are doing in their cubicles). And today's schools are mostly
> baby-sitting facilities for working parents...much of the local school
> budget near me is spent on "after-school" programs, which is a fancy
> way of saying "places to keep kids busy until their parent can pick
> them up that evening."
> 
> Public schools can only rarely kick out disruptive students. Public
> schoolsl are gladiator schools, where gangs recruit members, where the
> minority hooligans chant "reading be fo whitey," and where the teachers
> still in the classrooms are those without the political pull or
> ass-kissing ability to get into "Administration."
> 
> The teachers union of course claims that all these problems would be
> solved if only teacher salaries were increased still further. Ha.
> 
> Meanwhile, here you are saying that the funding problems are because
> local communities don't have the guts to raise taxes still further.
> Double ha. 
> 
> America is a kleptocracy, with an unprecedented amount of personal
> wealth taken and spent by those working for the state. Not even in the
> U.S.S.R. were such levels of effective taxation seen. Not even in the
> days of serfs. (For the unitiated, "Tax Freedom Day" is that day each
> year when the point between "working for the state" and "working for
> oneself" is reached. This varies from person to person, and is earlier
> in the year for less-skilled workers, and later in the year for
> more-skilled workers (because they are taxed at escalating rates, in
> true "from each according to his ability, to each according to his
> need" Commie Democrat style). This year the estimated average Tax
> Freedom Day is 31 May. Meaning, we worked for Uncle Sam, Uncle Arnold,
> Uncle Local Leader for the first five months of the year.
> 
> A summary of this is at <http://www.adamsmith.org/tax/>
> 
> And, actually, if Socialist Security taxes (which is what they are,
> though they are called "contributions") are taken into account, Tax
> Freedom Day gets pushed out still further.
> 
> 
> Further, the "debt bomb" of 50-70 trillion (thousand billion) that is
> part of the "unfunded liabilities" is likely to explode around 2025,
> plus or minus a few years. ("Unfunded liabilities" are of the various
> things the govenment has promised to pay out but for which no money is
> currently set aside.)
> 
> It's likely that for nearly everyone of college age and younger today,
> that in 20-25 years they'll be working 10 months out of every year just
> to pay taxes. (Since many of the jobs are increasingly "McJobs," this
> may not even be enough. That coffee slinger may have to pay 90% of
> everything he makes to pay for this debt bomb.)
> 
> 
> Meanwhile, taxes are already way, way too high. 
> 
> 
> --Tim May