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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | May 13, 2003 | Vol. IV - No. 2 | ||
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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | May 13, 2003 | Vol. IV - No. 2 | ||
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[ THE WASHINGTON TIMES ]
D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams yesterday defended his support for the Bush administration's voucher program, saying it would benefit 5,000 to 6,000 students.
Speaking on WTOP Radio's "Ask the Mayor" program, Mr. Williams said that losing thousands of students could force some schools to close, but that vouchers could create competition and strengthen public schools as a whole.
Closing underperforming schools would be a good thing, Mr. Williams said, but he didn't elaborate on which schools might be forced to close.
The push for vouchers in the District began in earnest in February after President Bush made $75 million available for voucher programs nationwide. The program would give parents public money to send their children to private schools.
Secretary of Education Rod Paige proposed a voucher program for the District that would force underperforming public schools to improve by competing with private and charter schools.
"Secretary Paige believes that school choice is an essential part of authentic school reform," said Dan Langan, Mr. Paige's spokesman.
Insiders said Mr. Williams has been saying behind closed doors for the past two months that the city will accept vouchers.
"I fully and strongly support [President Bush´s] initiative to bring scholarships to this city," Mr. Williams said last week in announcing his support for a school vouchers program.
District officials have said that the city is looking for more money for Medicaid and special-education costs in exchange for accepting vouchers. The mayor has drawn sharp criticism from some fellow Democrats for his stance on vouchers.
"This very day the mayor and the city council are cutting funds for the very schools that qualify for federal funds - charter schools and transformation schools," D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton said yesterday afternoon at a rally by opponents of vouchers.
Protesters in front of the Wilson Building on Pennsylvania Avenue NW carried signs that read "D.C. Vouchers Leave Children Behind" and "Invest in Public Schools."
"It is inexcusable for them to cut money from these schools," Mrs. Norton told the more than 100 teachers, parents and children's advocates whose rallying cry yesterday was "Public funds for public schools."
Council member Adrian M. Fenty, Ward 4 Democrat and member of the council's education committee, called Mr. Bush's plan to make vouchers available in the city a "direct affront to home rule."
He said vouchers don't work in the District.
Mrs. Norton has said that Mr. Williams' support of vouchers shows he's not committed to self-government for the District.
One parent of a student in a D.C. transformation school said she knows what's best for her child.
Iris Toyer said she doesn't need outsiders to tell her to use vouchers for private school.
Wanda Gaddis, a single mother who lives in Northwest and has a child in Raymond Elementary School on Spring Road, said: "I believe in D.C. public schools. If we invest in children it would make the schools a better place. Vouchers are no good. Parents still have to put money with vouchers, and who gets left behind? Single parents with children."
D.C. school board member William Lockridge said at the rally that charter schools encourage choice more than vouchers do.
School board President Peggy Cooper Cafritz and D.C. Council member Kevin Chavous, Ward 7 Democrat, have joined the mayor in reversing their opposition to vouchers.
"I have said from he beginning that I would support vouchers if we get more money from the federal government for our public and charter schools and special education," said Mr. Chavous, chairman of the council's Committee on Education, Public Libraries and Recreation.
The Washington Times reported in February that Rep. Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican, had introduced a bill that would set up a private, independent D.C. scholarship corporation to disburse the vouchers. Under Mr. Flake's plan, D.C. children whose parents live below the poverty line would be eligible for scholarships of as much as $5,000. Those in households earning salaries up to 185 percent of the poverty level could receive $3,750. All other children would be eligible for $800 enhanced-achievement scholarships.
Congress would fund the voucher program at $7 million in fiscal 2004, $8 million in fiscal 2005 and then $10 million each fiscal year through 2008.
*** TCN Comment: Read my lips. Federally controlled monopolies DO NOT produce anything of value. The results being produced by our federally controlled education system are comparable to the results of the Postal Service, Amtrak, and the so-called Veteran's health care system. They are expensive, ineffective and unresponsive to their failure to produce a decent product. The answer to the failures of these (dis)organizations is not more money, it is more competition and if they can't compete, close them down and let free enterprise lead the way.
The loudest argument against public funding of private competition is going to come from the teacher's unions. Why? Because the schools ARE doing what the unions have planned for them to do. The schools are educating students, but not in "readin' and writin'." Public schools are being effective in indoctrinating students in liberal social agenda, globalization, and environmental disinformation. Public schools are being effective in creating a new generation of left-leaning, global (non)thinking, government- dependent idiots that are totally unaware of their history or heritage and unable to think for themselves… The perfect "working class" being prepared for exploitation by the future "ruling elite".
[ TCN ]
While no one is looking, President Bush continues to increase the size of the already out-of-control federal bureaucracy. Since GW took office the following expansions have been made using the unconstitutional "executive order":
The Internal Revenue Service records for 2000 reveal that
Who says "The Rich" aren't paying their fair share?
When President Bush, shortly after assuming the Presidency, introduced his first round of tax relief he had always planned on these tax cuts to be permanent. The Democrats at the time, then holding the upper hand, insisted the tax cuts be made staggered and temporary, with the result being a large tax hike in 2011 unless this problem was corrected. Earlier this year the President, with his party now holding both the House and the Senate, looked to correct this error by making the tax cuts passed in 2001 immediate and permanent. Unfortunately this message of stability and hope for families is once again being ignored by the rest of Washington - even by members of his own party.
During his 2003 State of the Union address President Bush stated: "If this tax relief is good for Americans three, or five, or seven years from now, it is even better for Americans today." He said this with the knowledge that if the tax cuts passed two years ago were not enacted immediately, then any economic boon for families would be minimal. In addition, if they were not made permanent, come 2011, American families would be facing one of the largest tax increases in history; average taxes would rise $1,040 per taxpayer, married couples would end up paying an additional $10 billion, and a sunset repeal of the death tax provisions would increase taxes by $69 billion. A family of four making $36,268 (hardly "one of the rich" that detractors say would benefit from such tax cuts) will see a tax hike of over $2,000 in 2011. Overall taxes would increase by over $200 billion. Yet inexplicably the Republican House of Representatives and Senate, both of whom are drafting tax legislation this week, have taken permanency completely off the table, perhaps condemning us all a mere eight years down the road to an even more repressive tax system.
For the first time in almost 50 years the Republicans control the Presidency, the House and the Senate. For the first time in almost 20 years we have a President who believes tax relief and reform are important issues. If now is not the time for enacting full and permanent tax relief for families then when is? There can be no credible prediction who will be President in 2008, let alone who will control the House and the Senate. Not one of the nine Democratic Presidential hopefuls debating in South Carolina last Saturday supported President Bush's first tax cut nor do they support this one. In fact, a number of these aspirants deceitfully call for rescinding the already passed cuts (in affect a tax increase), saying that the US cannot "pay" for such a tax cut at this time. Yet these same nine Democrats talk of expensive proposals such as further socializing health care or education.
Former President John F. Kennedy, a hero to a number of the current crop of Presidential candidates, once eloquently spoke: "A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget. Every taxpayer and his family will have more money left over after taxes for a new car, a new home, new conveniences, education and investment." Perhaps politicians in both parties should heed President Kennedy's advice. While those opposed to Bush's proposals bemoan that Washington can't currently afford a tax cut, in reality these politicians and bureaucrats would have American families and taxpayers foot the bill rather than trim government's own bloated budget.
*** TCN Comment: Federal taxes need to be cut, but simply cutting taxes will not touch the "budget" problem. Spending MUST be cut as well.
When the average wage earner sees a major expenditure coming, he plans ahead and cuts his spending back to a minimum in an attempt to ease the crunch when it comes.
With the bill for the war on terrorism coming due, it would seem that the correct thing to do would be to cut some of the fat from the budget and slide some of the "extra goodies" to the bottom of the priority list, but that has not been the case. Government "pork" is at a record high. Major appropriations are being made for such important items as the Baseball Hall of Fame($750,000), an observatory in New Mexico($21 million), and research into diseases that affect your pet's health($33 million).
In fact, Citizens Against Government Waste has identified over $22.5 billion in this current year's appropriations as pork! That is an increase of 12% over last year's pork spending. Isn't it good that we have a "conservative" controlled House, Senate and Presidency? Just think what that number would be if "tax and spend" Democrats were in control! (That's called sarcasm folks….)
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