Think Progress highlights Sharon Angle's plan to thwart any Constitutional or other reasoning for giving funds to education. For what purpose? I suppose only she knows.
In 2003, the Nevada legislature enacted a budget which did not include education funding, on the theory that they would take up a second bill which ensured that the public schools could remain open when the school year began. Because the Nevada Constitution requires both a balanced budget and the state to fund education, this second bill would include a combination of tax increases and education spending.
The two bill strategy broke down, however, when a minority of the state Assembly — led by Sharron Angle — refused to enact any bill which raised the new revenue required to reopen the public schools. Because a two-thirds majority is necessary to enact any tax increases, Angle’s minority was on the verge of shutting down all public education in the state of Nevada.
Eventually, the Nevada Supreme Court thwarted Angle’s plans. The court case which Angle refers to, Guinn v. Legislature of the State of Nevada, waived the two-thirds super majority requirement in order to ensure that the state met its constitutional obligation to provide public schools. So when Angle says that she appealed this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court “to fight for our Constitution,” she really was fighting against the Nevada Constitution’s requirement that all children have the opportunity to obtain a public education.
And while there is some truth in what Angle is speaking of, the reality that conservatives want programs without having to pay for them should be openly and continually exposed.
How can you have programs like public education, the fire department, a protective police force, or even those city parks where you walk your dog without taxes?
The continued fetishization of "privatizing" everything in America in order to satiate the reactionary and ill-informed Republican electorate will be the undoing of those that claim to champion it.
1 comment:
Education is only for those who can afford it. Who cares about the schleps at the bottom. They're only good for working retail and menial jobs that no one who can afford an education would want. Fire departments should be voluntary with buckets and the occasional wooden ladder. As far as police, they're only necessary in the "bad" areas, because didn't you know, ONLY the POOR commit crimes. And instead of using police, why not use the military. They're not doing much when they're stateside. And if you DO have a public school system, teachers should supply everything and work for free, because really....our children are the future...
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