"No more cuts,'' entertainer Bill Cosby said to cheers from hundreds of schoolchildren and educators who filled the Capitol Rotunda during a midday rally, according to the Morning Call. Cosby had been called into the budget battle by Ed Rendell.
Yikes! Another celebrity getting involved in political issues. In this case, not quite. I have it on very good information that Mr. Cosby is very active in Philadelphia’s Central High School. So, he is worth listening to.
''What did these people ever do to you that makes you want to cut funding for education?'' Cosby asked, gesturing to the dozens of students gathered behind him. ''These are your children.''
Great rhetoric. If we had unlimited funds, it would be easy to agree with Mr. Cosby. Harrisburg has a $3.5 billion deficit in 2008/2009. We don’t know about 2009/2010 because we don’t have a budget. WE have a $3.5 billion deficit because Ed Rendell ran around the state handing out really large checks (the big cardboard kind) with lots of zeroes. We also added a quarter of a billion in special funding last year to help the hardest hit of the school districts, typically the tax-starved city schools, like Allentown.
Cosby waded into the war of words between Democrat Rendell, who wants to increase the income tax “temporarily” by 35% to fund his large largess, House Democrats, who want to follow suit, more or less, and the GOP, who control the Senate and have resisted Rendell's efforts to pour more money into K-12 education, along with other efforts as they try to shave the billions in spending necessary to avoid a tax increase.
It is not a question of whether you like education or not. It is a question of cutting spending or raising taxes. Everybody cuts spending in a recession, except Democrats in office, it would seem..
Rendell has insisted that any new state budget must include a $300 million increase in basic education spending. The state already spends $5.2 billion.
But it goes beyond that. Rendell clearly wants to change the way we fund education. His proposal to cut our 500 school districts (we now have 500 after a merger) down to 100 is a thinly-veiled way to revisit how we fund schools. Honestly, the time may have come to look beyond 500 individual districts and their tax base in funding public education. Maybe it should be uniform throughout the state. But let’s debate that in its time, not in the heat of the budget.
Senate Republicans have proposed rolling back funding for education to 2006-07 levels and using federal stimulus money to backfill it to current spending levels. They aren’t really doing massive cutting but Rendell opposes such a move and wants more money.
The sad thing is that every program has its backers. We see that at the county level when they try to cut funds for the zoo. You see it at the state level regardless of the program.
We need to make a decision in this state and in this country. Will government be as big as tax revenues allow or will taxes be as high as government demands.
The Senate GOP are looking at the problem from the point of view that taxes are as high as they can be right now. As a result, they want to reduce spending to fit the income. It s the way most of us run our lives.
However, the Democrats have a point as well. If you had more things you wanted to spend money on, you could go get a second job or work more hours or sell things (need a Turnpike). They believe the spending is necessary and want taxes to grow to match it.
So, don’t be caught in the rhetoric of “do you want to cut education funding?’ Nobody WANTS to cut education funding in Harrisburg. The question is whether we NEED to do so. That question is not as easy. It really comes down to are you willing to pay more income taxes to pay for it?
Notice the subtle shift we have done. The more Harrisburg takes on in education funding, the more the shift from property tax (at the school district level) to income tax (at the state level). I know a lot of people like that change. I have my issues with it. But don’t lose sight that it s happening and we are going away from local accountability. The Bethlehem mess shows the need for local accountability.
So, let’s look at the big picture. Do we want tax increases? If we do, do we want a shift towards more funding from Harrisburg via income tax and less from local sources via property tax?
Whether the money comes from Harrisburg or locally, they are YOUR tax dollars.
PA BUDGET
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