Posted on 03/16/2017 6:55:56 AM PDT by reaganaut1
California schools have many problems, but a teacher shortage isn’t one of them. Democrats in Sacramento nonetheless want to throw millions of dollars at this fake problem by exempting veteran teachers from state income tax while ignoring the real systemic inequities in education.
Unions promote the conceit of a teacher shortage whenever they’re seeking more money, which is basically all the time. Over the last six years—that is, since California voters approved a tax hike on the wealthy—state spending on education and the per pupil allotment have increased by 55%.
Yet many school districts are now threatening layoffs. Santa Ana Unified School District this week is sending pink slips to nearly 300 teachers to save $28 million. In San Diego nearly 900 teachers received layoff warnings this month as the school district grapples with a $124 million deficit. It seems many school districts employ more teachers than even their bloated budgets will support.
Where is all the money going? Santa Ana’s school board spent $32 million on a teacher pay boost. Many districts have padded their payrolls, as more teachers were hired in 2016 than during any year in the last decade. Pension and retiree health costs are ballooning. Between 2013 and 2020, teacher pension bills will more than double to 19.1% of district payrolls.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
The CA pension bomb will soon blow up....then they’ll come to the Feds (and thus all of us) seeking relief. In the words of Nancy Reagan: “Just say no.”
Government workers don’t really pay taxes anyway. This just makes it official..................
Right. If they can get this through for the teachers, all public workers’ unions will be lined up for the same treatment.
They need it for professional athletes. More likely they will want to come here. 5 baseball teams x 25 players = 125 multi millionaires. 4 football teams x $170 million payroll is not a whole lotta money.
One of my fun things to do is to ask political friends
and foes how many cents from each California STATE tax
dollar go to K-12 education. Typical responses range from
3 cents to 10 cents per dollar. People are rather shocked
when I inform them that the answer is 40 cents. Imagine
that. Look it up.
True, that. They just get less from the government (the income tax part).
Since they only teach children, and parents house and feed and provide medical and raise children, THEY'd better damned well have no income taxes, either!
Even their sales and real estate taxes go ‘back to the government from whence they came’.............
Not exactly.
Their money comes from the taxpayers. It goes to the government.
True, but I was illustrating that the money that a government worker pays in taxes doesn’t increase the amount in the treasury, it just goes out one door and comes back in another door.............
Yes, that’s the problem......the middleman............
Unions were the worm in Eve’s apple...
What? So they don’t pay income taxes, payroll taxes, social security taxes, sales taxes, or property taxes....your proof please....there are many things to lament about pubic workers, but Sir, they do pay taxes....
Servicemen and women get that break if they’re in a combat zone. But now that I think about the current state of our schools...
This is complete nonsense.
People love paying high taxes.
If California was serious, they’d raise income taxes on teachers to 100%.
Teachers aren’t in it for the money after all....
I sincerely doubt it’ll ever end up in a federal bailout; CalPERS and CalSTRS firmly believe that should districts, cities, counties or even the state try to evade paying them off, they’ll simply be able to issue bonds guaranteed by property owners in the state in the form of liens that would have to be paid off before the property could be sold or transferred.
Myself, I would have never have let anyone kick the can down the road and ‘we’ll pay for those benefits later, we’re rather tight on the budget right now.’ But that would have impacted raises and maybe even limited benefits - can’t have that happen.
IMO, this is DISCRIMINATION-—giving something to one person, while not giving the same to all the others.
I am already mad as Hell about giving ‘new parents’ 6 weeks PAID time off for a new baby——What does that say to those of us who never had any kids? It isn’t fair-—not by a long shot. Affirmative Action Hiring was bad enough-—now another uphill climb for workers who don’t fit into another category of preferences.
I hope a class action suit against Sacrament is appearing soon.
Government workers go thru the motions of paying taxes just like everyone else, except that their ‘taxes’ do not increase the treasury amount.
I figured this out when I was 18 and got my first paycheck as a government employee.
My paycheck stub said I paid X amount of dollars in income and SS taxes, there was no medicare tax at the time. I realized that I didn’t pay anything, they just didn’t give it to me.
A government employee’s salary comes from the government and the government gets it’s money from the people who do not work for the government.
Imagine if ALL people worked for the government. Who then would pay the taxes to pay these people?
Imagine if 50% of the population worked for the government. That means that the other 50% would have to support not only themselves but the other 50% as well.
Any money a government employee gets from the government HAD to be taken from somebody or some corporation that does not work for the government, or they print it out of thin air which debases the currency already in circulation and makes it worth less and less as more is printed.
Sales tax, real estate tax, gas tax, whatever tax the government employee ‘pays’ is just them being a circular conduit to re-circulate the money back to the government, not really accomplishing anything.
The only way a government employee actually pays taxes is if they have a side business, investments or stock holdings that are taxed, outside their government salary.........................................
And they don’t pay into social security. My lefty Teacher friend was basically complaining about that to me. I just stay out of it, best not to talk politics. But I’m thinking to myself and how is that a bad thing if you are responsible and diligent to invest that money you didn’t pay in into an IRA. A chimpanzee throwing darts a board with stock picks could out perform SS investments.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.