Kuempel also claimed that the 2003 budget crisis was essentially the same as the one we're in now and we know that too to be false and again we'll get the details together in order to refute it
Note: This dispatch was sent by Guadalupe County neighbor J. C. Dufresne on his recent visit to the Capitol to lobby for full public education funding. Nothing doing, he and his troop were told by their State Rep. John Kuemple. The message from the staff of their (and Hays County's) State Sen. Jeff Wentworth was Gov. Perry will certainly veto full funding if it involves raising taxes. So there you have it, bull headed resistance to raise taxes at the state level to fully fund public education and a big Hail Mary Tax Pass to the local districts. If you've paid a visit to your state rep or senator, or plan to, please feel free to share your experience with the RoundUp.
Send your comments and news tips to roundup.editor@gmail.com, to Mr. Dufresne at jcdufresne@satx.rr.com or click on the "comments" button at the bottom of the story. Sen. Wentworth's Capitol office number is (512) 463-0125.
Special to the RoundUpWhile we were received cordially at both of our meetings and were carefully listened to, our call to use all of the Rainy Day fund and raise taxes as necessary to fund education to the level of the last biennium fell on deaf ears.
Senator Wentworth was delayed in a committee meeting and couldn't get back to his office in time to meet with us but a member of his senior staff did listen to what we had to say, when we suggested raising taxes in order to adequately fund education she immediately responded that "the Governor said he would veto any budget that raised taxes." We told her we wanted a commitment from the Senator to fully fund education and she said she'd relay our concerns to the him.
Representative Kuempel was available and was very cordial but he responded to our request to fund education at the level of the last biennium with the same false claims that Governor Perry has made, specifically that the percentage of administrators vs classroom teachers has "exploded over the last decade." We know that to be demonstrably false but I didn't have any data to refute it at the time. We'll be researching it and responding to him in the next few days.
Kuempel also claimed that the 2003 budget crisis was essentially the same as the one we're in now and we know that too to be false and again we'll get the details together in order to refute it.
Eight activists from Guadalupe County made the trip to Austin Monday, they are: Barbara Effenberger of Seguin, John Futch of Seguin, Harvey and Stella Hild of Marion, Pablo and Kathy Arteaga of Cibolo, Duane McCune of Schertz and JC Dufresne of Cibolo.
Please thank them when you see them and we thank you for your phone calls to Senator Wentworth and Representative Kuempel. Please keep them up so that they continue to feel pressure to do the right thing.
– JC Dufresne State Democratic Executive Committeeman, SD25 President, Dem's Café 141 Lindy Hills Cibolo, TX 78108 210-566-3367
7 comments:
“We know that to be demonstrably false but I didn't have any data to refute it at the time. We'll be researching it and responding to him in the next few days. Kuempel also claimed that the 2003 budget crisis was essentially the same as the one we're in now and we know that too to be false and again we'll get the details together in order to refute it.”
Sounds like they went to Austin without any data to backup their begging and whining. I’d be willing to bet that they have a fine sports program in Guadalupe County like most of Central Texas. The School Districts need to cut back on nonessentials and concentrate their available funds educating kids. Sports, Art and Music are good places to start. The parents should foot the bill for such extracurricular programs. The Taxpayers are tapped out and can take no more.
Taxed to Death says: "Sounds like they went to Austin without any data to backup their begging and whining."
Is that really what you think people who are trying to keep education on sound financial footing are doing when they ask these cowardly right wing, black and white thinking ideologues in Austin to spare our children from their hate of the middle class?
In case you don't want to believer it, you are "Taxed to Death" not because of the public schools (although their spending priorities with the budgets they have ARE out of touch), but because these piggie politicians up in Austin work for their special interest tax evading corporate masters and elite cronies who know that if they use the correct propoganda, people will do exactly what you are doing by calling J.C.Dufresne and his group "beggars and whiners."
Sir, it sounds to me like you are a whiner as well. Do you know for a fact Dufresne et al did not put cuts in mindless sports programs on the table during their ftuitless Austin visit?
Although I agree with you in principal, your attitude is unbecoming. And I know you mean well, in spite of your ornery comment.
Speaking of education deficits:
Presidential candidate wannabe Michele Bachmann (R - Minnesota) recently clained the state of New Hampshire as the location of the Battles of Lexington and Concord that began the military conflict of the American Revolution.
And during many of her pre-stump speeches she has also claimed that:
1) The Founding Fathers "worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States."
2) There are "hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design."
3) The United States might "move off the dollar" into a "global currency."
4) Democratic presidents cause influenza outbreaks.
5) The "Hoot-Smalley Tariff" caused the Great Depression. (for you Michelle Bachman fans, there is no such thing as the "Hoot-Smalley Tariff.")
So, do we have our public school system to thank for such ignorance?
If so, I agree with all the libertarians and the Tea baggers: cut the budgets 100% and privatize our public school system.
Or, more productively, like the public school system tries to do with their standardized testing, please initiate an American and world history exam that all our elected politicians must pass before they can sit in office.
But please, do not allow the Texas State School Board to design the exam. If that happens, we will have even more politicians with Ms. Bachmann's intelligence in government.
Oh, we already do? Damn it!
The Texas School Board President was asked by a Stateman reporter:
"What do you think about the need for bilingual education in Texas."
She answered:
"I don't think we need it; if English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for our kids."
Sorry to say, but I think the whole public ed system and the property tax system that supports it are Fubar, as they currently exist. Let's tax property the way it should be taxed like Merle Moden explained per the Texas Constitution. The current cast of clowns in the Texas Legislature are all traitors if they can not abide by their oathes to uphold the Constitution and laws of the state. Period.
The governor and legislators are NOT interested in "saving" public education. That has been the case at least for the past decade.
Perry talks a lot about how the state is paying more and more for education and in part he is correct because the costs have risen; however, he also is full of crap because at one time the State paid 70 to 80 percent of the budget for public education. Now the total is a maximum of 40 percent because year after year legislators have paid less of the percent and have diverted the State's responsibility for public education onto local government, which in turn finds it easiest to increase property taxes.
Furthermore, as school districts have gotten less from the State, home valuations have risen dramatically.
I recall one year the Dripping Springs ISD received a larger amount of taxes via the district raising the value of homes and/or land and then immediately in the same year dropped the voluntary school tax exemption. THAT was two large tax increases within the same year.
If the State wanted to save public education, it already would have done so.
Instead, it pushes for privatization, diverting its constitutional obligation to education onto local government, moves former allocated public education money to other special interests and every year tries to institute a voucher program --- none of which is a means to save public education.
Talking about saving public education is just politics as usual.
"No taxation without representation"
Remember that one?
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