Just saw a segment on CBS on how schools are getting by after all the cuts being demanded from them (not to mention the attrition of good teachers due to "teacher-shaming" from the Right). It proved to me just how well the "small government" folks in our country are doing, at our expense. We all know that teachers in the last decade or so have had to supply all sorts of teaching materials and everyday necessities for students….out of THEIR paychecks, that is. Now they have have to be more creative:
"Many school districts across the country face budget cuts just about every year. In Chicago, teachers are turning to crowdfunding website Donors Choose, which helps them raise funds for classroom necessities." http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/teachers-turn-to-online-donors-to-fund-classrooms/
Why allocate more funds to our kids' education from government, federal or state budgets when you can get the taxpayers to pay for it (use the word "donate" to make them feel better about it). Then we can give more tax breaks to big corporations and the 1 percent...
Same thing with helping workers: instead of asking billionaire business owners (let's say…..Walmart) to cut into their earnings to give employees more hours, better wages, and possibly healthcare, they let the taxpayers do it.
"..a single Walmart Supercenter cost taxpayers between $904,542 and $1.75 million per year, or between $3,015 and $5,815 on average for each of 300 workers.”
http://tinyurl.com/puu9eyf
All those overstocked, out of date, no longer useful bullet proof vests, tanks, tazers, and tear gas that the government contractors have produced, at a profit to shareholders and political investors alike, …..give or auction them off to state and local police forces.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html
That way you are "killing two birds with one stone"…..sorry…..giving these articles of war a "peacetime" use, and keeping the people you despise the most at bay when they finally have had enough. At least for awhile.
At this point I am afraid that the selfishness, greed, misinformation and not-bothered-to-be-concealed racism is finally winning. It will not always be this way; everything in this world comes and goes in cycles. I just makes me cringe to see that so many people…in government and otherwise….do not understand and do not even care enough to see how it ultimately affects their lives and those of their families.
“The darkest secret of this country, I am afraid, is that too many of its citizens imagine that they belong to a much higher civilization somewhere else. That higher civilization doesn’t have to be another country. It can be the past instead—the United States as it was before it was spoiled by immigrants and the enfranchisement of the blacks.
This state of mind allows too many of us to lie and cheat and steal from the rest of us, to sell us junk and addictive poisons and corrupting entertainments. What are the rest of us, after all, but sub-human aborigines?” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard
Why allocate more funds to our kids' education from government, federal or state budgets when you can get the taxpayers to pay for it (use the word "donate" to make them feel better about it). Then we can give more tax breaks to big corporations and the 1 percent...
Same thing with helping workers: instead of asking billionaire business owners (let's say…..Walmart) to cut into their earnings to give employees more hours, better wages, and possibly healthcare, they let the taxpayers do it.
"..a single Walmart Supercenter cost taxpayers between $904,542 and $1.75 million per year, or between $3,015 and $5,815 on average for each of 300 workers.”
http://tinyurl.com/puu9eyf
All those overstocked, out of date, no longer useful bullet proof vests, tanks, tazers, and tear gas that the government contractors have produced, at a profit to shareholders and political investors alike, …..give or auction them off to state and local police forces.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html
That way you are "killing two birds with one stone"…..sorry…..giving these articles of war a "peacetime" use, and keeping the people you despise the most at bay when they finally have had enough. At least for awhile.
At this point I am afraid that the selfishness, greed, misinformation and not-bothered-to-be-concealed racism is finally winning. It will not always be this way; everything in this world comes and goes in cycles. I just makes me cringe to see that so many people…in government and otherwise….do not understand and do not even care enough to see how it ultimately affects their lives and those of their families.
“The darkest secret of this country, I am afraid, is that too many of its citizens imagine that they belong to a much higher civilization somewhere else. That higher civilization doesn’t have to be another country. It can be the past instead—the United States as it was before it was spoiled by immigrants and the enfranchisement of the blacks.
This state of mind allows too many of us to lie and cheat and steal from the rest of us, to sell us junk and addictive poisons and corrupting entertainments. What are the rest of us, after all, but sub-human aborigines?” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard
And Lyndon Johnson had it right:" If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." Today, a winning strategy…….
