GOVERNMENT UNION DRONES WILL FIGHT AGAINST YOUR INTERESTS TO THE END

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Posted on 1st February 2013 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues

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Only corrupt politician hacks that slither through the State House in Harrisburg could possibly oppose the privitazation of the State monopoly on liquor sales in Pennsylvania. Governor Corbett is again taking on the government union drones that are ruining the finances of the state. Fast Eddie Rendell did nothing about this outrage in his 8 years as governor, because he and his Democratic cronies are bought and sold by the unions. Pennsylvanians are stuck with a Prohibition era system of State owned and operated liquor stores. You cannot buy alcohol anywhere but State stores and Beer distributors. It’s a monopoly that drives prices sky high, reduces selection, increases the inconvenience for every person in PA, and pays for the gold plated pensions of 3,500 retail union government drones. This antiquated, inefficient, expensive joke of a system is kept in place by corrupt politicians to benefit 3,500 drones at the expense of the 12.7 million Pennsylvanians who are plagued by high prices and limited selection.

Corbett’s plan would end the monopoly, allow alcohol to be sold at grocery stores, Costco, and anyone willing to pay for a new license. Prices would plummet, as free market competition would work its magic. The selection and convenience for customers would increase dramatically. And it would raise $1 billion of revenue for the schools. And here is why I despise government unions. The school systems across the state are being destroyed by the pension payouts to the union teacher gold plated funds put into place and not funded by prior administrations. These same government union workers will fight Corbett’s plan to privatize the State stores, even though the money raised will go towards the school budgets. Theses unions don’t care about students or taxpayers. They only care about getting as much out of the taxpayer as they can and funneling money to politicians who protect their interests.

Polls show there is overwhelming support for privatizing the state stores. So what will the politicians do? They will ignore the will of the people and vote against Corbett’s plan. Remember TARP? Over 90% of Americans were against it. What did the politicians do?

 

Reactions mixed to liquor store privatization plan

By Stacy Wescoe

There was mixed reaction today to Gov. Tom Corbett’s announcement that he would pursue the privatization of the state’s liquor stores.

“The governor presented a compelling, comprehensive plan today, as have other lawmakers who support sweeping changes to the manner in which alcohol is sold and distributed in the commonwealth,” Pennsylvania Chamber President Gene Barr said. “It is long past time for the state to get out of the liquor business; it is not a core function of state government. We believe a responsible private system would better improve the buying experience for customers by promoting competitive pricing and increased convenience, while continuing to generate revenue for the commonwealth.”

The proposal would provide opportunities for numerous outlets – from “big box” stores to convenience stores – to sell alcohol, while giving new options to restaurants, hotels and taverns, said Barr.

He said Pennsylvania Chamber members support privatization efforts, and stressed that Pennsylvania residents also overwhelmingly support changes to the current system beyond privatization of liquor sales.

The proposal also received backing from the Citizen’s Alliance of Pennsylvania.

“Our ‘state store’ system is a relic of the Prohibition. The current system is wasteful, inefficient, and inconvenient. Its time (if it ever had one) is long gone,” said Alliance Executive Director Leo Knepper.

Meanwhile another group, the Keystone Research Center encouraged Gov. Corbett to abandon the proposal to dramatically increase the number of retail outlets for beer, wine and spirits in the state.

“The proposal could cost the commonwealth revenue that won’t be invested in education, health services and a stronger economy,” said Stephen Herzenberg, Ph.D., an economist and executive director of KRC. “It will also radically increase alcohol accessibility and the resulting social costs.”

The union representing Pennsylvania liquor store workers, the United Food and Commercial Workers, opposes the plan as well, saying it would eliminate the jobs of 3,500 members of UFCW Local 1776 and Local 23. It called for the modernization of the stores versus privatization.

IT’S NOT FAIR – THEY CAN’T CHEAT ANYMORE

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Posted on 24th September 2012 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues

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Another liberal Democrat, union supported, storyline obliterated by facts. It seems PA test scores plunged in math and reading. How could this happen? Obama has been in charge for four years. His Federal government solutions to making our kids smart should be working by now. Our fine batch of union teachers and their 4% per year salary increases and gold plated health and pension plans must surely be working their magic on our children and making them smarter. Right? Well, it seems a monkey wrench was thrown into the ever increasing test scores in PA. Once schools were prevented from cheating and faking test scores, the scores plummeted – Especially in the City of Philadelphia. More than 20% of Phila public schools were CAUGHT cheating. I’m sure there were others that were not caught.

The teachers union slimeballs blame the drop in scores on the draconian education “CUTS”. Here are a few inconvenient facts for the union bloodsuckers:

PA spends $26 billion per year on education, more than $14,000 per student – up 40% since 2000. Does this chart show draconian cuts? Private and charter schools without union teachers spend less than $12,000 per student and get far higher test scores.

 

PA Public School Revenue

Here are some more inconvenient facts:

Since 1995, when Pennsylvania doubled taxpayer spending on K-12 education from $13 billion to more than $26 billion, SAT scores have been flat and state results on the U.S. Department of Education’s Nation’s Report Card haven’t improved much since 2002. Today, Pennsylvania school districts spend more than $14,000 per student—with some as high as $25,000—and studies show absolutely no connection between district spending and student achievement. Moreover, the achievement gap in some of our most failing and violent public schools continues to widen, like the Harrisburg School District where taxpayers invested more than $18,000 per pupil but 9 out of 10 students couldn’t reach proficiency in math. Because these facts get in the way, the public school industry resorts to rickety rhetoric, citing “draconian funding cuts” over the past two years. But the truth is these cuts occurred with the end of the federal stimulus, which was always intended to be temporary aid. Excluding federal funds, Gov. Corbett’s proposed budget actually represents a two percent increase in spending on K-12 education since FY 2007-08, the year before the stimulus.

After decades of Federal government mandates, programs, and initiatives, along with doubling and tripling spending on education, our children are dumber than ever. But if we just throw another $2 billion at teachers unions, all will be well. The City of Philadelphia school district, in addition to being bankrupted by their union contracts, has achieved the fantastic result of having 13% of its 250 schools meeting the minimum standards for reading and math. They have certainly lived up to the promise of NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND – they have dumbed down every child in Philadelphia. And you wonder why this country is doomed.

Pennsylvania’s school test scores drop for the first time since 2002

September 23, 2012|By Dan Hardy, Dylan Purcell, and Kristen A. Graham, Inquirer Staff Writers

The percentage of Pennsylvania students meeting state math and reading standards on the PSSAs – the annual academic accountability test – declined this year for the first time since the tests began in 2002.

Education Secretary Ron Tomalis on Friday attributed the drop to tight security procedures enforced during the spring testing, especially in 110 schools across the state still under investigation for possible cheating from 2009 to 2011.

This is the first year, Tomalis said, that the public can be confident that, overall, test scores are not tainted by adult interference. “We have hit the reset button on student performance,” and the 2012 scores provide a new baseline, he said.

Well over 100 educators will eventually face state disciplinary charges for cheating that could lead to the revocation of their professional certificates, Tomalis said. But that could take years, and the results of state disciplinary board hearings in Harrisburg would be disclosed only if educators were disciplined.

In Philadelphia, 53 district-run schools and three charter schools are still under investigation for allegations of cheating in past years.

Of those 53, all but two experienced declines in both subjects from the previous year. The Philadelphia Military Academy at Elverson had a 71 percent decline in math scores from 2011 to 2012, the biggest drop of any city school. The two other schools had a decline in either math or reading.

Statewide, the 110 schools that had been under investigation this year for cheating averaged a double-digit drop in math and reading scores. With those schools taken out of the mix, math and reading scores for students statewide would have declined about 0.5 percent. With the investigated schools included, they were down about 1.5 percent.

Last year, 77.1 percent of the state’s students scored at or above grade level on the math test; this year, 75.7 percent met the mark. In reading, student scores declined from 73.5 percent at grade level to 71.9 percent. Tomalis called those percentages “unacceptable for Pennsylvania,” adding that everyone needs “to redouble our efforts.”

In Philadelphia this year, 50 percent of students districtwide performed at grade level in math, 45 percent in reading. That is down from 59 percent in math and 52 percent in reading last year.

“These results are clearly disappointing, and they simply remind us of the work we have ahead in developing a strong system of schools in Philadelphia and in supporting our students’ learning,” School Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. said.

The news was not all bad. The High School of the Future was one of the most improved schools in the district. It rose 27.2 percentage points in reading and 22.8 percentage points in math.

“I took a double take,” said longtime district principal Rosalind Chivis, who has been at the helm of the 425-student school since 2008. “I knew we would improve, but it blew me away when I saw the data. I was so very proud of the learners. They worked really, really hard, and a big part of it is motivating them to do well, to take the test seriously and do well.”

Along with the decline in test scores, the number of schools statewide meeting achievement benchmarks declined sharply from last year, in large part because Pennsylvania’s No Child Left Behind school accountability standards went up a sizable amount from 2011.

The state thresholds went up from 67 percent of students required to make the mark in 2011 to 78 percent this year. In reading, the benchmark went from 72 percent to 81 percent.

This year, 51 percent of schools statewide met state academic benchmarks by having the required percentage of students scoring at grade level or above. That was down from 75 percent in 2011.

In Philadelphia, only 33 – 13 percent – of the district’s 250 schools met state standards, down from 41 percent in 2011.

Among city charter schools, 54 percent met the benchmarks, down from 63 percent in 2011. In Philadelphia’s suburbs, 65 percent of schools made the mark, down from 81 percent.

Statewide, in addition to Philadelphia, five districts and three charter schools remain under investigation for cheating from 2009 to 2011, Tomalis said. They are the Harrisburg, Hazleton Area, Pittsburgh, Reading, and Scranton districts and the Imhotep Institute, Philadelphia Electrical and Technical, and Walter D. Palmer Leadership Learning Partnership charter schools.

An additional five districts and one charter school that were under investigation this year will continue to be monitored and will have strict new test security measures. Though no one was identified as having cheated, there was no satisfactory explanation of the irregularities at those schools, Tomalis said.

Some educators and education advocates blamed the drop in student performance on reduced funding for schools.

“It defies logic that they could expect student performance to improve after cutting nearly $1 billion” in funding in 2010-11, said Wythe Keever, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union.

Keever said cheating “is wrong. . . . Those individuals should be held accountable.” But he said Tomalis was using cheating revelations to “shift attention away from the real issue: adequately funding public education.”

Tomalis said the state’s Technical Advisory Committee found heightened test security the only factor in the drop. “I don’t buy the excuse the numbers went down because of budget cuts,” he said.

Union leaders were quick to criticize state officials for tying cheating to the statewide drop in test scores.

“Any cheating on tests is deplorable, but to use an incomplete investigation involving a handful of schools and educators statewide to discredit our public schools and the educators who have dedicated their careers to helping all children reach their full potential is nothing short of a political cheap shot,” Ted Kirsch, president of the American Federation of Teachers Pennsylvania, said in a statement.

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, agreed. Cheating may have occurred, he said, but its impact is negligible.

“When resources are pulled from our schools, scores drop,” Jordan said.

By 2014, according to the federal No Child Left Behind law under which the state tests are mandated, 100 percent of students should be scoring proficient or advanced. Virtually all educators see that as unrealistic.

Last year, the Obama administration started allowing states to scrap the 2014 deadline if they would agree to adopt new rules that focus on the bottom 15 percent of schools, and make other changes.

Thirty-two states, including New Jersey, and the District of Columbia have been granted the waivers.

Tomalis on Friday called it likely that Congress will pass a new version of No Child Left Behind in the next year or two and that the state did not want to keep changing accountability plans. He instead asked for federal permission to freeze test benchmarks for schools at 2012 levels, but was turned down.

Pennsylvania’s academic thresholds are set to increase to 89 percent in math and 91 percent in reading next year.

OBAMA CRACKS DOWN ON CRIMINALS

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Posted on 15th June 2012 by Administrator in Economy

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I bet you thought this was going to be a post about Obama actually prosecuting some of the thousands of criminals on Wall Street (aka Jon Corzine, Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein) or prosecuting the other thousands of mortgage scammers that ruined our economy. You’d be wrong. He is bringing out the big guns against the Governor of Florida for following Federal law and purging the voter rolls of fraudulent names. The “racist” Governor of Florida is actually purging the voter rolls of dead people and illegal aliens. The last time I checked, they are not allowed to vote. Here in PA there are shrill activists who think Governor Corbett is a racist because he wants voters to show their ID before voting in order to prove they are who they say they are. He must be a commie.

Why do liberals have such a problem with having our voter rolls accurate and making voters prove who they are? You need to show ID to get in a bar. You need ID to apply for a credit card, rent an apartment, buy a house, and about 10,000 other every day things. Why is it racist to ask for ID to vote?

Obama and his minions had no problem with video of Black Panthers intimidating white voters in Phila. I guess that isn’t racist.

I’m glad to see Obama is focused on the most important issues of the day.

 

The ‘racist’ Florida vote purge obeys federal law

Thursday, June 14,2012

 

“Gov. Wallace was the face of the original Jim Crow,” says MoveOn.org’s Garlin Gilchrist II. “Now, Gov. Scott is the face of Jim Crow 2.0.”

Liberals once again are foaming at their mouths over mainly conservative initiatives to prevent vote fraud. The trigger for the Left’s latest rabid attack is Gov. Rick Scott’s efforts to verify the accuracy of Florida’s voter rolls.

Responding to Scott’s and similar programs, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asked the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, “Do we want to be the first generation to restrict the ability of American citizens to vote? We have a bad history in that regard …”

A Tampa Bay Times editorial accused Scott of “standing between Floridians and their right to vote as U.S. citizens.” MoveOn called Scott’s project a “racist voter purge.”

So, where did Scott decide to scrutinize Florida’s rolls for ineligible voters? At a KKK rally? At a white-power retreat deep inside the Everglades with neo-Nazi David Duke?

Not quite.
In fact, Scott’s measures are required by federal law.

The 1993 National Voter Registration Act (AKA Motor Voter) holds that “A State shall … systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters.” Further, the 2002 Helping America Vote Act, adopted after 2000’s Bush v. Gore recount fiasco in … where again? Oh, yes … Florida, commands that “The appropriate State or local election official shall perform list maintenance with respect to the computerized list on a regular basis … For purposes of removing names of ineligible voters …”

Like an overgrown lawn, Florida’s voter rolls screamed for attention. When Sunshine State officials compared voter lists with the Social Security Death Index, they discovered 51,308 registered voters who happened to be dead. The Scott administration should perform a national service by checking those names against voter records to determine how many people kept voting after they stopped breathing.

Last September, Florida asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for access to its Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) national citizenship database. DHS has stonewalled Florida’s request, and those from Colorado, Michigan, and North Carolina. As Florida’s Secretary of State Ken Detzner wrote the U.S. Justice Department on June 6, “a chain of emails dating back nine months … demonstrates DHS’s refusals and delays in this regard.”

Florida then examined its driver’s license applications against voter rolls. It discovered 182,000 potential non-citizen registered voters. SAVE could determine which drivers had become naturalized, but DHS will not share this record with Florida.

A sub-sample of 2,600 of these 182,000 possible aliens yielded at least 500 now-naturalized citizens as well as, so far, 104 confirmed non-citizen registered voters, 56 of whom feloniously have voted. If representative, this sample extrapolates to 7,280 registered non-citizens, 3,920 of whom may have voted and may do so again. Given that George W. Bush won Florida and, thus, the White House, by just 537 votes, Americans should rail against the possibility that more than seven times as many aliens could be poised to elect the next president of the United States.

Rather than encourage it to fix this mess, the Obama administration has sued Florida to stop it from complying with relevant federal laws. Team Obama claims that Scott’s statewide electoral hygiene campaign violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act, although that law covers only five of Florida’s 67 counties.

The Justice Department also says Florida cannot clean its voter rolls within 90 days of a federal election, namely Aug. 14’s congressional primary. The Nov. 6 general election is within 90 days of the primary, further precluding voter-list maintenance, according to Obama legal interpretation.

Rep. Thomas J. Rooney, R-Fla., captured the frustration many Floridians feel as the Obama administration labors feverishly against ballot integrity. As Rooney wrote Holder on June 6: “While your department should be working with Florida to stop voter fraud, you are instead actively working to keep noncitizens — who have committed a felony — on our state’s voter rolls.”

Deroy Murdock is a columnist with Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. E-mail him at deroy.Murdock@gmail.com

GOVERNMENT PENSION TAPEWORM WILL KILL US ALL

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Posted on 6th June 2012 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues

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It sure is easy for politicians to make promises. It just ain’t easy to fullfill them. The story below is about the Pennsylvnia  state budget. It is the same story across all states. Politicians sign legislation giving out goodies to get re-elected. The time bomb doesn’t explode for a decade or more, after the slimy politician is running the Department of Homeland Security or being paid as an Obama shill on MSNBC. The lack of courage, fortitude, honesty and intelligence extends across both parties. Tom Ridge signed legislation in 2001 that provided gold plated pension benefits to government workers and the slimy politicians that voted for the legislation. Ed Rendell further extended and increased these benefit promises. You can see from this chart that PA is not even the worst offender.

A recent study estimated that the unfunded pension liabilities for state government workers exceeds $4 trillion. In classic government fashion, Governor Corbett of PA is being branded a scrooge for drastically cutting spending and impoverishing school districts across the state. That is humorous since this year’s budget is $27.3 billion and next year’s budget will be $27.7. Only in this land of delusions could a $400 million increase be described as horrific cutbacks in government spending. There is never a mention about the fact that every school district in the state went on a spending spree in the mid-2000s because the real estate taxes from the housing boom were rolling in like waves on the ocean. Well the waves have receded from the shore and a Tsunami of unfunded promises are about to wash over the delusional morons who spent all the money and made all the promises to government employees.

The wailing and grinding of teeth over this year’s budget is laughable when you consider what is coming. The taxpayers must foot a $1.2 pension expense for the government drones this year, or 4.3% of the state spending. These pension payments are on automatic pilot. In 2016, the taxpayers of PA will be on the hook for $6 billion of pension expense, or approximately 20% of the state spending. This is called math. Either the taxpayers of PA will have to pay a whole lot more in taxes or drastic spending cuts will need to occur in other parts of the budget. There are 5.2 million households in PA. Each would have to pay over $900 more per year in taxes to pay for the pension promises made to government union drones. We all know that the FSA in Philly and Pittsburgh don’t pay taxes, so the average hard working middle class schmuck would have to ante up over $1,200 more per year to satisfy the insatiable appetite of government union workers.

This tapeworm was introduced into the digestive system of Pennsylvania by a Republican governor in 2001. He’s rich. He earns money for speaking engagements. He started our beloved DHS. This brilliant guy even invented our color coded terrorist warning system. We are now at Shit Your Pants Yellow alert. By 2016 we’ll be at Commit Suicide Red.

Will any politicians have the guts to confront the government unions and kill this pension parasite before it kills us all? I doubt it. There are elections to be won and promises to be made. That tapeworm looks harmless.

Funding Pa. pensions is ‘tapeworm’ in budget talks

Wednesday, June 6,2012

It’s crunch time in Harrisburg. In other words, it’s budget time.

As school districts across the state reel from the effects of an austere spending plan put forth by Gov. Tom Corbett, Republicans in the state Senate have created their own budget and restored many of the cuts proposed by their fellow Republican governor. The state House is expected to vote on that version this week, possibly as early as today. Then both sides likely will hammer out a final version with the governor.

Here’s the good news: Some education funding is likely to be restored, in particular when it comes to higher education.

Here’s the bad news: It won’t necessarily solve the fiscal woes afflicting school districts.

Now here’s the really grim news: None of this even addresses the elephant in the room, the biggest budget crisis in the state.

That, of course, would be the ocean of red ink inundating the state’s two large public employee pensions, those covering the bulk of state government workers and public school teachers.

This year the state’s on the hook for $1.2 billion in pension payments. That increases to $1.6 billion next year and an astronomical $6 billion by fiscal year 2016-17.

Kaboom!
Perhaps that is why Corbett is reluctant to start restoring money to the budget. He refers to the pension crisis as “the tapeworm” in state budget talks.

The pension crisis has been exacerbated by several factors. First, while enjoying a bullish ride on Wall Street for years, the state and districts looked at more rosy predictions and cut their contributions to the fund. Then the market tanked.

Also crucial was a deal cut by former Gov. Tom Ridge back in 2001 that boosted the payouts for pols and teachers while cutting taxpayer contributions.

Now the bill is coming due, and it’s a whopper. It won’t solve the current dilemma, but some denizens of Harrisburg with an eye on the future are offering an important change.

State Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-9 of Chester, is proposing legislation that would derail this gravy train for all future public employees. Instead of the defined benefit plan those workers now enjoy, they would instead join the rest of us in a defined-contribution plan, similar to a 401(k).

It’s a common-sense move that is long overdue. Sure, it would be easy to harpoon Pileggi and several other Republicans for cutting someone else’s retirement benefits while theirs remains intact. It won’t change the fact that the current system is unsustainable.

More importantly, it does not address how the state is going to fund its current pension woes.

What almost no one in Harrisburg is willing to say is the very real possibility of someone actually proclaiming what many are thinking – that as currently constructed the system, will not be able to pay out what was promised.

One possible solution would be to reconfigure pensions to their pre-2001 levels. That no doubt would be met with catcalls from those approaching retirement.

The move to get public employees out of defined-benefit plans is a start. But it must be accompanied by a solution to the more immediate problem — that $6 billion tab lurking in the distance.

One thing we’re sure of. This tapeworm is hungry. And it’s not going away.

— Journal Register News Service