One of my Dad’s favorite phrases was “Tough Shit”. If you told him he was being unfair or unreasonable, his answer was usually “Tough Shit”. It’s tough to argue with that logic. The phrase came to mind as I read the Op-Ed in my local paper yesterday from a teacher in the North Penn School District. He seems like a decent fellow who cares about the students he teaches. His arguments in favor of reasonable pay and reasonable workloads have validity. I’d also agree that the demotions of 36 young teachers is unfair. But at the end of the day, I’d have to tell the guy TOUGH SHIT!!!
You see, life isn’t fair. The school district asked the teachers union to accept a one year salary freeze in order to balance the budget. The union said NO. So, the school district demoted the 36 teachers to make up for the budget shortfall. There are two sides to the issue. The union contracts for teachers are too rich. The administrators who run the school district were delusional fools.
When housing was booming 5 years ago and real estate taxes were rolling in at a tremendous rate, the administrators decided to build a beautiful new football stadium and an Olympic size pool, while signing gold plated contracts with the teachers union. They added more teachers and more administrators. It was a glorious future. Well guess what? The tax revenue plunged as home prices and real estate transactions cratered. You can’t undo a new football stadium and new Olympic sized pool. You can’t renege on a five year teacher contract with guaranteed 4% salary hikes, huge pension promises, and gold plated healthcare guarantees.
You see, we’ve elected people who promised us lots of free shit in order to get themselves elected. This is true at the local, state and federal level. We have lived our lives depending upon those promises to be kept. We didn’t need to save for a rainy day. We could retire on the huge equity in our houses. The stock market would always go up. And life would be full of unicorns and rainbows. Well it was all a lie. The money is gone. It wasn’t real. The promises can’t be kept. You can’t borrow your way to prosperity. Your standard of living has been about 40% too high for the last two decades and it is coming to an end. And you know what?
TOUGH SHIT!!!
It is what it is. It isn’t fair, but that doesn’t matter. Get over it. You are going to get screwed, one way or the other. Below is a picture of a beautiful bridge in my township. My town spent millions to build this bridge. They borrowed the money. The used eminent domain to get rid of ten houses so they could build the bridge five years ago. They knocked down and flattened an old antique shop and wiped out 5 little league baseball fields where my kids played baseball for this bridge. They assured us that there would be a huge retail complex on one side of the bridge and hotels, condos and townhouses on the other side of the bridge. We call it the bridge to nowhere. Nothing has been built on either side of that beautiful bridge. NADA!!! There is no hint of a retail complex. No condos. No townhouses. Just debt and a bridge too far.
Towamencin can’t sell the bridge. The money is gone. Wasted. Pissed down the drain. The clueless morons we elected have moved on to greener pastures and left us a bridge to nowhere. It’s not fair. But guess what?
TOUGH SHIT!!!
This has gone on at every level of government for decades. Social Security isn’t solvent. It isn’t in a lockbox. The thieves in Congress spent the money on wars and tax breaks for hedge fund managers and for public housing in West Philly. The major cost saving part of the Gang of Six debt ceiling plan is to change the CPI calculation so that they can pay you less money in your retirement. They already understate the CPI by about 5%, so what’s another 2% or 3% among friends. This isn’t fair to senior citizens or people who will retire over the next 20 years. But guess what?
TOUGH SHIT!!!
Look at the chart below. We have spent tens of trillions on our war industry over the decades and what has it achieved? Did it keep us from being invaded by a foreign enemy? Have we ever been at risk of being attacked? NO!!! We have spent trillions meddling in other people’s business and creating enemies so the military industrial complex could enrich itself and their captured politicians. The trillions are gone. Wasted. Pissed away for no good reason. You can’t sell off the aircraft carriers and thousands of fighter planes. The money is long gone.
We are $14.4 trillion in debt. We will be $20 trillion in debt by 2015. Our unfunded promises exceed $100 trillion. The promises won’t be kept. The country will undergo a once in a lifetime purge over the next ten years. Since 90% of the people in the country are delusional, the purge will be forced upon the country by outside forces. We won’t willingly reduce our standard of living by 40%, but it will happen. It’s not fair, but guess what?
TOUGH SHIT!!!
YOUR SAY: Teacher speaks out about North Penn
By Jonathan Alba
Conshohocken resident
Is it not beautiful that we have the right to free speech in this country? I hope so.
I am concerned. I am concerned about the current direction in which the North Penn School District may be headed. Surely nothing too bad can happen anytime soon; I mean, we just did get a national ranking.
But a drastic change is now on the horizon, at least from my perspective. Also, this drastic change, as I have chosen to put it, is exactly where my aforementioned concern resides.
In fact, the school board has chosen to demote 36 teachers at the secondary level. Please don’t be mistaken. The demotion carries with it a remarkable advantage. Doubtless, the board has found a simple solution to its financial consternation.
Unfortunately, the disadvantage in my mind must be brought to the attention of the public, just in the event that it has not quite been made clear.
What is the disadvantage? Well, in my department, a youthful teacher who is absolutely relentless in his attempts to improve his craft has been given a difficult decision. Stay, and make 40 percent of his salary, or leave and learn to manage another school system (they’re all different, you know … just like snowflakes).
Additionally, two of my colleagues will be asked to teach six classes. I did that in the beginning of my career, and I suppose you could say that it’s surprising that I’m still here in some respect. I stayed and kids … thank you so much as so very many of you have rewarded me, and each of you in a unique way.
In truth, I witnessed bright and capable young teachers leave North Penn in search of greener pastures. Translation: teaching six classes is hard. Additionally, I found out that at other districts they compensate for the extra workload.
As an example, at the time I was in my initial years of teaching, in Abington High School a high school teacher instructing six classes rather than five were given a fifth of their salary as extra pay. I believe in the business world they call that motivating your employees.
Though our school board appears to treat these demotions as just business, I am not certain that the demotions are good business. Actually, increasing class size and worsening work conditions, in my mind, can likely lead to a decline in the quality of our education at North Penn. Wait, what is our business? It is quality, right?
I understand that the decisions to cut the budget were not easy. Nor could they have been. However, can there not be another way? I plead, and understand that I wish it to be the most humble of pleas, that we as a community reconsider all of our options before casting your next vote for the school board. I do not mean to take advantage of rhetoric, but nonetheless, I say it is our children’s education at stake.
Kids don’t always learn from our words; but I do think they do learn from our actions more often than not. Should we be concerned about what the action of demoting the teachers conveys to the kids? I cannot answer that question; quite literally, I am not capable. But I am concerned.
I like my job. I am looking forward to my teaching schedule next year and it is one that I am greatly anticipating. Might all of that be in jeopardy with my comments? I suppose. However, I would sacrifice that in order to promote awareness.
Jonathan Alba is a resident of Conshohocken.
I read this drivel yesterday. Teachers always claim that the education of the children will suffer as their core talking point – they are all about the student unless the discussion is around performance. Then, it’s all about the parents. I went to an elementary school with 45 students in a class. I went to a high school with no air conditioning. Tough shit. Suck it up. Overcome adversity. This teacher thinks there are ‘greener pastures’ – good luck with that fantasy, pal. The teacher’s union pretend world is gone: they are just the last ones to know it.
Robmu1
Don’t you have a heart? Where’s your compassion for the plight of teachers who have to slave for 6 hours a day, 9 months a year, and with only a month of holidays off? If you would just ante up another $1,000 per year in school taxes, this guy could have a future.
Wow, this guy is delusional. After much contemplation, I am fully convince that the most clueless of the clueless morons are public school teachers. Our kids are fucked!
oops, convinced. Publik Skool Edgeecashun showing.
Trillions and Trillions are gone. Stimulus, bail-outs, wars, entitlements, war of drugs, war on poverty, TARP; you name it, all in the name of big government. Now, they’re in over their head, as is Wall Street, TBTF Banks, homeowners, consumers, even entire countries. We hear it every day. What could we have done with that money? train doctors, educate our youngsters, rebuild production, train people to work. But the politicians have told us “tough shit” as they have spent and promised trillions they don’t have, now collapse is a foregone conclusion. Experiment failed.
I live in a dinky town, but they used stimulus money to build a highway to nowhere. It diverts traffic around the town, has messed up traffic patterns in town, and nobody EVER uses the highway. It must have cost $10 million easy. The little town is dying, the downtown is decimated, the movie theater just closed, and the assholes built a highway that nobody uses around the town. It’s insane.
Schools and teachers get what they deserve for letting the unions into the picture. It’s hard to feel sorry for them, really, they reward ignorance and laziness. Where it not for unions, teachers could be rewarded for results and hard work, instead of seniority and sloth.
My parents were of the “tough shit” variety also. How about a tough shit rant list:
Too lazy to work for a living? Tough Shit! No more free money/SNAP/housing/cell phone/transportation/healthcare/meds.
Too depressed to work? Tough Shit! Doing something useful with your time by working will take away your depression.
Back hurts and can’t work? Tough Shit! Get a job in computers, just get a job.
Can’t work because your diabetic? Tough Shit! Lose 100lbs, get off your ass and exercise, and get a fucking job.
Had kids out of wedlock? Tough Shit! Now you have to support them by getting a job.
Oh, I’m so mean and cruel. We’ll let’s see, the countries we are competing against, who are currently kicking our asses, China, Korea, Japan, India, Mexico, Brazil etc. Don’t have Welfare states, don’t pay people to sit on their asses, give them free everything, allow a large percentage of their population to collect benefits from the government. People there still have to work for a living, sometimes they have to work like slaves. Those countries also don’t allow lawsuits or unions. They are successful, we are no longer. We buy their stuff on credit, and they use the money to buy our debt. I hope you can see the correlation. Our big, ever expanding and consuming government, unions, lawyers have found an easier, softer way to kill the human spirit and kill us. (Taps playing, fade to black).
North Penn is a massive black hole of waste – from the football practice field (with lights), to the lit student parking lot at 3:00 AM, to the turf lacrosse field, to the dopey, clueless teachers who whine about have to teach an extra class and – oh, the humanity! – having to grade papers while watching tv at night.
North Texas School District to Charge Students For Riding Bus
By Nathan Bernier
Parents in Keller, Texas, a relatively affluent suburb of Fort Worth, will have to start paying for their children to ride the school bus next year. Here’s how much it will cost:
One student is $185 per semester
Additional students are $135 each
Students eligible for free and reduced lunch are $100 each
The school district plans to start charging parents because its $200 million budget will have to be slashed by $30 million next school year. That’s a 15 percent cut.
Keller ISD held a tax rate election in June, trying to convince voters to pay more property taxes to help close the gap. But the tax increase was rejected by 56 percent of voters.
“A parent that we visited with last night said it would have been substantially cheaper for me to pay the taxes on my house than it would have been to have me pay to have our children ride the bus,” Keller ISD Superintendent James Veitenheimer told KUT News. “I think many of our bus riding parents are feeling the same way.”
Veitenheimer says school officials made clear before June’s tax rate election that if it were rejected, the district would have to find other ways to fund its transportation system. But now the school board is getting an earful from angry parents who say they were caught off guard.
“The people that it’s directly impacting now are beginning to react,” Keller school board member Cindy Lotton said in a phone interview. “But to be honest, some of those people have acted like they are just now hearing about this, even though we’ve been talking about it for a year.”
The Keller ISD school board last night instructed school district staff to include the pricing regime in their 2011-12 budget. The board will vote on the budget in August.
Jim: Your introduction to this article is both spot on and priceless. Can I e-mail it out to friends?
Dave
Feel free to send it to anyone.
Tell the little bastards in Keller to walk to school..I did.
Jim…nice bridge…tough shit !
“The school district plans to start charging parents because its $200 million budget will have to be slashed by $30 million next school year. That’s a 15 percent cut.
Keller ISD held a tax rate election in June, trying to convince voters to pay more property taxes to help close the gap. But the tax increase was rejected by 56 percent of voters.”
Well of course! Most of the taxpayers do not have kids in school and would prefer to see the costs shifted to those who do.
TOUGH SHIT!!!
Compton faces possible government shutdown amid budget woes
July 19, 2011 | 11:51 am
Compton’s financially struggling City Hall may have to shut down if the City Council doesn’t approve a new budget Tuesday night.
The council in recent weeks has twice voted down a budget that would lay off dozens of employees, including several department heads.Those voting in the majority said they wanted to see alternatives to layoffs.
City officials including City Manager Willie Norfleet and Mayor Eric Perrodin said last week that without a budget, a government shutdown could be imminent, with all city employees involuntarily furloughed except for public safety workers and other essential staff. City Treasurer Douglas Sanders said that he would not issue city paychecks this week if there was no budget appropriating the funds. City employees received notices weeks ago warning that their paychecks might be delayed.
Unions representing city employees have threatened to sue if the budget calling for layoffs is adopted. The unions contend that a resolution passed in 2009 gives the city authority to keep functioning until a budget is passed. City officials, however, said they did not have authority to operate without a budget under the city’s charter.
The city’s fiscal situation is dire. Its general fund has been running deficits for the last three years. The city’s independent auditors, citing the deficits and “liquidity problems,” have questioned the government’s ability to remain solvent. According to a report provided by the city, Compton’s general fund ended the latest fiscal year with a deficit of about $23 million, equal to about 40% of the city’s budget for the period. The deficit was inflated by $11.6 million because money was transferred from the general fund to pay off an accumulated deficit in the city’s general liability fund.
City Controller Stephen Ajobiewe said in an email that it would take five years to erase the general fund’s accumulated deficit.
Councilwoman Yvonne Arceneaux, who has opposed the proposed budget, said she was still not prepared to support it in its current form, because of inconsistencies in the figures and questions about its legality. In particular, Arceneaux said, cutting department heads would be a violation of the city charter.
“This budget is just very disturbing to me,” she said. “My feeling is if we vote for this budget, we are in violation of the charter and we are opening ourselves up to litigation.”
The unions have proposed to avoid layoffs with an early-retirement incentive program and a series of concessions, including furloughs, forgone vacation days and changes to the employee health plan.
Also Tuesday night, the council is scheduled to vote on whether to certify a petition for a ballot initiative that would prevent the City Council from ending its contract with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department without a vote of Compton residents. The petition was circulated by former City Clerk Charles Davis with financial backing from the deputies’ union. A plan by the city to bring back the Compton Police Department has been a source of controversy for the last year. The council voted to abandon the project when the city’s fiscal issues came to light.
TOUGH SHIT!!!
UC Riverside to Cut Positions to Help Close $46 Million Gap
RIVERSIDE – A $46 million budget shortfall will require “dozens” of job cuts at UC Riverside, campus officials said today.
In a letter to faculty and students, UCR Chancellor Timothy White said major spending reductions would be necessary for the university to close its 2011-12 fiscal year gap, precipitated by the roughly $1 billion cut to the UC system in the state budget signed 2 1/2 weeks ago by Gov. Jerry Brown.
“Despite our best efforts and enormous lobbying activity, these cuts are significant and will inflict real pain on individuals and programs,” White wrote. “We must work together as we redouble our efforts to find non-general fund resources to support our activities, and to find additional efficiencies.”
The contraction in spending comes at the same time student tuition hikes take effect.
Last week, the UC Board of Regents approved a 9.6 percent boost in student fees, which followed an 8 percent increase ratified by the regents last summer. The total 17.6 percent spike in tuition will be absorbed by students beginning this fall.
The regents justified the increases by pointing out that, between 2008 and 2011, lawmakers had chopped appropriations to the UC system by 27 percent, from $3.25 billion to $2.37 billion.
During that same period, UCR slashed or phased out around 150 positions, according to Assistant Vice Chancellor of Strategic Communications James Grant.
According to campus officials, two-thirds of the cuts planned in the current fiscal year will be concentrated in administrative support functions, including human resources, technology services, transportation and accounting.
“The number of layoffs is in the dozens rather than the hundreds,” UCR spokeswoman Kris Lovekin told City News Service.
“Each unit manager has the task of operating efficiently. Some managers choose to eliminate jobs that are already vacant, and they hope that when the budget improves, they will be able to recreate the position,” Lovekin said. “Other people are actually laying off people and trying to get the function handled in a different way.”
Campus police and “core ladder-rank faculty” — including tenured professors and assistant professors on a “tenure track” — will be largely spared cutbacks. University officials said the retirement program for general fund employees, as well as financial aid programs for low-income residents, will also be preserved.
The UCR Graduate Division, Research Office and Office of University Advancement are each facing cuts of about 5 percent — relatively low amounts that reflect the administration’s goal to keep them whole for the purpose of attracting grants and philanthropic donations, according to the university.
Earlier this year, Grant told Valley News there was a possibility the Palm Desert Graduate Center would be downsized to curtail expenses, but campus officials gave no indication that option would be exercised in today’s statement.
TOUGH SHIT!!!
Glendale’s efforts to keep float in Rose Parade coming up short
The public appears unwilling to maintain Glendale’s float as the second-longest running entrant in the annual Tournament of Roses parade, having donated just $596 toward a $50,000 fundraising goal set by city officials.
If the goal isn’t reached by the end of this month — the deadline for signing a $99,000-float construction contract — Glendale likely will be forced to withdrawal after 97 years of participation in a parade watched by millions around the world, the Glendale News-Press reported.
Facing a projected budget deficit of $18 million, the City Council voted to scrap its subsidy of at least $80,000 for the float unless the community pitched in $50,000. Glendale’s annual Rose Parade float costs about $130,000.
“I wish people in the city would consider real quickly if they would like to help preserve the history of the float — 97 years,” said Councilman Dave Weaver, a longtime float advocate and chairman of last year’s decorating committee. “I hope that they will send in a contribution very soon. Time is running out.”
Glendale is among several cities across the region, from West Covina to Alhambra, that have struggled to fund their Rose Parade floats amid deep budget cuts.
Other Southland cities with stronger fundraising operations, such as Burbank and La Cañada Flintridge, remain on track to enter their floats, with construction already underway.
As of this week, Glendale officials reported just eight donations totaling $596, and most City Council members have indicated they are unwilling to fill the gap with city money.
“I think it’s a luxury that the city was able to afford for so many years,” Councilman Ara Narjarian said. “At a time when we’re cutting libraries, where we’re cutting recreational programs for children, meals for seniors, road repair, police, fire — we just can’t afford to subsidize it the way we had in the past.”
“A parent that we visited with last night said it would have been substantially cheaper for me to pay the taxes on my house than it would have been to have me pay to have our children ride the bus,” Keller ISD Superintendent James Veitenheimer told KUT News. “I think many of our bus riding parents are feeling the same way.”
Step #1: Reduce Mr. Veitenheimer’s salary by at least 50%.
Step #2: Reduce the salary of all teachers in the district at least 25%.
Step #3: Eliminate all sports activities at the school immediately.
Step #4: Apply all monies saved to the cost of transportation.
Repeat for any and all school districts in the nation who are whining about making ends meet. Property tax is illegal. Stop the oppression of innocent land owners. Let’s kill the statist snake now by chopping its head off.
Oh, and if it happens to be your child having to pay to ride the bus and you have not fought for your constitutional rights, tough shit. Pull them out of the state-sponsored indoctrination center.
Oops, I’m a new world wood burner, not an olde world woode burner.
Admin,
You could of made a buck or two off Dave. Don’t give it away LOL.
Heads up Preppers,
Thrive Food for a year for a family of four on sale at Costco Online July 25th to Aug.14th at 2999.99.
500.00 or 14% discount. Has a seven to fifteen year self life. Costco #559948 – 336 #10 cans of food.
And the end of world came quietly, ushered in by lawyers and union officials
“…Unions representing city employees have threatened to sue…”
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Hahahaha! I love it!
TOUGH SHIT TOUGH SHIT TOUGH SHIT!
Cry me a fucking river, Jonathan Alba!
Where the fuck’s Smokey?
Where the fuck’s Cynical?
What will unemployed government drones do in the future? Who is hiring lazy, unmotivated, mediocre students if the government isn’t?
All the gov unions do at my office is promote mediocrity. The union reps are still paid employees, that spend tax dollars figuring out ways to defend this lack of production. Not that the management is any better, their view of employee rights is having a toilet that works.
Government unions will run us all into the ground by a short sighted focus on “getting their’s.” The argument that government employees are overpaid misses the point a little though. It isn’t that the salary structure is wrong, in many cases it is lower than private sector. The problem is that the unions have artificially inflated the grade levels of many positions. Typically, the lower graded employees are overpaid compared to private sector, while the higher positions are underpaid. So, you get employees that are under qualified at every level. What a way to run a country.
COPROLITE!
Only 12% of the workforce are unionized.
100% percent of politicians arent and ARE responsible for state debts.
Kill Bill
Data directly from the BLS:
Highlights from the 2010 data:
–The union membership rate for public sector workers (36.2 percent) was
substantially higher than the rate for private sector workers (6.9 percent).
(See table 3.)
–Workers in education, training, and library occupations had the highest
unionization rate at 37.1 percent. (See table 3.)
–Black workers were more likely to be union members than were white, Asian,
or Hispanic workers. (See table 1.)
–Among states, New York had the highest union membership rate (24.2 percent)
and North Carolina had the lowest rate (3.2 percent).
@ Admin
Loved the closing:
The country will undergo a once in a lifetime purge over the next ten years. Since 90% of the people in the country are delusional, the purge will be forced upon the country by outside forces. We won’t willingly reduce our standard of living by 40%, but it will happen. It’s not fair, but guess what?
TOUGH SHIT!!!
That is just it…we are not going to willingly cut our own trhoats so it will be forced upon us. The causes for this range and are discussed ad nauseum on TBP but public school teachers who get holidays and breaks and are underpaid by other industrialized countries’ standards should not shoulder the blame.
It starts with the individual and the family then the “system” itself. The machine is broken! The administrators are paid entirely too much just like CEOs and hedge fund managers and for what? What do they contribute to the students’ well being and to the school sites that they are supposed to “govern”….imho diiddly poo! They buy into what textbook companies and “teaching seminar” fanatics try and sell like snake oil salesmen! The “new” thing that will solve all of their needs to raise standardized test scores! HOGWASH! The parents need to fucking take an interest in their kids lives and education and teach them something instead of falsley assuming that this is the sole reason for public education! The teachers, like police and prison guards and nurses are the backbone of our society and deal with the bile products that our society churns out DAILY! There are TERRIBLE teachers just as there are terrible PIGS and terrible nurses but teachers, imho should be paid a whole hell of a lot more…atleast the good ones. How do you determine which ones the good ones are besides how well their students perform on the standardized testing is open for debate. I don’t think there is an easy answer! But to all those TBPers out there who are willing to cast their stones and jump on the union bashing bandwagon, cut us some freaking slack!
I am working with kinder aged kids in a summer kindercamp right now. You can learn a lot about our society by observing the children at this age. During recess many of the young boys were running around shooting one another yelling “your a zombie”…I attribute this to either watching or playing “Call of Duty: Black ops” on “zombie mode”….one of the other teacher’s I spoke with told me a story about a 1st grader who, when asked what he did over the weekend, stated he watched the movie “SAW”….A 1st GRADER!! This same 1st grader went up to a girl whose brother had just died and told her that he saw her brother in a dream the other night and that the devil had pulled him down into Hell where he was burning. WTF! We are raising a bunch of serial killers and rapists who are desensitized and will not hesitate to go Kavorkian on yours or my ass!
Sorry for the long rant…just thought I’d throw my recent observations out there….don’t shoot the messenger!
Plato:
GI Joe and Popeye were my babysitters.
Beavis and Butthead my nieces’ and nephews’.
Sounds like you should shake a parent or two… then the brats.
Shake them good, until they quiver like a crack-baby.
See, I turned out just fine!
In all seriousness, though, I don’t advocate violence against the kids…
It’s a fact that for some nefarious reason, there is no more moolah for the teachers, Plato. Good or bad, the pension system in CA is broken to smithereens. No more stimulous and it’s nasty… a real double-dip and it’s curtains. The ratio of working teachers to retirees is blowing any chances for you.
I blame Baby Boomers.
BBES
@Welshman
Have you actually eaten any of that ‘Thrive food’? just curious what it’d be like.
I’m not thinking ‘end of the world’ – I’m thinking camping and hiking supplies. Every time my wife and I go camping or hiking we end up using an air dryer to dry our meals. Every kilo saved is a kilo off our backs. (yes we carry it all in packs going ‘camping’ by taking everything in a huge car is cheating if you ask me!)
I just love it when the govt unions scream that their employes deserve more. Desreve has nothing to do with it – there is no money to pay for it. Tough shit is right.
Bearraid – you said “All the gov unions do at my office is promote mediocrity.” I hate to disagree with a newbie (welcome!) but government unions would have to lift their games substantially to be seen to promote mediocrity – at best they are promoting totally inefficient at the moment. I dream of the day they actually reach mediocrity. The fish rots from the top, and their are no bosses with the balls to demand that government workers actually perform.
bearraid:
Welcome, nice comments and inside perspective.
The unions and politicians work in lock-step. Mainly Democrats of course.
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AwholeDr
What a great graphic. Wow, technology, these days.
Would it be possible to enact this process on Admin’s mind and Mr. “Teacher”?
A side by side comparison would be a barrel of monkeys.
Sigh- short of that we will just have to read their words and weep.
Washington is filled with lawyers and rich folk,and they represent me?I saw all these problems years ago,to bad these genius types couldnt see it or do anything,or care.Its all going to collapse.
ron….agreed, this started decades ago. I saw it, joined the balanced budget minded group Concord Coalition in the mid nineties, spoke to Rotary and Chamber of Commerce and put them all to sleep. This has progressed as if on cue, we’re in the end game.
I find myself in the odd position of both agreeing and disagreeing with most of what is written here. There is too much waste in government and unions do have a problem with protecting some bad employees. But, I think the fatal flaw in you logic is found in the statement that ” the teachers get a 4% annual pay raise.” At first glance that seems outrageous. But when you really look at it, it is still too low. Adjusted for an inflation rate of 7% those teachers are making 3% less every year!! The real problem is that all of us are fighting over too small a piece of the pie. We are all underpaided to a greater or lesser extent. The top 0.1% brings in more money than all of us peons combined. If the bottom 90% had 5% more of the pie to fight over that would be an across the board 30% pay raise! Think of the impact that would have on communities across the US. Income inequality is an issue that must be addressed.
I would like to write more, but I have to go to my outside in the heat/cold 60 hour a week 10$/hr job.
Winter is coming.
CavTanker – your math skills suck. Welcome anyway. The issue is simply we do not have the money for these public servants. Even if you take all the money from the rich it isn’t enough. Tough shit.
Jim and Readers, I haven’t read about local agenda 21 action plans on your site yet maybe I missed an article this nasty agenda. But the plans have/are being implemented all over Montco I believe. That bridge and the stack and pack housing going up smack in the middle of basically an extremely busy highway/turnpike entrance stems from agenda 21. They spend and build and as you noted using our tax dollars, put in streetscapes as if people are going to walk along Sumneytown Pike! Only way out of this corruption is electing Constitutional moderates (yes man hard to find) and putting pressure on current officials in PA to pass the current HB1776 – the Property Tax Independence Act. Will eliminate school boards and politicians ability to control us, business owners and small farmers via never ever ending burdensome property taxes. Plus it will immediately help anyone in or near foreclosure, plus attract businesses who will bring needed jobs of all levels. http://www.ptcc.us/
For info on agenda 21 if you are not familiar (I would imagine you are) try – democratsagainstagenda21.com
Super site! 🙂