And the entire irony is that the person who produced the environmental bete noir An Inconvenient Truth produced "Waiting for Superman", and the unions are furious about the movie exposing the results of putting themselves ahead of the kids, and are even more furious when more successful charter schools - which have none of the union interference that the failing public schools have - are actually educating the kids, rather than making them pawns when battling with the school board.
The name of the movie should be renamed An Inconvenient Education. It's the kids who are inconvenienced in the end because the teacher's unions are too greedy.
9/18/2010
A good argument for keeping the Bush tax levels
NPR (yes, that NPR) has a clear and consistent argument regarding extending the 2001-2003 tax structure. Dan Kennedy of Media Nation loves it too, and it is a well-written and well-informed article.
Here is where the debate lies...many people can try to define "rich" but it's impossible to define it in dollar terms. Back in the 1970s, earning $35,000 was a small fortune because the minimum wage was $1.60. Today, earning $35,000 isn't much, especially where the minimum wage is $7.50 an hour. In order to earn what you earned in the 1970s, you'd have to make at least $100,000 a year. So for Congress to define "rich" is an exercise in futility.
Also, the famous canard of "high income earners pay most of the taxes" or "low income earners pay no taxes at all" are both false. The government finds ways to take money no matter what your earnings and taxation level.
High income earners, despite paying a high amount of taxes, have the ability to reduce them through retirement account disbursements, investing, donations, writeoffs, and spending, so that when their tax bill does come around, they will either pay far less than they expected (and they have the ability to do so) or get a refund.
The low income earners, despite receiving credits and appearing not to pay income taxes, pay a huge amount of consumption taxes - that is, the government will dilute the credits that they gave to the low-income earners anyway through sales, sin (alcohol, tobacco), property, utility (fuel, electricity) and excise taxes, plus fees that function as taxes, like license renewal and registration.
In my opinion, the best thing to do is to execute class warfare card through the media. The media is equally guilty of misinformation to the public; they do no service by trying to gin up anger between one sector of the public and the other. In fact, the public relations the media is trying to do for the government is obnoxious and wrongheaded - they should shut up and do the research first (like NPR did) before they go on camera. It will save them a lot of embarassment later on.
Here is where the debate lies...many people can try to define "rich" but it's impossible to define it in dollar terms. Back in the 1970s, earning $35,000 was a small fortune because the minimum wage was $1.60. Today, earning $35,000 isn't much, especially where the minimum wage is $7.50 an hour. In order to earn what you earned in the 1970s, you'd have to make at least $100,000 a year. So for Congress to define "rich" is an exercise in futility.
Also, the famous canard of "high income earners pay most of the taxes" or "low income earners pay no taxes at all" are both false. The government finds ways to take money no matter what your earnings and taxation level.
High income earners, despite paying a high amount of taxes, have the ability to reduce them through retirement account disbursements, investing, donations, writeoffs, and spending, so that when their tax bill does come around, they will either pay far less than they expected (and they have the ability to do so) or get a refund.
The low income earners, despite receiving credits and appearing not to pay income taxes, pay a huge amount of consumption taxes - that is, the government will dilute the credits that they gave to the low-income earners anyway through sales, sin (alcohol, tobacco), property, utility (fuel, electricity) and excise taxes, plus fees that function as taxes, like license renewal and registration.
In my opinion, the best thing to do is to execute class warfare card through the media. The media is equally guilty of misinformation to the public; they do no service by trying to gin up anger between one sector of the public and the other. In fact, the public relations the media is trying to do for the government is obnoxious and wrongheaded - they should shut up and do the research first (like NPR did) before they go on camera. It will save them a lot of embarassment later on.
9/14/2010
Better start learning the meaning of "closed door" in Grove Hall
The residents of Mattapan love the new 60 foot articulated buses on the Route 28 bus. I rode them on the Route 39 when they first came out and they're really, really nice.
The residents of Grove Hall? They do too, but not their so-called "community leaders" to bitch about not being "consulted." One of the comments from the boston.com site is quite telling...
What the T should do is introduce a neat little concept called "closed door" service. Routes 14, 19, 23, 28 and 45 go through that area. Since the "community leaders" are pissed they weren't able to extort all sorts of things from the T, the T should turn around and state that those route will not stop to discharge passengers nor to pick up passengers. All routes will just go right through Grove Hall without stopping. If it means a quarter mile to half mile walk to Grove Hall, in the blazing sun or during a hefty blizzard, that's the way it has to be.
They will, however, get more than an angry earful from passengers who rely on the T, who worked so hard for improvements, and now have to go out of their way just because the pigheaded, egotistical, hamfisted, loudmouthed control freaks killed service in their area, and the T will not lift a finger to return it to normal. Then these so-called "community leaders" will be seen for who they truly are: obstructionists who are too selfish to let their residents have what they truly deserve, because improvements would dilute their power and ego to infinitesimally small irrelevance.
The residents of Grove Hall? They do too, but not their so-called "community leaders" to bitch about not being "consulted." One of the comments from the boston.com site is quite telling...
Yet despite all of this, these community groups act as though they're being victimized. Like the State is coming in to destroy their neighborhoods. They killed the #28X [Route 28X would have been a Silver Line-style BRT route running down the median of Blue Hill Avenue. -ed]. Now they're completely apoplectic over the fact the T didn't kiss their feet and beg them to allow larger buses to offer better service to what is arguably a community long-underserved by mass transit. This is literally the least the T can do to help them, and still the community groups are trying to fight them to do less. They'd rather see the rest of their community get nothing, than have their "authority" undermined.
It appears to be about ego, control and the need to assert both.
What the T should do is introduce a neat little concept called "closed door" service. Routes 14, 19, 23, 28 and 45 go through that area. Since the "community leaders" are pissed they weren't able to extort all sorts of things from the T, the T should turn around and state that those route will not stop to discharge passengers nor to pick up passengers. All routes will just go right through Grove Hall without stopping. If it means a quarter mile to half mile walk to Grove Hall, in the blazing sun or during a hefty blizzard, that's the way it has to be.
They will, however, get more than an angry earful from passengers who rely on the T, who worked so hard for improvements, and now have to go out of their way just because the pigheaded, egotistical, hamfisted, loudmouthed control freaks killed service in their area, and the T will not lift a finger to return it to normal. Then these so-called "community leaders" will be seen for who they truly are: obstructionists who are too selfish to let their residents have what they truly deserve, because improvements would dilute their power and ego to infinitesimally small irrelevance.
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