Sunday Opinion: Taxes, government spending and drop-outs
Morning, everybody. Here’s our weekly look at the opinions floating out there on editorial pages across the North Country. The vast majority of comments today focus on issues of taxation and government spending.
The Glens Falls Post Star argues in favor of the property tax cap, describing the measure as an important “first step.”
By enacting a cap, the paper argues, we will force Albany and local governments to follow with significant reforms and efficiencies.
What the tax cap will do is create an emergency situation, for the state, for school districts and for local governments. When governments are forced to make significant cuts to programs and staff that are meaningful to their constituents, taxpayers will actively look for someone to blame.
The local and state governments, now wedged firmly between rock and hard place by the tax limits, will have no choice but to enact the long-overdue reforms to allow government to function with less tax money.
Is managing a budget by creating “an emergency situation” a good idea? Washington DC seems to think so. The Watertown Daily Times urges Congress to resolve the debt-ceiling crisis before the Federal government defaults.
How long the brinksmanship will last is anyone’s guess. Overspending is the root of the problem and must be addressed. Speaker Boehner reportedly has told Wall Street that the debt limit will be raised as needed, presumably after spending cuts are agreed upon.
Both sides must continue negotiations and resolve these matters while it can still be done with careful deliberation.
The Adirondack Daily Enterprise praises the Lake Placid village board for canceling insurance coverage for its part-time board members, and urges other elected bodies to do the same.
[W]e have to roll back politicians’ practice of giving themselves better insurance than the rest of us can get, with us paying for it.
And the Burlington Free Press argues that teacher contracts should be open to public scrutiny, before school districts sign off on the deals.
The reluctance of the Burlington School District to release details of a contract negotiated with teachers before the two sides approved the deal is one more case of a government body withholding information the public needs to know.
A contract with the teachers locks in the biggest single cost within the school district’s budget — a budget that must be paid for by taxpayers. The public must be given ample opportunity to study the terms of a contract and weigh in before the district commits itself. A public that’s given a voice might be more willing to support the schools come budget time.
The Plattsburgh Press-Republican goes a different direction, lamenting the fact that one-in-five North Country students doesn’t graduate from public school, a failure that often condemns them to menial jobs or outright poverty. The P-R places much of the blame on the parents:
Frankly, some families don’t care whether their children get to school. They aren’t motivated enough to make it happen; it is easier to just let the kids skip than to get them ready or fight with them about going. It is a problem from elementary grades right through high school. And if they aren’t in class, they aren’t learning, and their prospects of graduating dim.
So there you go. As always, your comments welcome.
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Re Brinksmanship: If congress had dealt with the SS and Medicare problems when it was first pointed out 10-15 years ago very small changes could have been made that would have averted the crisis. The problem is less that we are on a brink and more that we are continuing the same avoidance that we have for more than a decade. If we needed any proof that an emergency isn’t enough to force action, all you need do is look at congress’ actions over the last ten years and continuing today.
Re PPR’s assertions: One in five families don’t care if their kids get an education? Did they back up that contention with any studies or data or is that just off-the-cuff fundamentalism. Frankly it sounds like the latter.
Property tax cap with no mandate relief. Wrong move.
Isn’t there constitutional issues with a property tax cap being imposed from an entity outside of the taxing unit? I mean if a local community wants to vote for higher property taxes to pay for their own school that would be their choice. If the state is peeved about spending to much on schools cut state aid, don’t tell school districts what their tax rates should be.
property taxes are so high because benefits are too generous and many of the unions don’t want to negotiate.
http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20110605/NEWS05/306059962
I’m torn on the cap. In one sense it should encourage fiscal responsibility, in another, as Jeff pointed out, without mandate relief and spending limits it looks like a poor move.
It’d be nice if our local gov’ts were responsible enough not to need caps in the first place.
Create a crisis unnecessarily and then pray that the chaos might conceivably result in something good (which we can always count on the state legislature to do, right?). I guess that’s the typical, poorly thought out, irresponsible garbage we’ve come to expect from the Post-Star’s editorial page.
A property tax cap will be a complete disaster unless it’s TWINNED with mandate relief. Not if the latter might come on a hope and prayer at some indeterminate point in the future.
Really it is just a further big brother bullying move by Albany. First they load you down with unfunded mandates which by their own laws you have follow and pay for, then they say you can only tax yourself this much for your own schools. It is all about power and control by Albany.