Sorta kinda conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan says “You don’t have to be a flaming Marxist to see that there’s something askew here.” He apparently got the chart from The Daily Kos, which cited “The Christian Left.” (Which I’m guessing is a reference to this group.) The Kos context apparently had something to do with defending public unions in Wisconsin, although the connection makes no sense to me — I guess you have to be a class warrior to get it. The Kos post was later updated to point to the Center for American Progress as the original source. That link, at any rate, cites sources for the numbers.
It was Sullivan’s “Chart of the Day II” on Friday.
Anyway, interesting comparisons. After The Christian Left, Kos, and Sullivan, the link in the chain that brought it to my attention was alert reader Laura Hart, who observed:
“We” chose to enact a bunch of tax breaks, so now “we” have to tighten our belts and make shared sacrifices. Not that all tax breaks are bad, but can’t we be honest about what is happening? A similar chart could be compiled for South Carolina.
Sounds like an interesting experiment. Anyone want to take that on — someone, that is, more skilled with spreadsheets and such than I am?
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The damage actually started nearly a decade ago, when the administration coupled starting an ongoing war with simultaneous tax breaks. Insane economics.
Could this be a job for Cindi? If I knew where to find the raw data and had the time, I’d give it a try.
I think I saw in Florida there will be a 1.7 billion tax cut offset by the same amout cut from public education. Not a dime going to offset their “budget shortfall.”
Well, that will work, Jake, because one of the main goals of the so-called Republicans (the Club for Greed bunch or Libertarians who like to call themselves Republicans and who have recently been joined by the Tea Partiers) is to destroy public education. They cannot see past their own noses to see any reason to educate “other people’s children.” Meanwhile, many moderate Republicans (called RINOs by the greed meisters and puppet masters)may as well join Brad’s unparty. Unfortunately, we will still have the same sad choices in the voting booth.
Actually I think the Sojourners are a better reference. Although my old fellow seminarian Jim Wallis tends to echo Democratic talking points too much, his organization has a much better profile does more real statistical analysis.
Who exactly are the “Republicans”? Are they rich, college educated, white folks, or the poor, high school dropout, white folks? Why would they both be fighting for the same economic and financial things?
Why don’t we do the right thing and cut both columns? Are any of these items Constitutional rights?
Conservatives say cut the social programs, liberals say cut anything in the green column. So let’s compromise and cut everything. Then we’ll all be happy.
We need to start the Darwinism party. Rules every other species lives by other than humans. They don’t seem to have nearly the problems humans do.
@Kathy
“is to destroy public education.”
Let’s see… we’ve been hearing that line for at least a decade. Spending for public education has increased consistently over that time. Spending at the worst schools has increased significantly with no meaningful improvement.
If spending more on the same lousy system doesn’t work, why CAN’T we try something else?
Did anyone catch the segment on 60 Minutes last night where they profiled a school that was paying it’s teachers $125,000 and only accepted the cream of the crop and didn’t renew contracts of those who didn’t hold up to their standards? Teachers were working 80-90 hours per week in one of the poorer school districts in NYC. In the end, with all this money spent, all of this top-tier teacher time, test scores were still lower than the NY public school system schools.
The Republicans, in this case, are the rich who have benefited seriously disproportionately in the last decade, and those whom they have fooled into thinking it could happen to them, as well. The Religious Right also figures in insomuch as they want to teach their children creation “science” and the like with our tax dollars.
@stephen
Not surprising at all. The public school proponents only care about effort and expenditure, not results.
Brad still think PACT testing was a feather in the cap of Inez Tennenbaum because she got it implemented. Nevermind that there is no evidence that it had any impact on graduation rates – the only true measure of a school system.