Oregon decided school funding isn't important.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

Couldn't the state slap a sin tax on booze and cigarette sales to generate some more revenue?

Won't work. People will just buy their smokes and booze in another state.

It might work if you're in some state with a large land area. That way, the few cents you save on your cigarettes would be nothing compared to all the gas you would use during the trip out of state.

[Howedar]

My district is only losing a week. Woohoo.

Because, y'know, having students sitting on counters and on the floor because there aren't enough desks is perfectly fine and normal...

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Okay, think about your income tax for a moment. It's, like liberals like to call it "progressive" - Or, more properly and eliminating the cute class warfare term, a proportional income tax. That is to say that the more money you make, the higher the percent of your income that the government takes away from you.

Now, maybe to some people who think the rich are a bunch of lazy inheiritors who did nothing to gain their wealth and provide nothing to the economy, that's just fine. But of course it hurts the upper middle class, too - And I digress, anyway. Because there's another part to this. Naturally, when you have a tax scheme like this, the inevitable result is if the rate varies - Well, why not make it vary for other reasons than wealth?

So of course everyone with two pennies to rub together - that the goverment would take otherwise - tosses 'em into a pot for lawyers, calls themselves a special interest group, and lobbies to get an exemption. Social Conservatives give exemptions to married couples and bigger exemptions to married couples with children. Left-Liberals give exemptions to various groups which claim they've been repressed in the past, blah, blah. And it goes on. The rich extort various exempts which let them wriggle more and more money out of what would otherwise be a huge cut into their yearly profits.

It's insane, a system which wastes money on a massive IRS collection bureaucracy for no conceivable reason except to make politicians look good because they can give tax breaks via exemptions to special interest groups - IE, the equivlant of vote buying, just slightly more subtle.

The states also do it, at least the ones with income taxes. Some have both income and sales taxes, which is incredibly stupid. Why have two major taxes like that? Well, it's because they want to avoid looking "regressive", another class warfare term which may hold some weight with people that believe in that stuff - Until they actually bother to try and read the tax code, which none of them ever do, and discover that a tax riddled with that many exemptions will never be "progressive" anyway. But you can't eliminate the exemptions from a "progressive" income tax, because politicians, being politicians, will always worm them in to buy votes. Honest politicians are like Utopia - Impossible.

A constitutionally mandated no-exemption flat income tax might be reasonable, though of course you're going to be hitting the poor people who are actually near-starvation rather hard with such a thing.

My pet scheme would be for each state, and for the federal government, to adopt a sales tax, at a constitutionally fixed maximum rate. Both the very poor (after a certain period below a fixed poverty line to avoid people between jobs signing on, with the limit varying by inflation and number of dependents.) and elderly (over 60 in this case) could apply for exemption cards from the federal and state governments. They could show these cards whenever they made a purchase, and the sales tax would not be charged for their purchases.

This would also allow us to abolish social security, which is a creaking system that's going to die without a massive and costly overhaul. Instead, seniors who want to do so simply sign up for a system - which is no more costly than social security - and receive a tax exemption. Those who don't want to sign up for it for whatever reasons they may have, don't have to. Those currently on social security would continue to receive it, and once again we could further streamline the government.

Likewise, this tax would be collected by businesses - better suited for collecting taxes than private citizens - and easier to audit. For private citizens, the only demonstration of income required would be for the poor to gain access to exemption cards.

Now, people in this country have had a lot of experience with income tax, and they hate it. That's why they vote against increasing it, and vote for lowering it - even in a very liberal state like Oregon - any chance they get. I mean, jeez. I've been researching successful resistance of federal authority with firearms for Mike, and most of the cases which come close have been people in communities shooting at tax collectors and the federal taxes going uncollected for a few decades.

What you need to do is elect leaders who will curb pork spending - and LOTS of it, because there is lots of it going on. Republicans outside of the Deep South, where they are Dixiecrats, are better at this than Democrats. Libertarians would be better still. Oregon is a funny state; who knows - Maybe you could elect Libertarians to state office?

Another thing to remember is that the studies on classroom size have not been authenticated and one thing that could have been done is fire some teachers and increase classroom size. You probably would have still gotten the same education quality as before - the difference, of course, is a smaller teacher's union. That's why it wasn't done.

[TrailerParkJawa]

A constitutionally mandated no-exemption flat income tax might be reasonable, though of course you're going to be hitting the poor people who are actually near-starvation rather hard with such a thing.

This would also fuck over recent ( last 5 years ) home owners, and might cause a big crash in real estate since prices might fall. That would be bad.

The whole system is so fucking complex its a nightmare like you discussed. Im very interested in the flat tax idea, with the exemption for homeowners because obviously I might lose my home otherwise. So, just like you said, everyone cries for an exemption.

One thing that needs to go is AMT. Holy fucking crap what a confusing subject.

[RedImperator]

Most of these "budget cuts" are pure government horseshit. These hatfuckers look at the budget, and if they see that THEY CAN'T INCREASE THE BUDGET AS MUCH AS THEY WANTED, they call that a "painful budget cut"! That's right, folks--when the state realizes it can only increase the budget by 4% instead of 6%, they call that a budget cut. Then they go and fuck the local municipalities and school districts, dumping the budget "shortfall" on them while they keep on funding pork and wailing that they just HAVE to raise taxes. And since the voters are watching local cops and teachers get fired, they're willing to believe the shit coming out of the statehouse and accept the tax increases, rather than burn the money leeching shits in effigy.

[Uraniun235]

LOOK, you cocksucking assmonger, Oregon's one of the lowest taxed states in the union, so I don't particularly GIVE a fuck! When a school district has to cut a FUCKING MONTH OF SCHOOL, SOMETHING'S FUCKED UP.

Hey, a free month of summer vacation! is what everyone else would think....but no...not you Lisa Simpson types...

It doesn't work that way, Sheppard!

The district is, by law, held liable for unemployment (i.e. the employees can demand unemployment pay) if there are more than 5 consecutive days cut. You can't just cut the last half of May and the first half of June, you'd get fucked with unemployment bills and have to cut even more school to make up for it.

So if the district starts spreading the days out (which is the only practical solution) then you start cutting days before May, which cuts into teacher's curriculums (even more so, if your lies about "nothing getting done the last month" were accurate). This hurts DOUBLY so in the AP classes because the AP tests are in May, before school normally gets out. That puts Oregon students at a disadvantage on the AP tests, tests which if you score well on them colleges will give you credit for certain courses... credit which might have otherwise cost you hundreds of dollars.

Another thing to remember is that the studies on classroom size have not been authenticated and one thing that could have been done is fire some teachers and increase classroom size. You probably would have still gotten the same education quality as before - the difference, of course, is a smaller teacher's union. That's why it wasn't done.

Good-bye to AP/Honors courses, then, because as it is each AP class has only enough students to fill one block (and those are usually fairly sparse compared to other classes as is) and if the standard class size jumps up, it might no longer be seen as cost-effective to offer AP/honors courses.

Couldn't the state slap a sin tax on booze and cigarette sales to generate some more revenue?

Already exists. But we blow money on the fucking Liquor Commission (or whatever the fuck it is) so that the state can operate and license liquor stores while denying, say, grocery stores the ability to sell liquor.

Only for people fairly close to the border.

Most of Oregon's population is in or near Portland, which is quite close to the Washington border.

Losing the last month of school isn't going to hurt much. Not that it's a good thing, but they could easily make up the time by cutting some of the BS you find in every school curriculum.

In some classes, yes. But not in, say, AP Physics, where the teacher goes through and plans out his curriculum to the day for the whole year.

Basically, this all points to one thing: the slackers and stoners who load up their schedule with "school release" (i.e. free periods) will be unaffected, while people that actually want to try and get all they can out of their education get screwed.

I suppose I shouldn't stress too much; I'm escaping high school this year. But it irritates me that people don't seem to care that some of the shortest school years in the nation are getting even shorter.

[Uraniun235]

Most of these "budget cuts" are pure government horseshit. These hatfuckers look at the budget, and if they see that THEY CAN'T INCREASE THE BUDGET AS MUCH AS THEY WANTED, they call that a "painful budget cut"! That's right, folks--when the state realizes it can only increase the budget by 4% instead of 6%, they call that a budget cut. Then they go and fuck the local municipalities and school districts, dumping the budget "shortfall" on them while they keep on funding pork and wailing that they just HAVE to raise taxes. And since the voters are watching local cops and teachers get fired, they're willing to believe the shit coming out of the statehouse and accept the tax increases, rather than burn the money leeching shits in effigy.

Really? Could you provide examples of this pork in the Oregon budget? Or are you just spewing rabid anti-tax rhetoric, particularly unjustified in light of Oregon's standing as one of the lowest-taxed states in the Union?

[TrailerParkJawa]

Already exists. But we blow money on the fucking Liquor Commission (or whatever the fuck it is) so that the state can operate and license liquor stores while denying, say, grocery stores the ability to sell liquor.

Shit, I didnt know that. I thought that practice was something on the East Coast. Guess, you learn something every day.

[Datana]

CSD509J, the local school district where I am here in Oregon, has slashed 10 days from the school year with more on the way; the days will be cut from Fridays for most of the weeks of the remaining school year. Portland has it worse -- the Portland district teachers are now obligated to work ten days without pay in addition to fifteen days cut from the calendar (union agreement concluded yesterday).

I'm affected because I get a damned $150 surcharge added onto tuition for Spring term, as well as a retroactive $150 charge for Winter term. An additional 300 quid (half of which is due immediately, so my billing statement says) isn't exactly insignificant. It doesn't help that "accounting errors" always result in the budget shortfall rising every couple of months, leading to the addition of more charges.

[RedImperator]

Let's try this again, Uranium. I'll lay this out for you using smaller words this time.

The last ten years, give or take, had been fat, happy times for politicians everywhere. The economy chug-a-lugged along, and tax revenues increased. Not through tax increases mind you, but because people had more income to be taxed and more income to be spent (which would also be taxed). It was the best of all possible worlds. They had tons of money to waste on their pet program of the week to help them get reelected, and the voters didn't care because taxes stayed put. Unless you're in favor of a Department of Throwing Puppies and Babies Into the River to Drown, the voters don't care WHAT you do so long as you leave their taxes alone. Because politicans don't see past the next election cycle, they thought the good times would never end.

Then one day, the bubble burst on the New Economy and all the pretend internet money which had been overdriving the economy went away. Suddenly, the recession started, people lost their jobs, people took pay cuts, and people were more careful about spending the money they had. Tax revenues shrank. And, uh-oh, suddenly all these programs that had seemed just great in 1997 when the IPO billionaires were running around still had to be paid for--in fact, thanks to a government accounting trick called the current services baseline, these programs probably had built in budget increases scheduled.

To take Oregon's budget as an example, we see a twenty-three percent increase in the "Economic Development" budget between fiscal years 1999-2001 and fiscal years 2001-2003 (Oregon's budget cycle is two years long, rather than one).* That represents a $906 million dollar increase. Just for contrast, transportation and public safety recieved in the same period increases of $105 million and $99 million, respectively (a 6% increase for both sectors). Education recieved a 14% increase of $1.4 billion (education is the largest sector of the Oregon state budget by more than 2 billion dollars in the '01-'03 budget). The total size of the All-Funds budget (factoring in tax revenue, the lottery, Federal assistance, tobacco settlements, and other miscellaneous revenue) increased by 14% between the last budget cycle and the current one, a total increase of $4.5 billion. The general fund, which is money that must be spent out of the tax dollar pool and a few other "no-strings-attached" sources, increased by $1.2 billion, 11%, over the same period. Overall, the general fund has more than doubled since FY 1991, without a corresponding increase in the population of the state of Oregon.** For more than a decade, Oregon's budget has been increasing faster than the state's growth rate and inflation. Now the bill has finally come due. With a decline in revenues but mandated increases in programs established or expanded in the last decade, along with basic obligations like law enforcement and education, Oregon, like many other states, is now suffering a budget shortfall. If Oregon is doing what New Jersey has been, it's shifting the burdeon to the local school districts and municipalities by reducing the education budget while continuing to increase the budgets of other programs (probably in the "economic development" quagmire, a euphanism for pork barrel projects if there ever was one and the fastest growing sector in the late years of the economic boom) on schedule. Your small tax rate has nothing to do with the problem (it's probably helped by not adding a further drain on the local economy)--overspending and a reluctance to kill pork barrell programs is, in Oregon and every other state in the union suffering a "budget crisis".



*Source: Legislative Fiscal Office, Summary Budget, Report 10-15-01
**Source: Legislative Fiscal Office Budget Highlights, State of Oregon

[MKSheppard]

Shit, I didnt know that. I thought that practice was something on the East Coast. Guess, you learn something every day.

God, man, I have to put up with that horseshit...if I want to get some GOOD
booze, not just weak beer and wine, I have to go to about 1 of four
GOVERNMENT RUN liquor stores and pay HIGH PRICES to get smashed
on vodka!