Volume 18, Issue 3
November, 2010
MCALLEN AFT NEWS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
THERE IS A LOT TO THINK ABOUT!
Just a few words:
Governor Rick Perry’s reelection is now the energy to run for President. On the Sunday, November 7, 2010 news talk shows there was a great deal of discussion about Perry’s agenda. Perry talked about Texas dropping the CHIPS fund for children. Our blood ran cold when he mentioned that an insurance policy would replace CHIPS.
Ladies and gentleman, think how many Texas children health needs would not be covered?
We need to think carefully about the needs of children!
AFT President Randi Weingarten said last week’s election results nationwide “reflect voters’ fear and anxiety about the economy and whether they’ll be able to provide for themselves and their families. That fear and anxiety existed on Election Day, and it exists today.
The administration and elected leaders at every level must focus on the economy and on jobs, jobs, jobs. Absent that, little will change.”
A Peter Hart Research Associates poll of voters in 100 “swing” congressional districts-i.e., districts that are not firmly under the control of either major party and thus can swing the balance of power from one to the other in any given election, as they did last week in favor of the Republican Party.
The survey found that the electorate in these districts gave control of the House to the Republican Party but rejected many of the ideas advanced by influential Republicans. For instance, only 34 percent of all voters in these districts supported extending Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy (on annual incomes over $250,000), only 29 percent backed raising the Social Security retirement age, and only 28 percent backed privatizing Social Security. Only 18 percent of voters in the swing districts favored reducing or eliminating the minimum wage.
In fact, these voters also overwhelmingly supported key labor-backed solutions to the national economy’s weakness and high unemployment.
Some 89 percent favored a major job-creation tax credit for business to create jobs in the United States. Seventy-seven percent of all voters favored job creation through rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure of roads, bridges, schools, and energy systems. The same percentage supported investing in jobs to maintain U.S. competitiveness with China, India, and Germany. And 65 percent said federal unemployment-insurance benefits should be extended for those who have lost their jobs and are unable to find new ones. Just a day after the election, a state task force issued a report confirming that the state business tax enacted in 2006 to make up for school property-tax cuts is not delivering the promised revenue.
When the tax swap was engineered four years ago, lawmakers estimated that the business tax would yield $6.4 billion in fiscal year 2010, the task force said. In reality, it produced only $3.9 billion-a shortfall of $2.5 billion. By some estimates, the overall amount of the ongoing, structural deficit due to the badly designed 2006 tax plan is headed toward $4.5 billion a year.
In fact, while business-tax receipts have fallen short, we also have learned from recent reports that local school property-tax collections also are declining because real-estate values-especially for commercial properties-have dropped sharply.
The result, under our school-finance system, is that the state must contribute more to help school districts reach the funding levels targeted under state law. The bottom line, according to Texas Education Agency officials testifying at a recent House tax hearing: School districts will need “somewhere between $2 billion and $3 billion more” in state aid than TEA previously requested for fiscal 2012-2013.
Another recent poll of Texas public opinion found when the questions focused specifically on spending for public education.
Fully 88 percent said that Texas public schools need more money from the state, and 68 percent said they are willing to pay higher taxes in order to deliver more funding for public schools.
What’s more 82 percent said they favor higher taxes for increased teacher salaries, versus only 14 percent opposed. And 71 percent favor paying higher taxes to lower class size, while only 24 percent opposed that option.
We’d call that pretty overwhelming support for increasing revenue to provide for public education.
****In the Monitor (McAllen’s newspaper) just in the last few days IDEA schools announced plans to open 10 more academies in the Rio Grande Valley. Now that is of great concern. As an IDEA teacher, you have no rights—no duty-free lunch, no conference period, and a contract that has two (2) weeks’ notice.