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Teacher pink slips out of sync with budget impasse

May 16, 2011

Dozens of San Luis Obispo County teachers received final layoff notices last week in compliance with the state-imposed deadline of May 15, even though school districts are still in the dark about their financial status for the coming school year. [California Watch]

The May 15 deadline followed a March 15 deadline, when the state required school districts to issue preliminary layoff notices. The dates are completely out of sync with the stalled negotiations in Sacramento that will determine whether billions of dollars more will have to be slashed from public school budgets.

In March, the Paso Robles Unified School District sent pink slips to 28 teachers. Last week, the board lowered that number to 26 teachers who are slated to be laid off on June 30.

The Lucia Mar Unified School District board also voted lat week to send final layoff notices to nine teachers and five other credentialed employees.

Teachers and administrators argue that the dates, specified in Education Code 44955, should be changed to reflect reality.

At the very least, say some, the final layoff deadline should be moved until after the governor announces the revision of his annual budget on May 15. This year, because May 15 fell on a Sunday, Gov. Jerry Brown will issue his “May revise” on Monday.

However, regardless of what he says about the schools budget for the coming school year, teachers facing termination will already have their final layoff notices in hand, said California Watch.

“If teachers are going to receive a final notice, they will have received it,” said Suzanne Speck, a director at School Services of California, a leading Sacramento-based consulting firm to California Watch.

In addition to its impact on teachers themselves, the issue has direct consequences for classroom instruction.

Because of the early deadlines, school districts may be forced to lay off more teachers than they may be required to. As a result, students who show up in the fall may be assigned to crowded classes in the fall until districts have time to hire additional teachers. California Watch added.

“It is disruptive,” Speck said. “You would like kids to start with the same teachers they are going to have for the entire year.”

“It causes a lot of hardship,” said Mike Myslinski, a spokesman for the California Teachers Association to California Watch. As a result of the artificial deadlines, he said, “districts are going to make decisions on worst-case scenarios, even though what happens might not be as bad as predicted.”


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Oh, good grief. This article isn’t about 99% of what’s being said here. It’s about the May 15 final layoff notices and how they are out of sync with the state budget calendar. They are. They always have been. CTA is responsible – they control almost all education legislation in this state. They would never agree to a later layoff deadline (would block any legislation to change that). Don’t blame the individual teachers – they don’t necessarily agree with stands of their own union. Other responsibility can be laid at the feet of the legislature. BY LAW, they must produce a budget by June 30. Name a time they actually did that. With a final budget coming in September and November (school year already well under way), you can’t wait until the budget passage to decide on layoffs. Yes, it’s broken. But, schools and teachers have learned to “live with it” for decades.


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I am taking up a collection to purchase a Dictionary for both Hotdog and Typoqueen so they both can read for themselves the definition of the word “illegal”. No matter what spin you put on the term…illegal is ILLEGAL and illegal will NEVER be legal!


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Duh, so what? And of course you are wrong, what is illegal now might be legal next week or year (slavery, women’s vote etc). Anyway, thanks for the offer but I have a dictionary already. My problem, like many others, is actually using it enough!


I think ds has a good point, we have veered way off the topic, somehow lured away by the trollette Cindy.

The teachers have been abused for many years, not knowing where their life is going to be next year until late in the spring. And by then it’s too late to get a job elsewhere. That’s pretty rough. I’ll bet if most administrators had to work under those conditions they would revolt.


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It is a word not a person , a description of a state of affairs, because it is a description it can never actually be the described. the map is not the territory. and never will be.


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Wow! When did this discussion veer off into illegal immigrant bashing? This issue is about paying teachers, about the law – which says layoff notices have to be given by 15-May or the State is in violation of its CONTRACT with the CTA. The irony here is that the leadership of the CTA in its media talking points is calling the deadline ‘arbitrary’ when it was set during negotiations between Sacramento and the CTA and is written into law – therefore the deadline is not arbitrary at all.


Oops – there I go again, clouding the issue with facts.


This is political fodder, to try and pluck the heartstrings of the CA taxpayers. This is year 4 of the attempt to get more $$$ from the state using this tactic and it hasn’t worked. The education system in CA is rated consistently at the bottom – 49 out of 50 in most cases, depending of course on the statistical model used to measure performance. And yet, on a per-child basis, the Ed system ranks near the top cost-wise. I think Utah spends more per-child on education, but they get more for their money as they are usually in the top 10 performance-wise.


Home-schooled kids from this state consistently score higher on admissions exams for college than ‘professionally’ taught graduates from the CA public school system. The CTA needs to stop pretending they’re working in the best interests of our kids, because they clearly are NOT. Get the unions out of the classroom, give the teachers freedom to TEACH as the needs of the students dictate, and costs will come down and performance will improve. End of rant – resume immigrant flame war.


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I agree regarding that this shouldn’t have turned to a race issue. I’ll admit that I got sucked into it and that it gets me going, so that I do agree on.


But because I’ve fought side by side with the CTA I feel that I understand how important they are. There are school districts ie the LMUSD that for many years seem to have it out for the teachers. I have seen teachers on food stamps because they didn’t get paid enough to support their families. People are under the misunderstanding that teachers are making great money but their not. Now in this down turned economy I must admit that as much as I hate it that they need to make sacrifices.

During this rough time the CTA might be over protective of their teachers but the teachers need them. The teachers have no voice without the CTA. Back in the days when the economy was good the teachers in the LMUSD would have been in dire straights years ago without the CTA. The teachers need to be heard and they can’t without the CTA.


I do agree with your stats and find it appalling that we rank so low. Something needs to be done but obviously I don’t feel that getting rid of the CTA is the solution.


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I have nothing against unions per se, but large labor unions stifle competition. If teachers want to be in a union (most don’t but its required to hold a teaching position in CA) they should unionize on a per-school or per-district basis, i.e. the ‘ABC Elementary School Union’ and exercise the right to walkout and collective bargaining at that level, rather than an industry-wide union like CTA. If the wages stink in a particular district, the teachers will walk away.


This lack of competition exists in other fields, not just education. Wherever unions have organized on a large scale, the effect of reducing competition, an en masse mentality in the workforce that feels no need to excel at their work, and a feeling of entitlement all emerge, working against achieving a collective goal, not for it.


Frankly, under the current economic climate I’m amazed we still have teachers in this state. I have too many friends with teaching certs who left CA all together! Its no fun getting pink’d every year. But yet that’s the deal that was drawn up ‘for the benefit of the teachers’.


Thank you for a respectful disagreement and civil discourse, Typoqueen.


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I try to be respectful and when I see a post such as yours that is written in a mature manner then it’s easy to be respectful, I don’t call people idiots (or whatever) unless they are blatant trolls.


I don’t agree that most of the teachers don’t like the CTA. I’ve marched with them such as the huge march in AG a few years ago, there were hundreds and hundreds of teachers there to support each other. No one forced them to march in a CTA organized march. I only know of one teacher (a friend of mine) that is against the CTA and I know a lot of teachers. Not just teachers but many people can’t just walk away from their jobs (because of low pay). I remember one teacher here in the five cites that was a single mother on food stamps. She wasn’t getting paid enough but she couldn’t just walk away, it’s not easy getting on full time and she had a family to support. I also disagree that the unions need to be smaller ie per district. There are power in numbers and I do feel that the teachers need that power. On more than a few occasions they have joined from districts across the state to protest in Sacramento. A small district would have no power with state or fed legislation.


Regarding no competition, 10 schools in the LMUSD are changing the way that they are going to do business. They are going to start paying teachers merit pay based on their ability and perfomance. They aren’t going to just let the bad teachers get a free ride anymore. This is one of the few very good things that the LMUSD had done and frankly it really surprised me. This is the first district in the country to try this new way of running schools and I didn’t hear any backlash from the CTA. I agree that something like this needs to be done. There are some terrible teachers that don’t care about their students and they are almost impossible to get rid of and they can make more $$ than teachers that are much better. So I do agree in part but I will stand by the CTA.


I do believe that the money shortfalls can be found within the system. Perhaps break up individual districts and form larger districts. As stated above start a merit pay system. Cut back on the bureaucracy. The admins are way too heavy. Allow (fair) advertising on school grounds, as much as I hate that idea it’s better than shortchanging the kids and the teachers. Rent out the schools or MPR rooms for conventions or seminars. The schools boards need to think outside of the box instead of just sitting back and watching our schools go down the tubes, they need to not try and fix things by simply laying off teachers. The school boards just take the lazy way out of dealing with this.


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OMG my posts never look that long while I’m typing them!


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OK, we took land from the Indians and have paid and paid and paid for this error. Ok, we took land from the “latino’s” and we have paid, and paid, and paid and we are still paying. We incarcerated the Japanese during WW II and we had paid and paid for it. We owe nothing to these citizens any more than what we owe every other law abiding citizens in this Country, so get over it. Let’s move on! If you liberals don’t think that the illegal undocumentated (correct term these days) cost this Country money, shame on you for your ignorance. Illegals get medical care, food stamps (oops, CALFRESH), First 5, No Child Left Behind, free bus and meals, etc., etc. etc. These are not free programs, they cost lots of money. Add to that the union issues and little is left for actual education which is why when are kids get to college they have to take english, reading, and math remedy classes in order to participate in upper education. Then, we have the out-of-state and foreign students coming to the State colleges because they pay more. We are such a smart society! LOet me go find my wallet, I want to contribute some more…


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” …. we have paid, and paid, and paid and we are still paying.” Yeah, that’s the problem those on the right have; they ASSUME that all past misdeeds have been “paid back” in full, so anyone who ever had their land or their rights taken away just need to (apparently) “get over it” without regard to how they be subject to further demonization due to their appearance, their skin color, their manner of dress, their religion and so on and so on. None of us is in a “superior” position in society due to our skin color or other factors, unless you want to point out how those in the upper upper income strata do live a “different life” than the rest of us. I find it amusing that the right will go on and on about how bad our education system is without any regard as to how it was the right that shifted the course of education to be a simple “teaching to the test”. Have you all forgotten “No Child Left Behind”? Are you aware that one of the reasons for pushing such an agenda could have been related to Neil Bush and his company in Texas that produces standardized testing materials? Link here to an article from Business Week magazine from 2006 talking about the BILLIONS that the education testing industry is making from NCLB. All of the energy that is pushed into making the student better able to pass a test that has no value in actually learning how to learn has decimated the primary education system. Add to that the fact that even in the face of all the cuts made to education over the last thirty years that school administrators NEVER have to reduce the size or cost of administrations, and some of you honestly believe that unions and ✕brown people✕ , I mean undocumented, illegal persons are the “true” problem? Wake up, it is what those who are making the billions want you to believe, period.


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FYI I’m not from the right, I’m just tired of seeing failure and everyone wanting more for nothing.

Yes, you are right in your statements, I’m also right with my statements, and Cindy is right with her statements. A little of this (no child left behind, first 5, head start, english as a second language program, bilingual teachers and aides, bilingual books, signs, publications, day care centers for the unwed mothers with babies, free meals: breakfast, lunch and after school snacks for the after school free programs), a little of that (free food stamps, free health care, reduced energy bills, increased crime, prison costs, no car insurance or registration taxes, Section 8 housing) and then no taxes and let’s send this money home… Yep, their is not a problem with having undocumented in our Country so the rich can have their gardener, housekeeper, and all of can buy cheap tomatoes and lettuce. You see, we are all at fault for this big mistake, but the bottom line it is a mistake. Regan granted amnesty to 6 million illegal immigrants and our record, send for the rest of the family and we now have 12 million illegal immigrants. Maybe we have this wrong: let’s bring our troops home, invade Mexico, Guatamala and make them our 51 state. Then we can control the killings, violence, drugs and we can build new schools and prisons. Just saying….


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SLOBIRD, the problem is that you like so many others is simply wrong on this issue. Bob is right but I’m going to add a few things to what he said.


There are many studies that say whatever you want them to say but there are a few facts that can’t be ignored.

The Social Security Admin days that roughly 6- 7 billion dollars a year is paid every year by undocumented workers and yet a large majority of them won’t collect on thier benefits.


The Congressional Budget Office says that 60-75% of unauthorized immigrants pay federal, state and local taxes.


Okay those are facts, they can’t be disputed, they are nonpartisan agencies. There are studies that can be disputed so it’s up to us to use our commonsense and read what we can on the topic and make our minds up with what we lean independently.


I read that 2006 illigal immigrants accounted for only 2% of national medical spending, now I can’t remember the study off the top of my head so I can’t prove that to you but I know that I believe it. I have also read studies that show that many businesses would go under without the business brought in by illegal immigrants. Most farmers understand that their farms could not run without immigrants. Most of them understand that whites won’t take those jobs. In other words the immigrants stimulate our economy.


Yes I do believe that there’s an issue with our borders. I do believe that for security reasons and because of the influx of illigal drugs that that something needs to be done about the border issue, that we all agree on. But the problems with our schools and our economy is not due to illigal school kids and the people that are saying that are simply pushing the blame on them because it’s easy but it’s necessarily factual.


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Sorry, I hit the SUBMIT key by error:


$113 Billion in costs for 13 million illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children

75% absorbed by the states ($84 billion)


$1117 average tax amount paid by a U.S. family to support illegal aliens


$52 Billion cost of education for illegal aliens


$2700 for a single illegal alien household costs the U.S. Federal Government


51% of illegal households use at lleast one mjor welfare program – 28% use more than one


1.4 million illegal “households” use at least one mjor welfare program


At the federal level, one-third of outlays are matched by tax collected from the illegal aliens, At the state and local level less than 5% is recouped from their taxes.


Most illegal aliens don’t pay income taxes, those that do are refunded back to the illegal aliens when they file along with tax credit.


California is facing a deficit of $14.4Billion (has recently been revised) but is hit with an estimated $21.8 Billion annual expeditures for illegal aliens (New York by comparison is $9.5 Billion).


Please tell show me how they are not impacting our economy. Go out and Goggle illegal immigrants costs and there is one study after another showing the facts. I am for a work program, but I am not for allowing illegal activity i this Country. We have anmesty laws, we have quotes, etc. If they are not working, revise them but our Government who goes around the world declaring law and order and rigthousness can’t even do the right thing here.


End of my discussion!


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Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m not for just opening the borders and saying come on in everyone. I go completely against my party line in saying that we should close our overseas military bases and put them on our borders. But I’m not for condemning those that are already here. By not allowing the people that are already here proper health care and a good education we are only hurting ourselves. We don’t need a country comprised of a large sick uneducated population. They are here and they’re not going anywhere and they are humans that need to be treated like fellow humans, not like Cindy said ‘we need to take care of our own’. They are ‘our own’ and by helping them we are helping ‘our own’.


Obviously from my last post I did the Google. As I said, you can find studies that say what ever we want them to say. That is why I posted from the Social Security Dept and the CBO, because they are unbiased and state only facts. I did read a few studies ie one from Brown University (irony) that says that undocumented citizens do contribute more to our country than they take. But I did see other studies that disagree. So it’s whatever you want to find. So to ask me to Google is fine but I can say the same thing to you. I believe that there is a possibility that these immigrants contribute in a positive way to this country. As I said though, I do believe that we need to stop this illegal immigration problem, but for different reasons than most of you guys (drugs and security). I really can’t stand seeing so many people wanting to just treat these people like dirt. They are real people. I like probably everyone else here knows several undocumented people and I like them, they are good hard workers and they are doing exactly what I would do if I were in their situation. They are trying to give their families a better life. I believe that we can absorb whatever cost is involved with our current population and be very productive and profitable with the immigrants that are here now.


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Once again, typoqueen’s lengthy rant bashes Bush and drops the race card. Nowhere in her post did Cindy mention “brown people.” How racist and condescending, typo. We can agree to disagree without name calling and rudeness.


Cindy used the term ILLEGAL. Perhaps some prefer the term “undocumented.” Regardless, Cindy’s point is a valid one. Our state is broke and our education system is suffering. If a student is not in this country legally, we cannot afford to freely educate him/her. Skin color is NOT the issue. It does NOT matter if the student is brown, black, white… And nationality is NOT the issue. Mexican, Kenyan, German…whatever. Our public education system should freely educate legal U.S. citizens.


California schools are federally obligated to enroll any kid who walks through the doors. That policy needs to be changed. Our public schools should only be enrolling legal citizens.


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When typo and hotdog start up with their name calling and racist crap, I just ignore them and apply the number one rule, “Don’t feed the TROLLS”. ;)


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What? You don’t like people making total assumptions about you, telling the world what your thoughts and intentions are, then hiding behind race-baiting? That’s the only way they can attempt to champion their cause!


+1 for Cindy


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These are the words, and obviously aimed at those damn hispanics, “Too bad they didn’t send pink slips to the illegals. It’s a shame that we can’t afford to properly educate our own”.


In an earlier article we adequately addressed the problem of ‘illegals’, and how that term is NEVER applied to kiwis, Dutch, English or other white folks. It is always aimed at brown people, by white people, who by a stroke of luck were born in the land inhabited only by brown and red people before the white people came here to kill many of the residents and take the land.


‘Our own’? Our own darling little white babies? Those largely lazy misfits who want everything handed to them by their dysfunctional parents and society? Like the leaders of Enron (bush’s buddies) who robbed us blind? Like the pasty faced neo con religious hypocrites who preach one thing to gain power but do something else? Are these the pillars of society you worship?


Of course Cindy and her little friends here have a good point, but it is made in a spirit of greed and ignorance. Lighten up, our schools are not in a mess because of some potentially undocumented students. If there are some, and if it is such a big deal; how many and cite your reference to that data.


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“Our own darling little white babies? Those largely lazy misfits who want everything handed to them by their dysfunctional parents and society? ”


This post is as racist as it gets. No one should be able to talk about white people like that. I won’t stand for it. THIS IS A BLATANT RACIST POST and needs to be deleted immediately.


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Chill baby…


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Kind of makes you wish there was an “ignore” button in here, eh?


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That’s right, delete our posts because you have to ‘take care of your own’. You’re like Sarah Palin, she won’t go on news stations that don’t spoon feed her easy questions and placate to her, that’s what you want. Please Cindy, you are sounding ridiculous.


You say you won’t debate us because we are ‘trolls’. You won’t debate us because you can’t. I might be wrong but my guess is that the dog is most likely white, so is he/she racist against himself? I agree with the dog so that would make me a white racist against whites,,,OMG I hate myself? You just want the dog to be quiet because as Jack Nickolson said ‘you can’t handle the truth’.


You were the one that brought race into this. You were the one that once again put the blame of the problems that ‘YOUR OWN’ caused on another race. The problem is with what ‘YOUR PEOPLE’ have done not what undocumented kids have done. But hey look at the bright side our schools are going broke but at least your kind ie Exxon are making record profit without paying taxes on those record profits.


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I know this is going to sound like Union bashing again but think about it. If they didn’t send out the notices in an appropreiate time frame, the Union’s would scream NO FAIR and you can’t lay them off. So what is the state to do? I see the disruption as a fault of the Union’s and wanting plenty of time. Put blame where it belongs.


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Excellent point.


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Too bad they didn’t send pink slips to the illegals. It’s a shame that we can’t afford to properly educate our own because some screaming liberals think that we owe our hard earned money to everybody who wants some of it. I have a good mind to vote for Ron Paul, maybe I will.


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Wow Cindy, I always thought that you were somewhat moderate on your opinions, man was I off. You seem to have gone over the top and crossed into the dark side.


‘can’t properly educate our own’, sad, truly sad and pathetic. What a backwards way of thinking.


Is there some type of study that backs what you’re saying or are you just marching lockstep with your party line? I guess it’s easy to blame the brown people and libs for all of the problems in this country,,,,it couldn’t have anything to do with the how you guys screwed up the economy with your ‘let them eat cake’ policy towards the middle class. You guys did such a great job it must be the brown people and the libs. Meanwhile you keep paying taxes for for fat cat corps so our education can keep going down hill.


Now back to reality. We’ve had to find Bin Laden because the right gave up. We’ve had to fight the right to keep people alive by making sure that the insurance companies don’t continue to bankrupt most the population by ripping us off and not allowing us proper med care, all due to corp greed not because of the brown people and libs. We are still trying to fight you guys to clean up the economic mess left in part by forcing the middle class to pay for big corps. We have to fight to even keep public schools because you guys want to close them and enact a crazy voucher program which would be a disaster. Obama is the first prez that is taking the immigration issues serious, Bush did what?? Oh yeah NOTHING on that issue, but he had a helluva golf swing. We can only do so much in two years. Another couple of years and just how Clinton cleaned things up so will Obama. It just takes time to clean up after you, he’s not god, he can’t do it overnight. The guy’s got to deal with important issues like dealing with birthers, so yes it takes a bit longer to get to the little issue like immigration and the economy.


Please vote for Ron Paul,,,smart idea. Lets see who else you have to offer, you had brilliant Bush, now you can vote for Newt,,or how about the Donald. Wow, you guys really know how to pick em. Ron Paul with a Bachmann VP, sounds great to me. .


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I can only echo the words of Typo. Cindy must have fallen off the right wing nut job cliff. All that Typo pointed out and more (how about the incessant, and vicious, opposition of the neo const/tea baggies and outright skinhead crazies that want this President to fail even if it wrecks the nation?) is hampering our ability to recover from the whacked out bush years, run by rummy and dickie. See (http://artofmarkbryan.com/mad%20tea%20party.html) for an artistic view of the bush crime family and friends.

We should quit beating up our brown friends whose land we took years ago and look to our own failings, crooks and waste.


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Has anyone ever seen hotdog and typo at the same time? They’re the only two who speak so alike in here, it’s amazing. I call shenanigans!


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Nope, there are others who speak like us. the whole country has not gone mad, just some of them. There are plenty of us with some sense left to counter the fascistas.


By the way, the ol’ dog and the cool Queen would probably agree with much of what the right says about economy (efficiency) and so on. But we are for fairness, meaning those who have reaped the biggest benefits from our glorious society should pay their share (the rich, the corporations etc) and not ride on the backs of the poor and needy. Some on the right are heartless bastards and they must be stopped.


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those who have reaped the biggest benefits from our glorious society should pay their share

Has it ever occurred to you that there might be those who reap their fruits from their own labors? So if I invent the latest-and-greatest widget, form a company, build a factory, and hire people, it is my obligation to give more of my profit to those who had little or nothing to do with my idea? What is my incentive, in this hypothetical situation, to stay here then?


Of course, should we all assume that anyone with any kind of wealth has stolen it, or ridden “on the backs of the poor and needy” then I suppose there will never be a rational debate on the subject.


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Very good points and no one (who acquires wealth legally) should have it all taken away. But those who have made it big often do it on the backs of predecessors or others. They use our roads, clean air, government services and other stuff from this bountiful country. They might make huge profits and enjoy the comfort and safety our resources and authorities afford them (more than many get). Why don’t they pay more than the others? They often pay less. Warren Buffet, multi billionaire investor has stated many times his secretary pays more taxes than he does. If we had a decent tax code none of this talk would be necessary, over and over, and over again. I ask for fairness, others come waltzing in with the same old incorrect complaints-implying I would take all incentive out of innovation and personal ambition. Nope, false argument, again, against reclaiming fairness in our contributions to society.


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Agreed!


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Bye bye open society we barely got to know you.


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Wow, what a comment so well put by Hedges.


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OT

@Zap, great link and he is so right on. NAFTA etc. he’s spot on. And I agree and find myself getting much more radical in my feelings towards the dems, we need to toughen up and fight for the middle class and disadvantaged against the big corps. But I’m not willing to give up on the Dems yet. I’m still chicken, I don’t want us to split our votes. We aren’t ready for a Nader yet. We can’t afford another Bush or worse yet a Palin to come in make things worse and by splitting our votes as we did with Gore we will only give the extreme right more power.


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