Stop School Levies

SCHOOL TAX HYPOCRITES

2009-08-29T17:00:00.000-07:00

After another failed school levy, one is inclined to ask this question. Why is it that those who voted "YES," don't send the school an equivalent amount of money? I am sure that the SW school system will gladly accept their contributions.After another failed school levy, one is inclined to ask this question. Why is it that those who voted "YES," don't send the school an equivalent amount of money? I am sure that the SW school system will gladly accept their contributions.

They do not contribute what they voted for others to pay, because they are "SCHOOL TAX HYPOCRITES." They want schools to be funded as long as someone else pays the majority. Likewise, due to the absurdity of allowing those who do not own property to vote on property taxes, many who promote increased taxes pay nothing. This would include renters, owners of tax abated commercial property, young voters living with parents, extended family sharing a residence, etc. Most disturbing is school personnel that promote more tax while living outside the tax district.

Stop vilifying overburdened homeowners. What a terrible message to send to young people. "It is more important for you to pad your budget to increase teacher and administrator salaries and benefits, than it is to concern yourself with your grandparents being forced from their homes by confiscatory property taxes."

Our politicians must be forced to change the unconstitutional tax mode being used to fund schools. The school tax hypocrites are preventing the very tax reforms that would fairly and fully fund our schools. Blame them for the failed tax levy. Frankly, it is time for the school tax hypocrites to put-up-or-shut-up. To still contribute nothing more, after you voted for others to pay more property taxes, is dishonest. It is as hypocritical as our unconstitutional tax code that unfairly distributes the tax burden.

Steve Mitchell
Zanesville, Ohio

We all must live within our budgets

2009-04-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

The people are fed up with every tax day the schools are on the ballot and sometimes they create their own tax days. What does a special election cost the taxpayers these days. The words that "this is not a new tax" insults the people's intelligence. We do not get a refund on our property taxes when a levy fails, so who then received the refund.

People are losing their homes, the food banks are empty, unemployment is 13 percent, and the dollar is losing its value. Each household must cut back to the bare basic. You might want to call city hall and ask for the money they throw away. Skateboard parks for 30 young folks, Secrest Auditorium, Gant Stadium, etc. This mess has to stop and you must live within your budget and stop the scare tactic at every election.
We have given a large amount of money for new schools, new furnishings, new equipment and the blood of this community. The schools must get away from this tapeworm attitude.

Michael Wyatt
Zanesville

Don't allow levies to tax us out of our homes

2009-04-28T14:37:00.000-07:00

The West Muskingum School officials are only concerned about their agenda and don't care any more about the desires, needs or the lives of anyone else. And, for them to propose such a huge tax increase in these tough financial times is a slap in the face to the community. Their actions are especially unfair to the seniors who are living on fixed incomes and have lost thousands of dollars from their pension plans and the people who've lost their jobs from a business where they've worked most of their lives.

School officials continue to use friendly-sounding terms that usually begin with "It's only a few cents a day," or "It's only a few dollars per month," to make it sound like their levy will only have a trivial impact on people and say it's all about the kids. While, we all know that just isn't true. If all three of the school levies pass, the school officials will be financially set for years while most of us will be forced to make substantial sacrifices and adjustments to our budgets and lifestyles. I say there're too many people in our community who take pleasure in promoting every school levy that comes along and believe they know how to spend our money better than we do. Regardless of what your home value is, will you have the hundreds of extra dollars you will need to pay your property taxes? And, more importantly will you be able to continue to pay the new taxes if you or your spouse lose your job(s) or income(s)?

I think it goes without saying, if we managed our money like the school officials manage our tax dollars we would all be in the same financial situation and crisis they are in today. Please don't allow these people to tax us out of our homes. Enough is enough.

Steve Mitchell
Zanesville

Think of the children

2009-04-27T14:34:00.000-07:00

Sharon Smith gave us great advice to "think of the children." I'm sure every person who served in the military, to protect Americas democracy, has thought of their children and families. Their democratic government where the majority vote wins has worked well.

Twice lately the West Muskingum levy has been voted down by the democratic majority, but as many times before, through a special election, the board is trying to get it passed. I admire their efforts but they are focused wrong. They should join me in pushing our state legislators to solve the unfair school funding issue. I know that will probably not solve our district's problems, but somehow over time we have let our state government create a revenue monster for our schools.

Gov. Strickland admitted it is confusing to explain our current system. He boasts about our state spending $13 billion last year on new school construction. He asks for input, so I want to suggest we involve a statewide panel of educators to design a generic school building that will fit all needs. It could be added to as needed for bigger school districts. One hour could be added to each end of the school day to make a four-day week. We should do away with school boards because we already pay a superintendent for those responsibilities.

The panel would want to go through the plans for Hopewell, which was built in 1933, and through all these levies has no air conditioning.

The TR is supportive of all levies, not desiring to call our legislators to task. The TR even said if a child is killed walking to school it would be the fault of every voter in this district. This out-of-this world remark must have come from Uranus or another planet.

At the start of America's democracy I'll bet those people who threw the unfairly taxed tea into the Boston harbor were "thinking of their children."

Let's all please get out on May 5 and fill our democratic obligation.

Jack L. Strong
Hopewell

Fight the socialist educators; defeat levies

2009-04-17T14:30:00.000-07:00

Our schools were the best in the world. What happened? According to the National Institute of Education, over 72 million Americans are functionally illiterate, and another 26 million can't read or write, period.

Did our children become stupid? Did our teachers forget how to teach? No! People like Cecil Rhodes in the late 1800s, John D. Rockefeller in the early 1900s, John Dewey, the father of modern, progressive education, in the 1930s, and terrorist teacher-educator William Ayers of today planned the "dumbing down of America" in order to establish a socialist society and a one world government.

In 1933, atheist John Dewey co-authored the Humanist Manifesto. On Dec. 5, 1928. he wrote in The New Republic, "The task of the school (his favored Russian model) is to counteract and transform those domestic neighborhood tendencies. ... the influence of home and church... The institution of the family is being sapped indirectly rather than by frontal attack. ... All sorts of groups are instituted that militate against the primary social importance of the family unit."

Dewey viewed the role of education as socializing children rather than educating them. His biggest supporter was and is the National Education Association. In the NEA Journal published in January 1946, Joy Elmer Morgan (Journal editor from 1921-1955) wrote, "At the very top of all the agencies which will assure the coming of world government must stand the school, the teacher, and the organized profession."

Today, the NEA supports abortion, the homosexual agenda, the radical feminist agenda, and the United Nations' globalist agenda. It opposes all competition, especially vouchers and home schooling.

The education bureaucracy has an agenda to globalize our children, not educate them to be independent thinkers. Their values are anti-family and anti-Christian.

Our schools receive more money per student than any nation in the world, yet we are not in the top 10 education-wise. They will continually demand more money, but resist any changes such as consolidating districts, using virtual online teachers, or cutting salaries. They want your hard-earned money, but without any personal sacrifice.

Demand change. Vote no on the school levies.

David Zaverl
Zanesville

West M at it again

2009-04-13T14:28:00.000-07:00

West Muskingum School District is at it again, by putting another levy on the voting ballot. It seems like every election that we have you can bet West will have something on there. It is getting monotonous any more. Now don't get me wrong, I graduated from West and would love to see them get some help but there is a time where you have to realize that it is just not going to happen. In my opinion all the school board members are losing all their creditability, or what little they had.

My advice to West is to accept your fate and do what you can to get by or try a different route. Maybe you need to change your administration and see if that works.

Eric Smith
Zanesville

Higher taxes on the way

2009-04-13T14:23:00.000-07:00

Hang on to your hat, higher taxes are on the way. You won't see them on your 1040 Tax Schedule but hidden in the price of everything where there is a by-product of carbon dioxide emissions which have fraudulently been accused of causing global warming. Congressman Henry Waxman of California and Congressman Edward Markey of Massachusetts with President Obama plan to bring in new government funds by auctioning off $645 billion in permits to produce carbon dioxide. This will affect every industry. Every product made in America will increase in price to cover this new tax and it is, of course, the consumer of goods and services that will pay, meaning, all of us to give new funds for more government spending and waste.

Now if you haven't purchased your T. Boone Pickens stock in wind mill generators, you are already behind these people who are pulling the biggest fraud in history. Billions if not trillions will be made because it will affect everybody in the developed world. Climate fluctuations have been recorded for centuries and the global warming we saw before the year 2000 was the tail end of a warming cycle which has stopped and is reversing itself. Nature, not man, produces changes in the climate.

Another scary thing is the threat by the new czar of global warming to reduce voltage if there is a heat wave this coming summer so you cannot run your air conditioner. She said they did this in Socialist Europe in the year 2003 when there was a heat wave. She failed to mention that 30,000 people died from heat stroke that summer and millions of pounds of frozen food spoiled.

Carbon dioxide is the base substance for production of our food supplies through the carbon cycle. The more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the higher yield in crops. Oceans are the number one cleaner of the atmosphere followed by forests and grass fields and then the farmer. Obama should take his $645 tax increase and give it to the farmers and those who grow any form of plant life.

H.J. Lewis
Zanesville

The Only Option by Ramon Contreras

2009-03-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

When the voters defeated the schools' previous levies they didn't mean, "Please put the levies up again - we like them." They meant, "The schools must learn to live within their present budget ... No more levy attempts ... No means no ... Make the cuts as you said you would."

It's wrong for the schools to propose a tax increase when so many people from the community have just lost their jobs and so many others are just struggling to hold on to their jobs, pay their bills and pay their mortgages. School officials only see dollar signs when they consider the taxpayers and they don't seem to care about the financial well-being of anyone but themselves.

Think about what it means to have to pay property tax. Essentially, it means we can never actually own property. In all but name, the state owns our property and we merely rent it from them. Don't believe me? Try not paying your property taxes and see what happens. The same thing that happens if you stop paying your rent. It's sad we have to pay for the privilege of living on our own land. Where will the money come from to cover the exorbitant tax increases they propose? As a homeowner, it's probably going to come from your household budget. Do you have an extra $30 to $70 dollars a month to pay to keep from bring taxed out of your home?

Taxes are the symbol of coercion over individual choice and the triumph of the school districts' bureaucrats over its residents. Regardless of how much the new levies might cost each person, if you add that amount to our already high property tax bills its just way too much. To save their homes and lifestyles the property owners must get off their backsides, go to the polls and defeat all the levies. This is the only option.

Ramon Contreras
Zanesville

The West Muskingum Zombie Resurrects Yet Again

2009-02-17T13:21:00.000-08:00

If at first you don’t succeed…

The annual failure of the West Muskingum School District hasn’t tempered their desire for more money. The cost of public ed for one child for one year is more than a year of tuition at OSU, but it’s not enough. People are losing their jobs to other countries, but it matters not. The National Education Association is continuing to push a liberal, gay-rights, anti-Christian ethic on our children in public schools at taxpayer expense, but they need more money “for the children.” The people have said “No” over and over again to school levies in today’s depressed economy, but the levy’s like a zombie that just won’t die. It resurrects in May. Let’s kill it again!

Stop the over-taxers by Steve Mitchell

2009-02-16T13:28:00.000-08:00

People everywhere are losing their jobs, their 401Ks, their homes and hopes of a secure retirements. Families are being forced to cut back, trying to do more with less, and trying to put off spending on everything but the necessities. Yet, the West Muskingum and Mid-East school officials seem completely unaware of this.

These people pretend to think about the future, but not in the same worried way as we do. Why should they worry? They have a guaranteed supply of taxpayer money in good times and in bad. Property taxes have been very, very good for them, but have become a dreaded bi-annual "rent" bill for many of us.

They don't care if the seniors on fixed incomes or the working families who are already struggling to make ends meet must move because of high taxes. They get the taxes up to the day people leave and then with the new person who moves in.

It's difficult for me to understand the disconnect between the world economic conditions, the economic conditions in our country and all the way down to our community and the schools.

Just like the bureaucrats in Washington, these people don't have our best interests in mind and believe our money is their money and they know how to spend it better than we do.

I don't know about you, but I work hard for what I have and I will share it with others but when I choose, should I choose and with whom I choose. School officials need to do four things: Stop complaining, balance their budgets, get on with providing the students the best possible education they can with the funds they already receive from the taxpayers and the state, and finally leave the taxpayers' income alone.

Anti-tax voters usually don't organize, don't show up at public school meetings and don't spend lots of money to defeat school levies. However, come election day, they go to the polls and roar, "no." Without a doubt the election vote in May will be a battle between the taxpayers and the over-taxers.

Steve Mitchell
Zanesville

November 2008 Levies on the Ballot

2008-10-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

There will be several local levies on the ballot on Tuesday, November 4.

Fire department levies in six townships,
Mid-East Career and Technology Center levy,
West Muskingum Local School District levy, and
Zanesville City School District levy.

If you were free to choose where your hard-earned money goes, would you give to these causes willingly, and would you give as much as they are demanding? If you would be willing to donate your money to these groups, why don’t you give it? Why must you require a levy to give it? A levy simply demands that you give the money upon pain of fine, prison, and/or property confiscation? Must the threat of government force coerce us to give to causes that are important to us, or may we act charitable with our money?

If you would give willingly to these causes, would you force your neighbor to give upon pain of fine, prison, and/or property confiscation? That is, after all, what the levy is all about – not collecting funds from those who would give willingly, but collecting funds from those who would not give willingly to the cause for which the money is levied if they had the free choice. When you vote for a levy, you are using the coercive power of the state to force your neighbor to give to a cause to which he would not give willingly. Yes – that would include your neighbor who just lost his job. Yes – that would include your neighbor who just checked his wife into the hospital with terminal cancer and is struggling to pay for it. Yes – that would include your neighbor whose husband just left her with three kids. Yes – that would include your neighbor who sacrifices to send their children to private school. Would you threaten them with fine and prison if they don’t cough up the wealth that these levies would demand from them? Where is our compassion and sense of decency, that we would sacrifice the liberty of our friends and neighbors and use the power of the state to coerce money from others?

Ohioans are having hard times. The unemployment lines are growing. Only the bureaucrats think we can afford a few more taxes. The parasites think that they need your money more than you do. They must exploit your apathy to squeeze your money from you. Or, they must exploit your guilt (after all, these levies are “for the children!”). Please be liberated from the guilt-trip by sending a check to the school of your choice. If you want to support Mid-East Career and Tech Center, then sign up for a few classes during the weekends. You don’t have to vote for a levy to help educate the next generation. It may be that the best way for money to be spent on educating youth is if it is spent by parents. Isn’t that a grand idea? Let parents spend their own money on their own children. Be free, and let others be free. Vote NO on levies.

Dr. Patrick Johnston's letter to Ohio Governor Ted Strickland re: public education

2008-07-07T12:51:00.000-07:00

July 7, 2008

To Governor Ted Strickland
Ohio Statehouse
Columbus, Ohio

Dear Governor,

Last week you made a call to the state to give fresh ideas for the improvement of education in the state of Ohio. Several years ago I founded the Alliance to Reform Education funding, which website is www.StopSchoolLevies.org, and which had the mission to improve the cost efficiency and moral and intellectual quality of education by promoting competition in education and parental control in the cost and curriculum of their own child’s education.

I think the time is ripe for such an approach in education. This will be a very courageous approach for you, but I believe very politically profitable. In short, there are no losers with our plan. First, the present dire predicament: as you are well aware,

First, from a financial perspective, we are spending more money on public education with a worsening outcome of poor educational achievement compared to private-educated counterparts. In Zanesville, where I practice medicine, the cost of public education is over $9,500 annually – more than a year of tuition at OSU! Private education in Zanesville, by comparison, is half the cost. Privatizing education would introduce competition into the equation, and dramatically reduce the cost and dramatically improve the quality. No educators would get paid more than free parents thought they were worth. Bloated, inefficient systems would have to slim down and improve quality to compete on a level playing field.

Second, we must address the intellectual deficiencies in the present system. We spend more per capita than any other industrialized nation, and we rank last or next to last in intellectual achievement. With the best teachers in the world, why is this? I believe that it is the policies of the educational bureaucracy are partly to blame. I have spoken to many teachers who complain that they are being forced to teach tests instead of educating them as they were trained to do. Teachers are constrained by policies that are harmful to their ability to keep discipline in class, enforce homework requirements, and teach students what they need to know to be proficient. Parental choice would eliminate the foolish policies of the educational bureaucracy that are harming our children’s potential, such as the policy of passing students to the next grade in spite of failing the previous grade.

Let us also address the moral dilemma of public education. Many people, such as my family, oppose many things that are being taught by the government-controlled educational system. We, and many others, home-educate our children or send them to private schools for this reason. Yet we still bear the financial burden of the government educational bureaucracy. Thomas Jefferson said, “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” The educational bureaucracy does not share our morals, nor the morals of most Ohioans with regard to the teaching of origins, prayer in school, Bible reading in school, and a sex education curriculum that justifies sinful behavior and encourages the distribution of condoms and oral contraceptives, etc.

Teaching intelligent design, prayer in school, and condemning sexual behavior as most Ohio parents would prefer would be the democratic alternative, but it is difficult with the prevalent notion that the “separation of church and state” only allows humanistic and/or atheistic approaches to these moral dilemmas. This would be completely remedied by a separation of school and state. If parents want to pay for a humanistic/atheistic education for their children, where they are taught that time and random chance are sufficient causes for all of life, where they are given condoms and taught that homosexuality and fornication are acceptable forms of expression, then they alone would bear the financial burden for it. Privatizing education is the best way to deal with this moral dilemma while respecting parental rights to manage the education of their own children and taxpayer rights to be good stewards of their own wealth. Competition makes for better burgers, better beauticians, better bowling alleys – it’ll make for a better education, morally and intellectually, for Ohio’s children as well. Monopolies only benefit the powerful; competition benefits the consumer (the taxpayers and the children).

The best argument against a separation of school and state is that the poorest among us would not be adequately educated. First, more parents could afford private education than we realize; recall that the cost of public education in the state of Ohio is approximately double the cost of private education. Eighty percent of home-educators, who outperform their public-school counterparts on standardized tests, spend less than $599 annually. However, some poorer families clearly benefit more from government-financed education than they would benefit from dramatically reduced taxation that would result from privatizing education; our plan responds to this dilemma by removing the state from the equation and letting local businesses and free Ohioans invest into local education by giving scholarships to local students whose parents cannot afford to educate their children. Those scholarships would go to the school of the benefactors’ or business’ choice in lieu of relief of the property taxation that is so draining on their profits. It is highly unlikely that Zanesville businesses would continue to give $9,500 annually per Zanesville student per year when they too often get an illiterate workforce as a result, when private education is less than half the cost and produces a better outcome. The portion of private property taxes that go toward the government-controlled educational system would be completely eliminated, which would be an incredible boost, as you can imagine, to our weak economy. The cost of private education would continue to come down over the next several years as more and more educators abandoned the state-controlled bureaucracy to compete in the private sector for the opportunity to educate the community’s children.

Please contact me if you would like to talk further about our plan to privatize education, or visit our website www.StopSchoolLevies.org, or the website of the Alliance for the Separation of School & State.

Respectfully submitted,

Patrick Johnston, D.O.