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➛ S E R V I N G T H E P U B L I C T R U S T S I N C E 18 81
SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011
Editorial
THE TIMES LEADER www.timesleader.com
OUR OPINION: SCHOOL BUDGETS
Speak out before you lose a chance
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CHOOL MAY BE almost over for students, but crunch time is just starting for taxpayers. For months we’ve heard speculation and hypothetical proposals for dealing with the meat cleaver education cuts proposed by Gov. Tom Corbett. Parents fretted while school boards and administrators mulled the elimination of everything from full-day kindergarten to music, arts and summer school. This past week, the theoretical impact of those cuts solidified into cold, hard reality, as local school boards voted on preliminary budgets in order to meet state deadlines. Those budgets go on public display for the next several weeks before the boards give them final approval, which – by state law – must happen no later than June 30. Some are posted on district websites. Which means now is the time to see if you agree with the cuts and changes. If you wait until classes start in three months and realize you hate what has happened in your school, it will be far too late. Wilkes-Barre Area plans to drop two pre-kindergarten
classes and merge seventh and eighth grade sports into the high school programs. Pittston Area won’t replace a middle school music teacher. Dallas intends to eliminate before- and after-school tutoring programs. Crestwood put fullday kindergarten and middle school sports on the chopping block. Hanover Area is set to close an elementary building. Retiring teachers won’t be replaced. Class sizes will grow while student options shrink. Spending on supplies and textbooks will wither. Talk of fourday school weeks has begun. All of this comes with the state education budget still unsettled. The Legislature is proposing restoring some lost education money. State income is much higher this year than expected, though talk of using that money to curb the cuts has been muted. Which gives taxpayers a narrow window of opportunity. Look at your school district’s proposed budget, decide what you like and don’t like, and take a stand – both locally and at the state level – for or against the real-world impact of these cuts. Because come June 30, you’re cut out of the decision.
QUOTE OF THE DAY “It wasn’t just pie out of the sky.” A.J. Munchak The Lackawanna County commissioner defended the $14.6 million sale price of the Triple-A baseball franchise to the New York Yankees. An expert hired by Luzerne County says the franchise is worth $18 million, meaning the county should see an extra $1.7 million from its share of the sale.
STATE OPINION: LEGISLATURE
Budget drama takes nasty turn
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VERY TIME the state budget rolls around, we can count on Harrisburg to provide a few months of theater, as the governor makes his priorities clear, and the Legislature pushes back with its own priorities. The drama surrounding the Corbett budget is different. The budget proposed first by Gov. Corbett and recently amended by House Republicans could barely get worse. Both feature steep cuts to higher ed, basic education and the Department of Public Welfare, holding the line at state spending to $27.3 billion -which is $700 million less than this year’s budget. The House did restore some of the Corbett cuts to higher education. But it does get worse for every taxpayer in the state, and not because spending is being cut. What’s also being cut is a fuller discussion of both sides of the ledger -- spending and revenues. The state budget must deal with a large deficit. But the factors mitigating that crisis are barely mentioned. They include the $500 million surplus that the budget crafters are leaving untouched. It also conveniently ignores the higher revenues that the state has collected. According to a recent report from the Rockefeller Institute,
revenues from personal income tax rose 7.5 percent; sales taxes generated 4.2 percent more than anticipated and corporate income tax saw a rise of 3.9 percent during the first quarter of 2011 in the state. (The state’s gain in corporate-income-tax revenues are among the lowest of most of the states reporting.) There’s little mention of these bright spots, mainly because they don’t conform to the accepted talking points that would characterize previous administrations’ reckless spending. This is the time for taxpayers to speak up to their elected officials about their priorities. Is the strategy of cutting higher and basic education right for the state’s future? Should we really be increasing spending on corrections? And why are we giving big tax breaks to the Marcellus Shale drilling industry when revenue from taxes or fees could help the state budget and ease the burden on local communities dealing with the environmental impact? On Monday evening, when you’re facing the prospect of going back to work after the Memorial Day holiday, think about this: Legislators are taking the entire week off to celebrate and won’t be back in session until June 6. Philadelphia Daily News
Entitlements make poor dependent on politicians THOSE WHO REGARD government “entitlement” programs as sacrosanct, and regard those who want to cut them back as calloused or cruel, picture a world very different from the world of reality. To listen to some of the defenders of entitlement programs, which are at the heart of the present financial crisis, you might think that anything the government fails to provide is something that people will be deprived of. In other words, if you cut spending on school lunches, children will go hungry. If you fail to subsidize housing, people will be homeless. If you fail to subsidize prescription drugs, old people will have to eat dog food in order to be able to afford their meds. This is the vision promoted by many politicians and much of the media. But, in the world of reality, it is not even true for most people who are living below the official poverty line. Most Americans living below the official poverty line own a car or truck -- and government entitlement programs seldom provide cars and trucks. Most people living below the official poverty line also have air conditioning, color television and a microwave oven -- and these too are not usually
COMMENTARY THOMAS SOWELL handed out by government entitlement programs. Cell phones and other electronic devices are by no means unheard of in low-income neighborhoods, where children would supposedly go hungry if there were no school lunch programs. In reality, low-income people are overweight even more often than other Americans. As for housing and homelessness, housing prices are higher and homelessness a bigger problem in places where there has been massive government intervention, such as liberal bastions like New York City and San Francisco. As for the elderly, 80 percent are homeowners whose monthly housing costs are less than $400, including property taxes, utilities, and maintenance. The desperately poor elderly conjured up in political and media rhetoric are -- in the world of reality -- the wealthiest segment of the American population. The average wealth of older households is nearly three times the wealth of households headed by people in the 35 to 44-year-old bracket, and more than 15 times the wealth of house-
holds headed by someone under 35 years of age. If the wealthiest segment of the population cannot pay their own medical bills, who can? The country as a whole is not any richer because the government pays our medical bills -- with money that it takes from us. What about the truly poor, in whatever age brackets? First of all, even in low-income and high-crime neighborhoods, people are not stealing bread to feed their children. The fraction of the people in such neighborhoods who commit most of the crimes are far more likely to steal luxury products that they can either use or sell to get money to support their parasitic lifestyle. We don’t need to send the country into bankruptcy, in the name of the poor, by spending trillions of dollars on people who are not poor, and who could take care of themselves. We have all heard the old saying about how giving a man a fish feeds him for a day, while teaching him to fish feeds him for a lifetime. Independence makes for a healthier society, but dependency is what gets votes for politicians. Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com.
Getting into college: To be or not to be (yourself) JASON LAMOREAUX will graduate June 14 from Upper Merion High School. Last year at this time, he was navigating the collegeapplication process, which includes the writing of a personal statement and this dilemma: Do I tell them what I think, or what I think they want to hear? Lamoreaux took what some might view as a risk. Instead of addressing world hunger or carbon emissions, he offered an honest insight into his personality. Andrew Ferguson applauded the approach when I told him about Lamoreaux. Ferguson recently documented the charade that the college-application process has become. His best seller, “Crazy U: One Dad’s Crash Course in Getting His Kid Into College,” is a testament to kids’ adopting alternative personas that they think will please admissions officers. Ferguson’s book highlights the application essay as a particular source of student and parental angst. Ferguson laments that the essays seem ill-suited for 17-year-olds — an unrealistic, touchy-feely search for a high schooler’s most intimate thoughts. Jason Lamoreaux’s academic record at Upper Merion has included both A’s and B’s — with more of the latter than the former. He’s carried a couple of honors-level courses. His honors physics teacher emailed his mom earlier this year, saying: “Jason is definitely
COMMENTARY MICHAEL SMERCONISH an asset in the class; I’m glad he’s here. Honors classes can be a little ‘stuffy’ sometimes. He breaks the mold.” Lamoreaux was a co-captain of the swimming and water polo teams this year, and likes classic rock, comedy and summer lifeguarding. Last year, he applied to several schools but refused to end nuclear proliferation in his essay. Instead, he discussed watching a lacrosse championship against rival Upper Dublin. “As a swimmer and one who had to compete regularly against Upper Dublin, they had always been a powerhouse filled with pompous jerks who thought they were better than everyone else,” he wrote. “ ... It was a Thursday night at Upper Dublin and the league championship was on the line. As a swimmer and water polo player, I know how it feels to not get too much support from fans except for the occasional friends who come to watch me.” “Before the game, I had put on my Spanish National water polo team flame-decorated Speedo. ... I pulled my shorts off, and ran up and down the stands with my chest painted blue (one of my high school colors) in my flame-decorated Speedo.
“Our fans erupted. It was louder than it had been all game.” To my surprise, it also won accolades from Leonard Krivy, who for decades has been a prominent educational consultant in Cherry Hill, N.J. “The home field advantage is relevant to many aspects of our lives,” he told me. “This is a very interesting and well told perspective on home field advantage — and one with which most of us can identify. “Jason shows accomplishments that invite the colleges’ attention. He has taken wellthought risks and has confidence in his ideas and ability to follow through, and he has become part of the school’s history and has made a difference,” Krivy continued. “You can write a modern-day version of the Gettysburg Address. However, unless you meet the school’s objective criteria, you probably won’t be admitted and the essay may not be read.” Jason Lamoreaux applied to nine schools. He was rejected at one, wait-listed at another, and accepted at the remaining seven. The head of admissions at St. Mary’s College in Maryland wrote a note on his acceptance saying “how glad he was that he was wearing his Speedo.” Lamoreaux will enter Gettysburg College in the fall. And he will go places. Michael Smerconish writes a weekly column for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Readers may contact him via www.smerconish.com.
Editorial Board RICHARD L. CONNOR Editor and Publisher JOSEPH BUTKIEWICZ Vice President/Executive Editor
MARK E. JONES Editorial Page Editor PRASHANT SHITUT President/ Wilkes-Barre Publishing Co.
RICHARD L. CONNOR Editor and Publisher PRASHANT SHITUT President
JOSEPH BUTKIEWICZ Vice President/Executive Editor RICHARD DEHAVEN Vice President/Circulation
DENISE SELLERS Vice President/Advertising ALLISON UHRIN Vice President/Chief Financial Officer