This Thursday night (6/4/2009), at 8:00 PM Pacific/10:00 PM Central/11:00 PM Eastern, I’ll be on the blogtalkradio show Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Conservatism.
The show is hosted by Babe Huggett (who blogs at TheRealityCheck.org) and Warner Todd Huston (who is a prolific blogger and owner of StopTheACLU).
You can click on the Life, Liberty link to go to the show’s homepage and listen to the show on your PC, streamed over the internet.
Hosts Babe Huggett and Warner Todd Huston discuss and examine current political events, put them in historical context and follow trends to their logical conclusions through a conservative, Christian viewpoint. Phone in comments from listeners always welcome! Call-in Number: (347) 237-4040
Hosts Babe Huggett & Warner Todd Huston dig deep & analyze the news with their usual insightful and historical approach all the while being as politically irreverent as possible! It’s time to spend your Summer 2009 vacation cramming & jamming with home schooling advocates, Kay Brooks & Rob Shearer, as they educate us tonight about the deliberate persecution of home schooled graduates, the dumbing down of students in government propaganda factories a.k.a. public schools & the erosion of educational liberty in Tennessee in particular & the USA in general.
Giving taxing authority to Boards of Education is a very bad idea according to Kay Brooks…
Well they had their ‘give the BOE taxing authority’ rally yesterday and surprise, surprise (not) the news is full of how this would be a good thing for MNPS. Less politics, more accountability, less bickering, yadda, yadda.
I don’t understand how having the Mayor, in consultation with the BOE, suggest a budget amount for MNPS and then the Metro Council passes the budget, after budget hearings asking about the needs of MNPS and its past performance (to include how they spent the money they got last time) is LESS accountable than handing over taxing authority to the BOE directly. Please remember, once the Council passes the budget they hand over a lump sum to the BOE who then has the freedom to spend that money as they see fit.
“The public is left out there with no idea which authority to hold accountable,” said Stephen Smith, assistant executive director of the Tennessee School Board Association.” City Paper
So the School Board Association instead of educating the public about the process so that we can make wiser decisions about who to hold accountable will “dumb down” the process to ensure this homework isn’t too hard for us. Bonus for the education system is they only have to persuade nine people that their pet project is worth reaching into your wallet. Remember, this is all about making it easier for the BOE not easier for taxpayers. I’ve absolutely no doubt that the BOE doesn’t enjoy have to go hat in hand to the Mayor or the Council but that’s part of accountability–having to answer for what you’ve done with what you got before.
And where should it stop? Maybe the police and fire departments should also have taxing authority. The same bogus argument about accountability could be made for them too. Personally, I value public safety over public education. And speaking about public safety…what about the health department? Maybe they shouldn’t have to suffer the inconveniences and embarrassment of making a case for their expenditures.
This from the Tennessee County Commissioner’s Association back in December of 2008:
“As things stand right now, the Tennessee Constitution would have to be changed in order to directly give school boards taxing authority. That takes time as such a proposal would have to pass two separate General Assemblies and then be approved by the voters. What could happen right away is that the General Assembly could lift the ban on existing school districts converting to special school districts. We have about 14 special school districts in Tennessee currently, but the law has prohibited the creation of any new special school districts for some time. Special school districts levy a property tax pursuant to a private act adopted by the state legislature that sets a tax rate for the school system. So it would take taxing authority away from the county commission, but would give it to state legislators who usually act based on the recommendations of the school board for the special school district.” (emphasis added)
How does moving this taxing authority up to the state level make our neighborhood schools and our school board more accountable? Looks like they’ll have the same excuse they’ve got now “Well, we could have done better but the Council/Legislature wouldn’t let us have the money we needed.”
And what we know about education spending is that the BOE will raise taxes to the maximum the Legislature will allow as quickly as it can with nothing but an election every other year for half of the board to slow it down. You’ll have nine folks, most of whom are less financial geniuses than the Metro Council, deciding how much of your money you’ll have left to feed and clothe and house your family because they see what they do ‘for the children’ as more important that what you’re trying to do for your own children with the money you earned.
According to the Tennessean the MNPS is 40% of the Metro Nashville budget. 40%! We’re getting close to the tipping point. This year the BOE wants $620 million dollars to education about 75,000 children. That’s about the current quote for the new convention center. And they’ve been spending about half a billion dollars for several years now. That’s $8,000+ for every one of those 75,000 students and that doesn’t include state or federal dollars. They’ve got enough money.
No matter how many times the Chamber and its partners say ‘accountability’ this plan is less accountability. They are calling black white and white black. They’re going to repeat that often, loudly and in full color brochures as long as we’ll let them. I say no. Absolutely no. If the goal really is accountability…how about we see those teacher value added scores AND we put the MNPS check register on-line?
There is some growing concern, that this data mining is laying the foundation for healthcare price fixing…..
Now here’s a legitimate right to privacy being infringed upon.
The plan is to mandate that your insurance company transmit all of your healthcare transactions to the state. You will be assigned a unique encrypted patient identifier by your insurance company. This identifier will be used by the state to track all of your healthcare transactions so that they can evaluate you according to the criteria listed above. Your doctor will also receive a unique healthcare provider identifier; but he or she will be fully identifiable.
What if you should want to opt-out? Well, you can’t.
(snip)
I fail to see how legislators mandating insurance companies to turn over your healthcare transactions to the state cannot violate the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution; unreasonable searches and seizures.
Rep. Susan Lynn (R-Mt. Juliet) explains further at her blog what’s going on here with HB2289/SB2239.
No Republican legislators should be voting for this…and clearly some know this as “Rep.(s) Bell, Campfield, Lynn, and Dennis requested to be recorded as voting No” after the vote in the House Government Operations Committee. Kudos to them for sticking to conservative principals. This thing needs to be killed ASAP.
I do wonder, though, will this include information on abortions sought? Or will those get some special exemption?
Kay Brooks opines about the recent victory of those of us that want to keep law-making in the legislative and not judiciary branch.
I’m thrilled with the outcome of last night’s House vote to restore the Tennessee State Constitution as ‘the law of the land’ in our state. The passage of SJR127 has taken a lot of time and warriors like the diminutive-in-stature-only
Bobbie Patray of Tennessee Eagle Forum are owed an unpayable debt of gratitude. The checks and balances necessary to protect our rights and liberties to govern ourselves are on their way to being restored. The judicial branch usurped their authority. Last night the legislative branch said ‘back off’.
This from Bobbie Patray’s account of last evening:
[Rep. Bill Dunn (R-Knoxville) ] even got in a comment about the current debate on judges: “Obviously the courts and how we select them or how we should elect them is an issue before us now. And if we continue to go where the people have no say who sits on the Supreme Court, then we’re going to be right back in the posture of instead of the people controlling their Constitution, the courts will…”
He’s right. We’ve got a legal system that thinks they know better than citizens who should be our judges. Those judges, when given half a chance, will make laws over us. It won’t take long and the judicial will completely emasculate the legislative and we’ll be out of the picture completely.
The left is hopping mad. Spitting mad. You’ll get a nasty shower just reading the posts on the Internet. They feel betrayed by Democrat legislators who dared crossed them. This is a huge wake up call for them. Oh, they’ve got 21 solid votes (and one squishy one) but they are finally realizing that the Naifeh regime, which unfairly kept this issue off the House floor for a vote, really isn’t in charge any more.
Is it too much to hope that some point, after they cool down, they’ll realize that the greater issue of who gets to make the laws as Rep. Debra Maggart (R-Hendersonville) mentioned is essential to maintaining freedom in America? That’s the choice they should be most concerned about. If maintaining freedom and a balanced government is important then last night was a huge victory.
Both Democrats AND Republicans are dancing around this issue.
Elected Judges does not mean approve after a term of service…READ and APPLY the State’s Constitution!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JFgf5qGCq8
Lt. Governor Ramsey should not ask for my vote for governor and the chance to take that oath of office again if he cannot honor the oaths he took on January 13, 2009. He was ‘duly, legally and constitutionally’ elected. Tennessee’s judges should also be ‘duly, legally and constitutionally elected‘.
The Tennessee plan clearly ‘lessens and abridges [citizen] rights and privileges’ in direct contradiction to the oath every legislator took. Let the Tennessee plan die. If some want to change the Tennessee Constitution they should start by filing a legislative bill and not by continuing to enable the usurping of the rights of citizens because they can.
It’s time for Lt. Gov. Ramsey, and Gubernatorial Candidate Ramsey, to show us his ability to lead this state and that unlike another prominent legislator he can be trusted to fulfill his promises.
For more information on this very important issue:
http://JudicialReformCoalition.org and
Terry Frank
