Monday, November 27, 2006
Eliot Spitzer Superman???
Jay Gallagher / Commentary Gannett News Service
"Wanted as governor: An alchemist"
"I'm expecting (Spitzer) and his people to come up with the money,” said New York City Councilman Robert Jackson, one of the original plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was launched in 1993.
Should New York City, with its booming economy and treasury stuffed with tax receipts from Wall Street bonuses, be required to pick up part of the tab?
Not a nickel, Jackson said, since the state has been shortchanging the city on school aid for decades.
Where, then, will the extra money come from?
“We've never taken a position on how to raise the money,” said Geri Palast, executive director of the group that brought the lawsuit, Campaign for Fiscal Equity.
That's good politics. It's always smarter to talk about how to spend taxpayer money than to get into the messy details of how to raise it. Of course, that's the political instinct that has helped to push the state almost $50 billion into debt (and the federal government almost $9 trillion in the hole)."
'The problem goes something like this: take a pot of money. Divide it up into sections. Then take the same pot of money, and make some of the sections bigger, but don't reduce any of the others.
Can you really do that?
Anybody who figures it out not only gets a high-school diploma, but maybe a Nobel Prize in economics as well.
(Outgoing Gov. George Pataki's solution was to try to raise the extra money from expanded gambling, but that is still money that could go to all schools if not for the extra demands of New York City.)
Forget economics (and arithmetic) for a minute. Nursery rhymes may be a better place to look for a solution.
Unfortunately, Eliot Spitzer at this moment may be Superman, but he's not King Midas."
Jay is right on target....to read the rest of this commentary click here and for a well written researched article on this whole controversy The Last Word in School Funding? by Gail Robinson(Gotham Gazette) andy
"Wanted as governor: An alchemist"
"I'm expecting (Spitzer) and his people to come up with the money,” said New York City Councilman Robert Jackson, one of the original plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was launched in 1993.
Should New York City, with its booming economy and treasury stuffed with tax receipts from Wall Street bonuses, be required to pick up part of the tab?
Not a nickel, Jackson said, since the state has been shortchanging the city on school aid for decades.
Where, then, will the extra money come from?
“We've never taken a position on how to raise the money,” said Geri Palast, executive director of the group that brought the lawsuit, Campaign for Fiscal Equity.
That's good politics. It's always smarter to talk about how to spend taxpayer money than to get into the messy details of how to raise it. Of course, that's the political instinct that has helped to push the state almost $50 billion into debt (and the federal government almost $9 trillion in the hole)."
'The problem goes something like this: take a pot of money. Divide it up into sections. Then take the same pot of money, and make some of the sections bigger, but don't reduce any of the others.
Can you really do that?
Anybody who figures it out not only gets a high-school diploma, but maybe a Nobel Prize in economics as well.
(Outgoing Gov. George Pataki's solution was to try to raise the extra money from expanded gambling, but that is still money that could go to all schools if not for the extra demands of New York City.)
Forget economics (and arithmetic) for a minute. Nursery rhymes may be a better place to look for a solution.
Unfortunately, Eliot Spitzer at this moment may be Superman, but he's not King Midas."
Jay is right on target....to read the rest of this commentary click here and for a well written researched article on this whole controversy The Last Word in School Funding? by Gail Robinson(Gotham Gazette) andy
