school levies

while i understand that they are occasionally necessary, i have to say that for the most part, i'm against them. take the upcoming eastmont school district levy, for example. it would be assessed on home values; they give the example of a $150,000 house, and say that for someone in that situation the cost of the levy would slightly less than $5/month over the 3 year of the levy. they complain that if it does not pass, non-varsity sports and after school activities will be cut, and they'll lose something like 30 teachers, 45 para-educators, and 8 secretaries, and trot out the usual "it's all for the children" guilt-trip. now, the cost itself is fairly insignificant... it's about 1/3 of the cost of playing WoW for a month, quite a bit less than the average cell phone bill, and i think the radio commercial says it's something like 2 lattes a month. it's not the cost that bugs me, it's the thinking behind the cost.

to me, the fact that eastmont would have to fire about 80 people if the levy doesn't pass means that they hired about 80 more people than they could afford, and now they expect the taxpayers to pick up the bill. why should they be rewarded with more money when they can't even manage what they already have? at least, however, they have the decency to put it to a vote. i'm no economist, but if the federal government did the same, giving a vote on the budget to the citizens of the country--not the right to propose budget amendments, but simply to vote yes or no on the budget--i think that out national budget would be much more balanced. on which note, here's a budget simulator... play around with it and see what you can come up with.