Create an even playing field
To the editor:
The local economy still has some challenges, and there seems to be some recovery from the depths of depression. An area of concern is the continuous shortfall of funding for school districts, despite annual layoffs and added increases in class size. The promise to school districts by the 2001 Legislature to fund the majority of public education costs for the districts was not observed, and the lack of money continues to be a problem. This is in the face of the advice by university economic researchers that public education is one of the best investments we can make.
Many south metro residents believe like I do, that continued tax breaks for the wealthy are not what our economy needs. The Warren Buffett rule may not have made it past filibuster in the U.S. Senate, but it has popularity out here in the country. The top 1 percent should be paying the same rate the rest of us do, and the State Revenue Department’s tax incidence study shows it does not. I support state legislation creating a more even playing field. The privilege of wealth has outgrown its usefulness.
Paul Hoffinger
Eagan
Paul, please let me know when the privilege of wealth had usefulness. Was it the Kennedys who made it useful, or Senator Kerry (his family has the Heinz ketchup fortune) when Heinz closed US plants and sent those jobs to Mexico in order to increase the famliy wealth? Was wealth useful when Warren Buffet got President Obama to kill the Keystone pipeline because his company (Bershire Hathaway) makes billions of dollars transporting the oil by rail and a pipeline would cut into his profits? Yes, let’s take money from people who earn it and give it to people who don’t earn it. This will solve all of the country’s problems. As far as teacher:student ratios, I have gone down that road here with you before, and I posted the link proving that the amount of teachers to students has almost never been highewr than today.