Drink the Rich! - Pioneer

Drink the Rich! - Pioneer Press columnist Laura Billings still doesn't get it.

Today's column starts out discussing the "creative" ways school districts and cities have come up with to raise more money:

Here in the Recovery Belt, we know that drinking doesn't solve our problems — it only disguises them temporarily.

Yet, this lesson may be lost on our friends on the coasts, who seem to be turning to liquid refreshments to help them solve their liquidity problems.

So far, so good.

It's here, though, that the logic goes badly awry.

For the benfit of Billings' fans, I'll explain things as we go along:

In Seattle, where Puget Sound sophisticates have long known that espresso has no "x" in it, voters in today's referendums will decide whether to tax nondrip coffee drinks 10 cents a cup to raise money for early childhood programs and better salaries for day-care providers.

That's called a "tax increase".

As opposed to this:

...in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg revealed that Snapple had paid the city $166 million to become the Big Apple's official provider of water, juice and iced tea.

This is called a "donation".

They are very different things. Ms. Billings may or may not know this:

backers of Initiative 77 — better known as the "latte tax" — say it could raise between $3 million and $7 million a year for the city's youth and won't impose any undue economic hardship on people who have already elected to pay more than $3 for a caramel mocha whip, along with a quarter or two in the tip jar for the attitude-dripping barrista who takes their order.

"If you can afford a caramel mocha, you can afford to pony up to support the Teachers' Union!".

The caramel mocha and the tip are both voluntary. The citizens of Washington are deciding if they want to put the burden of supporting the teachers' union and their immense public education infrastructure on the backs of people who drink chi chi coffee.

Call it what you want - it's a tax. More accurately, it's people who drink Folgers deciding that people who drink Starbucks should pay for the Folgers' peoples' services. To bastardize Alexander Tytler , ""A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from those who go upmarket from them."

Billings continues:

New York City's sweet deal with a juice company might not be as fruity as it sounds, either. Snapple will get exclusive rights to the vending machines in the city's 1,200 public schools, a deal that will eventually extend into city buildings and police stations, adding some 6,000 Snapple machines to the landscape. But at the city's insistence, the company also is creating four new drinks — 100 percent fruit juices — to comply with New York's new ban on soda, candy and other cavity-causers from school vending machines. Some $40 million in Snapple proceeds will go directly into public school coffers.

This, however, is not a tax. This is Privatization. Many people have proposed doing exactly this sort of thing to help stretch the educational tax dollar (or even replace it, in many cases). You'll find many, many people who'll enthusiastically support this sort of thing.

But brace yourself, Laura Billings; most of them are Republicans. And when we propose it, people like Laura Billings are the first to cluck about "commercialism in the classroom". It needs to be, I guess, a politically-correct company like Snapple making the proposal.

It's here that Billings veers into the weeds:

"Unfortunately, the creative marketing behind such campaigns can't disguise the lack of political courage that inspires them: the basic unwillingness of many of our public officials to admit out loud, 'Hey, we need more money for schools.''

Most of them do "admit" it out loud. And the voters have told them "No. The education budget in this state nearly doubled in ten years. Now, we want results. We want more reading, and fewer politically-correct mandates. We want kids learning what they need for life, not a bunch of PC multi-culti bathwash. We want to know our tax money isn't going down some institutional rathole, and until we do, taxes are staying firmly put. And you can wave 30-year old Time magazine covers in my face and whine about "the death of Minnesota Nice" until your arms and tongue fall off, but until you can show me that I'm getting my money's worth, especially when I'm not sure I'm going to have a job next week, you and your teachers' union friends can scrimp, just like I am.

After all, in a world where tax cuts are offered as the only solution to a sour economy and a shrinking job market (a 'solution' that, incidentally, hasn't worked), ...

Yet.

And when they do, Laura Billings, you'll find another rationalization. I'll count on it.

...few want to risk the political capital it costs to suggest that in such tough times, taxes for the things we claim to value might actually need to go up."

Laura Billings: the "things I value" are my children. Not the schools. Not our tax-supported institutions.

I value the schools that I send them to exactly as I value my car. I like my car; but if I'm getting nickled and dimed to death, I'll sell it to a Democrat and buy another one.

Posted by Mitch at September 16, 2003 06:50 AM