{"id":21913,"date":"2011-08-25T06:54:30","date_gmt":"2011-08-25T11:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=21913"},"modified":"2011-08-25T06:54:30","modified_gmt":"2011-08-25T11:54:30","slug":"how-libs-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=21913","title":{"rendered":"How Libs Think"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 300;\">A Pennsylvania school district opted to save $15,000 a year <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/education\/2011\/08\/23\/302187\/corbett-pennsylvania-sheep-cutting-grass\/\">via some fairly ingenious thinking<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In Carlisle, Pennsylvania, [cuts to the education budget] meant putting an end to traditional means of cutting grass at two local schools. Instead of lawnmowers, the schools are using sheep:<\/p>\n<p>Rather than spend money on cutting grass, the Carlisle School District has brought in 7 Romney sheep to tend the fields. \u201cThey\u2019ve done a good job so far,\u201d says Superintendent John Friend.<\/p>\n<p>The sheep come free of charge, since they belong to the principal of the middle school. Friend estimates that they will save the district about $15,000 this year in mowing costs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Speaking as a metro resident, this seems like a <em>great <\/em>idea. \u00a0Think of how much money and time metro park and rec districts and public works departments we could save by importing sheep to mow parks, roadsites and other areas we currently have to pay to mow!<\/p>\n<p>Silly? \u00a0Maybe.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s not so silly is the response:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>While the $15,000 saved will barely make a dent in Carlisle\u2019s $2 million budget gap, Pennsylvania could render the draconian education cuts unnecessary if it ended special interest tax breaks benefiting corporations and natural gas companies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In other words, &#8220;don&#8217;t bother thinking and getting creative &#8211; just raise taxes&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Pennsylvania school district opted to save $15,000 a year via some fairly ingenious thinking: In Carlisle, Pennsylvania, [cuts to the education budget] meant putting an end to traditional means of cutting grass at two local schools. Instead of lawnmowers, the schools are using sheep: Rather than spend money on cutting grass, the Carlisle School [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy-and-the-market","category-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21914,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21913\/revisions\/21914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}