No, not you bean counters in Boston and in local town governments. I’m referring to every citizen of this fine state.
Boston just announced a cut of 900 jobs, including over 400 teaching positions. This is a 5.5% cut, or $107 million out of $833 million in Boston’s school budget, and a 6.2% reduction of the city’s 6500 teaching positions.
This all sounds reasonable until you hear that the city budget shortfall is estimated to be $140 million next year. As usual, schools are going to assume 75% of the burden.
In 1980 some cheap bastards – actually, we Massachusetts voters – voted for a referendum which capped property taxes at 2.5%. Proposition 2 1/2 thus became Massachusetts General Law Chapter 59 Section 21. For 28 years this law has guided the downward spiral of town and city services. In these hard times Proposition 2 1/2 will ensure that the downward spiral will end in death. Cynical banalities like “the schools just couldn’t compete” or “it’s time to privatize” will be uttered over the grave. And we will then look to casinos and corporations to come up with the money.
Wait a minute! Aren’t we currently bailing out the corporations?
Never mind. We’ll talk excitedly about how the new Duncan Donuts Academy, the Harrah’s Charter Schools, the McDonald’s pre-schools, and the Marvel Comics and National Enquirer libraries are providing services we used to pay for ourselves.
And all because we continue to be the same kind of cheap bastards the people on our block were 28 years ago. People who expect someone else to do it, someone else to pay for it, someone else to step up to do the right thing.
If there’s anything we can agree on in this consumer culture, it’s this: you get what you pay for. By paying for nothing, we get nothing. No future for our children, no future for young people, no stability for the elderly, no common dreams that bind our society. Proposition 2 1/2 has done enough damage. Repeal Massachusetts General Law 59 Section 21.
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