President’s words
ring hollow
To the editor:
Tuesday night I attended a neighborhood meeting at the home of someone I had never met to watch and discuss the president’s State of the Union address. It brought to mind a joke attributed to Abraham Lincoln:
Question: How many legs does a dog have, if you call its tail a leg?
Answer: Four. Just because you call the tail a leg doesn’t make it one!
Denial is NOT optimism! Patting oneself on the back and saying "good job" doesn’t make it so.
It is hypocritical to praise a program such as No Child Left Behind and then cut support to Medicaid, child support enforcement and student loan programs.
Leadership is NOT justifying the desires of a few (with tax cuts) at the expense of many, and trying to make it PERMANENT. One is NOT a hero when one takes a surplus, turns it into a huge deficit (based on faulty intelligence) and then cuts vital services to "correct" the problem.
The sacrifices that our president requires of the American people (ALL created equal) are not ones that he would be willing to make himself; unlike King David, who upon learning that his men had sneaked into the enemy camp to bring him a drink of water from Jerusalem, knocked the cup to the ground and chastised them for putting themselves unnecessarily at risk of losing their lives; unlike George Washington, whose great financial generosity to the Revolution inspired others to give what little they had to offer.
This budget tears apart what it took people like Coretta Scott King to create. And now, she is gone. Do we applaud that?
Lisa T. Bell
East Windsor
Cap law doesn’t
cause tax hikes
To the editor:
Unfortunately, your article on the law known as S-1701was filled with the usual myths spouted by school bureaucrats and their political supporters.
Contrary to the suggestion in your article, S-1701 does not cause tax increases. On the contrary, the law places a cap on school spending, preventing superintendents like Mr. Bolandi and their rubber-stamp school boards from increasing budgets 8 to 10 percent each year.
If it were not for S-1701, Mr. Bolandi would have hired an additional 30 teachers and spent more on technology, raising property taxes even further for East Windsor and Hightstown residents. S-1701, which contains ample allowances for student enrollment increases, simply puts a much-needed limit on runaway spending by public school districts. Like most public school superintendents, Mr. Bolandi tried to blame his increased spending partly on higher fuel, heating, special education and health insurance costs. I am sure that fuel and heating costs make up a tiny percentage of the school district’s budget.
As for health insurance premiums, perhaps the school district should try the radical approach of making employees pay for a portion of their health insurance costs. Many of us in the private sector are acquainted with this novel concept.
I am sure that I could find a great deal of waste in the district’s special education program. And if Mr. Bolandi is really interested in saving taxpayers money, he should offer teachers a wage increase roughly in line with inflation in their next contract, instead of granting annual raises of 5 to 6 percent, as is the custom in most school districts.
Finally, Sen. Shirley Turner recited the popular myth that the school district has not received state aid increases in several years because state taxes are not high enough. Democrats like Sen. Turner love to recite this mantra, but no matter how many times they say it, it will still be a lie. Middle-class districts are getting shortchanged on state aid primarily because of a ridiculous plan dreamed up by the state Supreme Court. The court dictated that "poor" districts must be able to spend as much money per student as the richest districts in the state. As a result, every time a high school in Princeton or Rumson builds a swimming pool, the state must hand bureaucrats in Newark and Camden more money to waste on fancy buildings, useless patronage positions and trips to exotic conferences. Consequently, the state cannot afford to provide middle-class districts like this one with aid increases.
If Mr. Bolandi wants more aid for his school district, he should call for a constitutional convention to overturn this ridiculous Supreme Court dictate.
Larry Ramer
East Windsor
