With 15 million Americans desperate for a chance to work, the news that Green Bay teachers feel “upset” that they’ve been asked to teach more and plan less (to make room for more meetings, apparently) will ring hollow to them. The fact that teachers earn more than most of us for only nine months’ work is one that I expound in my new book, Stealing You Blind: How Government Fat Cats Are Getting Rich Off of You, now available for pre-order at Amazon (Kindle edition also available).
Stealing You Blind attempts to be a readable primer about the nature of modern American bureaucracy, from the federal government’s $4 trillion budget all the way down to the petty bureaucrats of local school boards. In it, I examine how many people work — directly and indirectly — for government, how much of our money they spend, how they raise the money by ignoring the Constitution, how they tie business up with red tape to justify their existence, and how government has become a racket of politicians, bureaucrats, and government unions worthy of a RICO investigation.
I go further to look at state and local bureaucracies and make a special case study of how these groups have betrayed us and our children by destroying the value of the education system at both school and college levels. Wanting to end on an optimistic note, I outline a plan for sweeping public-sector reform, based heavily on Margaret Thatcher’s successful reforms of the British public services while trying to avoid the mistakes she made in doing so.
I’ll be supporting the book online, of course, so if you’d like to head over to my Facebook author page and “like” me you should get daily updates about the book and further examples of how government is Stealing You Blind.
Oh, and there is a recommendation on the book by no less a figure than Rich Lowry himself, evidently a man of extreme taste and distinction.
Here is a simple idea to help get us back on track on the state and local municipal level: end all salaries for state legislators, county legislators, city and town council members, and school board members -- and drastically limit staffs available to these people.
It is pure malarky that compensation is needed to attract good people to these offices. It only leads to continuous expansion of the "work" generated by these bodies and demands for higher salaries and more staff.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"...from the federal government’s $4 trillion budget all the way down to the petty bureaucrats of local school boards."
It happens that I read two articles today about outrages by school boards in my area (Palm Beach and Broward Counties, Florida.) Immediately after that I came over to The Corner to find David Mamet quoting Mark Twain on the subject*, then Mr. Murray's comments. I think they call this "synchronicity".
The Palm Beach County School Board is set to vote today on several items:
1) Firing an elementary school vice principal who is accused of stealing a laptop, a computer projector, a saxaphone (?!) and more than $14,000 if office furniture. The furniture was given to one of her friends, who had resigned from the school system earlier this year. The woman who received the stolen goods had been the Area Director of School Accountabiliy, no less, and she used it for her family's funeral home business.
2) Firing a janitor who was found naked in a storage closet off an elementary school music room.
3) Firing a teacher involved in the by-now-routine "inappropriate sexual relationship" with an 18 year old student.
4) Expelling 11 students accused of everything from bringing brass kuckles and other weapons to school to assaulting district staff.
And finally...
"District officials ... have predicted a budget crisis in 2013 that is as bad if not worse than the 2012 deficit because the district is using roughly $50 million in non-recurring money to balance next year's budget. That money will not be available in 2013."
Details here: External Link
Meanwhile, a bit further south in Boward County:
"A former janitor who earns $108,000 a year to teach occasional cleaning classes for the Broward School District will see his pay docked, Superintendent Jim Notter said this week."
They're cutting one hour a day from his work schedule, which amounts to a whopping $12,000. That's for being a *part-time* teacher of (future) *janitors*. The man has no degree, no teaching certifate, and no qualifications for teaching anything else. He was certified for voc. ed. by the district and assign to teach a total of 58 days this year at a salary greater than 99% of the teachers in the district.
Meanwhile the school boards and the teachers unions all continue to cry poverty. And the Catholic schools, with a fraction of the resources and clean-up work being done by parents and parishoners, continue to turn out better educated, better behaved students.
More here: External Link
Regards,
Joe
* “Mark Twain famously said, ‘God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.’"
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