"Adequate Education"... Slowly I turned...step by step...inch by inch...
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The Wikipedia tells us that the phrase starting with the words
"Slowly I Turned" is the most common name associated with a popular vaudeville sketch that has also been performed in cinema and on television...
It is a familiar comedic routine that
has two performers pretending to meet for the first time, with one of them becoming highly agitated over the utterance of particular words. Names and cities (such as Niagara Falls) have been used as the trigger, which then send the unbalanced person into a state of mania; the implication is that the words have an unpleasant association in the character's past. While the other performer merely acts bewildered, the crazed actor relives the incident, uttering the words, "Slowly I turned...step by step...inch by inch...," as he approaches the stunned onlooker.
The most famous users of this vignette are, of course, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello and the Three Stooges. In what seems to be a fitting tribute to moronic troupes such as them and others, I am writing today about NH's tax and spend legislature.
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Like the aforementioned description of certain trigger words that cause an unbalanced person to become highly agitated accompanied by a state of mania, along comes the broad-based tax crowd. You know who I mean: the usual suspects that, upon hearing the words "adequate education funding" immediately lapse into their default mode of new taxation.
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Consider the reporting in today's Laconia (NH) Daily Sun (unavailable online) written by Chris Dornin of Golden Dome News entitled Let the struggles over school funding start in earnest. He notes that the 19 towns and school districts that are involved in the latest version of the annual "adequate education funding" lawsuits filed against the state in the years since the so-called "Claremont Rulings"
agreed last week to drop their claims against the state without prejudice...
Good news, right? Not really. As a matter of fact, the news is not good at all.
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As he further writes, the reason they have agreed to drop their claims is because
lawmakers properly defined an adequate public school education before a court-imposed deadline of June 30.
The problem, of course, as Dornin rightly points out, is that the cost of the definition to the state is unknown as of yet, with estimates that go anywhere from $400 million to over $1 billion. When this is added to the state's annual budget that saw spending increase by some 17 percent, it paints a rather nasty revenue picture in the very near future here in our beloved, low-tax Granite State. Back in May, we posted an analysis covering these very same issues written by Charlie Arlinghaus, of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, who wrote
There is a growing hole in the New Hampshire state budget. Alone it would require tax increases that would cause undue economic damage. Coupled with a planned but undefined increase in education spending, the amount will be too large to close with small changes to our current tax structure.
So here we are. We have a definition of an "adequate education" that now must be "funded" with state monies. And thus the trigger words have been uttered. "Slowly they turn, step by step, inch by inch..." with near-maniacal gleams in their eyes... And they won't take "no" for an answer.
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Again from the piece in Today's Daily Sun:
clients [plaintiffs against state] would be right back in court if the state falters in its promise to cost out, pay for and hold schools accountable.
What is meant by the "state" when it comes to the funds? You and me, of course. The broad based taxers are seeing their opportunity, and intend to seize it. Says Democrat rep. Judith Reever of Laconia,
...lawmakers have to do something to lift the onerous burden of property taxes..[snip].She opposed a sales tax because the poor spend all their income to survive and would take the hardest hit.."What does that leave?" she asked. "A state income tax. That water needs to be tested. I've never figured out how the wealthy convinced the poor they should never change the system of taxation."
A little class warfare, anybody?
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And our supposed conservative Republican friends appear ready to inch towards new taxes and revenues to feed the tax beast also, admitting that legalized gambling should be considered and, while stating a distaste for a sales tax, don't specifically swear off something like an income tax. Says Fran Wendleboe, runner up in this past cycle's state party Chair election and head of the NH Reagan Network:
She agreed with Reever that a sales tax is regressive.."Poor people can't tell the store clerk they shouldn't be charged the tax."
Working people can't tell the tax man to let them keep more of their hard-earned paycheck, either Fran. Do you realize you are aiding and abetting Reever in the class warfare thing?
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Man, are we in trouble, or what? As the beast slowly turns and steps closer to a broad-based tax inch by inch, there seems to be little to nothing standing in the way. If Fran Wendleboe's sentiments against a sales tax is the strongest defense we can muster, thus resigning ourselves to a choice of "which tax?", and members of the majority party have started advocating a new "testing of the income tax waters," who can possibly stop it?
Comments
Posted by: Paul | August 20, 2007 8:10 PM
Posted by: doug | August 20, 2007 8:14 PM
Posted by: Terry Stewart | August 21, 2007 7:45 AM