\doc\web\99\05\nhtax.txt Date sent: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 18:59:42 -0600 (CST) To: "ClearingHouse" From: "eca@fastlane.net" Subject: [education-consumers] Changing state constitutions Copies to: ECC Send reply to: "eca@fastlane.net" ===================================================================== Since Texas Sen. Ratliff has submitted SB1, which is a re-write of the Texas Constitution, I thought you all might be interested in this particular article about New Hampshire. Jeanne New Hampshire's moment of truth By Samuel L. Blumenfeld © 1999 WorldNetDaily.com The citizens of New Hampshire are presently going through the agonies of deciding which is more important: freedom or money. They have been put in this dilemma by the state's Supreme Court, which ruled in 1997 -- in its great and unfathomable wisdom -- that the current system of raising revenue for education with local property taxes creates unconstitutional inequities between rich and poor towns. Does this also imply that the inequities that exist between rich and poor are also unconstitutional? If that's the case, then New Hampshire has a constitution rewritten by Karl Marx. But who in the state legislature really cares? These days, constitutions are mainly used by liberals to promote socialist revolution, even though there may be nothing in the constitution doing so. But who reads state constitutions these days? Certainly not the lawmakers. It is assumed that equal education consists of equal amounts of money for each pupil, as if all pupils have the same brain capacity to make use of what passes for education in today's public schools. Apparently, God did not distribute brains equally. Is that unconstitutional? How come nobody in New Hampshire is willing to challenge the court in its unconstitutional thinking. Has anybody in New Hampshire bothered to define education and find out whether or not it is actually taking place in the public schools? The court assumed that schools with more money provide better education than schools with less money. They didn't bother to test that assumption or listen to testimony challenging that assumption. But they imposed a deadline of April 1, 1999 for the state lawmakers to come up with an alternative financing scheme. Believe it or not, New Hampshire is the only state left in the union that does not have a sales tax or a state income tax. As Jere Daniell, a professor of history at Dartmouth College put it, "What's going on now is that New Hampshire is becoming more like the rest of the states in the country that have had to work out the process of providing more equal funding for education." That "process," by the way, is part of the liberal movement to restructure American education along socialist lines. And so, the Governor and the legislature are frantically trying to find an alternative way of raising the $900-million needed to run the public schools. House Speaker Donna Systek has proposed a statewide property tax, the revenues of which would be redistributed among the towns by way of a complicated formula. Meanwhile, the Republican-controlled House, narrowly -- 194 to 190 -- approved an income tax, which Democrat Gov. Jeanne Shaheen has vowed to veto. The state Senate, controlled by Democrats, may or may not go along with the House. As for the governor, her plan is for a new tax on businesses to replace the current business profits and business enterprise taxes. But believe it or not there is another solution to the problem, which nobody in New Hampshire has even bothered to think about. If the people of that state truly cherish freedom over money, then a very simple way to live free, avoid an income tax, and reduce property taxes significantly would be to privatize the entire state education system. This could very easily be done. Let each school in each community become a private school, run by a board of trustees, charging a reasonable tuition, and let the communities set up education funds to help those families that cannot afford the tuition. Thus, the cost of education would be borne primarily by those who use it. Privatization would create a real revolution for good. It would eliminate the state monopoly education system. (Monopolies always charge the highest price for the worst goods.) It would give parents real choice. It would force the schools to actually teach rather than miseducate with such trendy fads as whole language, invented spelling, and the new, new math. The people of New Hampshire would get better education at lower cost, and the stifling power of the teachers' unions would be greatly reduced if not entirely eliminated. In other words, the realities of economics would impact on education the same way they do on every other sector of the economy. Waste and fraud would be eliminated since there would be little money or tolerance for that sort of thing. Also, nothing would prevent the schools from raising money through means other than tuition. Creativity in the community would flourish. The benefits of privatization would be incalculable. Taxpayers would be relieved of a huge tax burden, permitting them to use their money in more productive ways. Privatization would eliminate the cultural and religious conflicts that now plague the government schools. It would open an entire new field for free enterprise and technology. It would produce better prepared students in academic and technological skills. It would free up education from the stifling hand of government regulation. It would de-politicize education, remove it from the politician's domain, and reduce the size and cost of government bureaucracies. If New Hampshire took such a bold step as to privatize its schools, it would be a beacon of freedom to the rest of America, and it would remain true to its inspiring and uplifting motto: Live Free or Die. Samuel L. Blumenfeld is the author of "The Whole-Language/OBE Fraud" and seven other books on education. His books are available on Amazon.com. ===================================================================== EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE networking and information for parents and taxpayers on the internet Subscriptions & Archives: http://education-consumers.com or You are currently subscribed to education-consumers as: arthurhu@halcyon.com TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Send a blank email to leave-education-consumers-989462S@lists.dundee.net ===================================================================== For less mail, click on the following link and choose 1) a daily digest, 2) a daily list of subjects, or 3) no mail (read postings on Web) http://lists.dundee.net/scripts/lyris.pl?enter=education-consumers For more help & info: http://www.lyris.com/help or