Buying video games, tax views

[ZeroAX]

With all the fights about tax raises and deficit cutting on health care education and the army, I'd have thought you guys would have gotten rid of such expenditures first.

Any time there's budget issues, the first things on the chopping block are education, police, and infrastructure.

Jk?

[AppleQueso]

With all the fights about tax raises and deficit cutting on health care education and the army, I'd have thought you guys would have gotten rid of such expenditures first.

Any time there's budget issues, the first things on the chopping block are education, police, and infrastructure.

Jk?

I'm not kidding if that's what you're asking.

[aaron]

Any time there's budget issues, the first things on the chopping block are education, police, and infrastructure.

Jk?

sadly, no.

[ZeroAX]

ok, we are not ones to talk of course, but even we when choosing what to cut, a proposed stadium was the first to go.

[dsheinem]

ok, we are not ones to talk of course, but even we when choosing what to cut, a proposed stadium was the first to go.

I often think that because we don't like soccer and get fanatic about it the rest of the world grossly underestimates the pervasiveness of and passion for pro sports in US culture.

[ZeroAX]

ok, we are not ones to talk of course, but even we when choosing what to cut, a proposed stadium was the first to go.

I often think that because we don't like soccer and get fanatic about it the rest of the world grossly underestimates the pervasiveness of and passion for pro sports in US culture.

I think it's because you like 3-4 sports instead of just one you have to waste so much money on so many stadiums.

[Luke]

This thread should come with a warning that reading it may kill brain cells.

[Ack]

Admittedly as far as education is concerned, we do spend more than most other countries without getting the same results.

[ZeroAX]

Admittedly as far as education is concerned, we do spend more than most other countries without getting the same results.

Yes I've heard that. Any idea why that is? I mean your universities are some of the best in the world, but honestly your schools fail miserably.... when I lived there (specially in Alabama, not so much in Missouri) I was much better than the entire class at math and stuff (obviously not in English, though at least I know the difference between your and you're ).

[Ack]

I believe a lot of it has to do with throwing money at problems without actually paying attention to where it is going, along with the politicization of education and overall cultural issues affecting the country that are magnified in school systems.

Using Alabama as an example, the education system isn't the best funded on the state level, and the budget is prorated to pull from municipalities that do fund their schools better so that poorer districts can afford them. But any sort of education reform is blocked by the politically powerful teachers' union, which was run by one of the highest ranking Democrats in the state until recently (he still runs it, he just stepped down from his party position). This organization along with its Democratic allies has fought to block any changes to the education system despite its poor management and funding problems, partly out of fear that teachers' jobs could be cut or lost, partly as a means of securing votes and political points in the upper levels of the union. Many of the teachers on the ground level (as well as other education employees who have been forced in) feel the union does not represent their views, but also feel they are bullied into supporting it. It has benefited some good teachers, but it has also hurt students by protecting bad ones. There was a case in 2010 or so where a teacher who had been imprisoned for pedophilia was found to still be getting a paycheck because the school district was unable to fire her due to regulations set and enforced by the unions and their allies in state government. The group also sways elections by spending hundreds of thousands on advertising. After Bradley Byrne, the leading Republican gubernatorial contender, criticized the way the union did business, they coughed up some falsified advertisements claiming a criminal background and some other nonsense...Byrne lost the nomination, and now Alabama's governor is a religious fanatic and weirdo.

Thanks, Alabama Education Association. Now go fuck yourself with the wrong end of a rake.