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Rensselaer County Taxpayers Association

November 1998                                                                                                                                                     Volume 3, Number 6

To our heavenly Father for so many things especially at this time of the year, it is difficult to enumerate them. Even the weather has been delightful. Note: the environmentalists are hard put to come up with phony statistics to warn us of the dangers of our own excesses. But leave it to Vice President Algore, he’ll come up with something. Fortunately, those with faith, who appreciate our freedoms and have a firm belief in our nation will inevitably succeed over the forces of defeatism.

Teacher’s Pet

The Rensselaer County Taxpayers Association is committed to accountable, cooperative, and economical schools, "ACE." All of this is to be accomplished within the means of those taxpayers who must foot the bill. Readers may find the editorial of September 26, 1998 in The New York Post very informative to see where organized education fits into the picture.

"The United Federation of Teachers endorsed the gubernatorial candidacy of Peter Vallone last week. That in itself shouldn’t distress the electorate. No, what’s upsetting is that Vallone accepted the endorsement.

"The City Council speaker, said UFT President Randi Weingarten, ‘has a record of supporting…the issues that we care deeply about.’

"By which she means that Vallone has over the years uncritically supported throwing good money after bad in support of a public-school system that’s been no great shakes for 20 years and is getting demonstrably worse every year.

"Mostly, though, Weingarten remains angry at Gov. Pataki for vetoing a variety of spending items legislated last spring to the UFT’s precise specifications. These included $500 million for ‘repairs’ to schools and upwards of $65 million to supplement teachers’ salaries.

"The school-repair money, of course, would largely have been poured down the same rathole that the Board of Ed uses to dispose of hundreds of millions of dollars a year. It has far more construction money than it can properly spend – and doesn’t need more until it cleans up its act in this realm."

Plain English

Are you fed up with and/or confused by written communications from government agencies, schools and lawyers? Attorneys have a partial excuse because certain court routines demand legalese. The rest are questionable. We’ve also taken freedom of speech for a ride. How can burning the American flag have anything to do with the spoken word?

Something or someone is off the track on these matters. We find high school graduates unable to do plain arithmetic. They stumble over simple sentences, using words such as "ya know", "like", "ain’t cha", "man", "cool", and "can’t hardly" repeatedly in an effort to express themselves.

Jay Leno, in a television interview with a teenager asked her to name one of the Ten Commandments – her reply "Freedom of speech." Students have been shortchanged. The question arises that after four years of association with so-called qualified and certified educators, the results are far from satisfactory. In an experience this day, a young clerk was asked, "How many ounces in a pound?", "Ahh, ulc, I guess 18."

More closed meetings by bureaucrats and more "funds" are not the answer. In plain English, the public and especially our parents, must regain control of public schools and seriously face the problems of discipline, disruptive behavior, alcoholism, illegal drugs and the indoctrination of children with socialism.

In spite of jokes and remarks about Bill Clinton, the most severe criticism in a poll taken among war veterans is his half-hearted salute when arriving from a plane trip. The military salute is reserved only for those who are serving or have served honorably in the defense of our country, no one else.

Time to buy a new car. Things have been pretty good and you think that now you can buy that pretty neat model which you have always wanted. You pick out a moderately priced model, $15,000. More than you have ever paid before, but it is a real beauty and if you squeeze a bit you can swing it.

Then the salesman tells you in a matter-of-fact voice, that there is an additional charge of $1,200. $1,200 you gasp! For what? "Sales tax," the salesman answers while he is writing away on his sales pad.

"$16,200 for a new car, I can’t afford it." The salesman was looking forward to the sale, too. Everybody loses. Then you look at the financial page and find that the stock which you had scraped and saved to buy has gone up and you figure that you could make a nice little profit if you sold now. Maybe you could buy an even better model of the car which you want so badly and the economy would get a shot in the arm as a result of your spending this profit and so you decide to sell.

"Don’t forget your capital gains tax", says your friendly broker. "What capital gains tax?," you blurt out. "You’ve owned this stock for over a year and so you owe the government 20% tax, then you must pay the state some 7%, and there is my commission of about 3%. That comes to about 30%." "Thirty per cent," you gasp. "I scrounged for years so that I could buy some stock in XYZ so that I could have a little something extra and the government reaches into my pocket and takes the profit away from me."

"That’s because the liberals who run this country figure that if you own stock, or can afford a new car that you are rich and the rich can afford to give their money to the government to squander on vote getting schemes," your broker says.

"Rich?" you say, "I am not rich. I have just scraped and saved all of my life so that I could relax and enjoy my old age and now I find that I am being penalized. For the first time in my life I have a few dollars to spend and it is stolen from me by ‘government officials who are forever seeking new and unique ways of justifying their existence.’*"

"Well, I am not going to give them my money. I will continue to drive my old car and will leave my stock where it is until the government changes to one which rewards, rather than punishes people who achieve, if ever."

The other day I was going through some old canceled checks to toss out, and came across a check for school taxes. The check was dated September, 1990. I realized that only since 1990 our school taxes have nearly DOUBLED!!! I am sure that most of you property owners have come to the same shocking realization.

Is this massive monetary increase really helping our children to learn any better, as we keep hearing when a new school tax increase is proposed? Well – let’s see…..

In a local market, I saw a sign posted – "Fill your own jugs" – jugs was spelled JUG’S. When purchasing four of something which sold at three for a dollar the young clerk asked if that was a quarter each. A handwritten sign stating "WATCH FOR FALLING DEBRIS" – debris was spelled DABREE. Several items were purchased which had a 40% discount. The young clerk at the register took off 20%. When reminded that there was a 40% discount he stated – "oh, OK, I’ll take of another 25%!! A young clerk, without the aid of a cash register which rings up the change owed, returned $3.00 from a $20.00 bill for an $18.00 purchase. (To name only a few such instances.)

WHERE IS ALL OUR MONEY GOING? I’m sure many of you have encountered the same type of situation when dealing with some young people in a business environment.

In one of my past articles I wrote of a survey of New York State employers who hired high school graduates. The results of the survey showed that across the state 46% of the high school grads were unemployable, had no work ethics and could not perform on the job they were hired for! That is nearly HALF of all high school graduates – what is wrong with this picture? Obviously the fancy new buildings, covered walkways and HUGE bus garages, along with all the music, art and sports programs, are definitely not helping our young people learn to read, write, spell or add and subtract, all of the basics which they should have had in grammar school. What a pity! Our future is nearly lost – and our children will certainly suffer in the long run for the lack of discipline, moral standards and, saddest of all, PROPER EDUCATION! Meanwhile, the property owner is going broke trying to pay the ever increasing school taxes.

Again, I ask, WHERE IS ALL OUR MONEY GOING?

A duo piece in the Times Union of October 11, 1998, with opposing points of view on juvenile crime is interesting. One, by Nancy Hollister, Lieutenant Governor of Ohio says, "sentence must reflect severity of the offense" vs. "we must catch children before they fall into crime" by Vincent Schairaldi and Jason Ziedenberg. Significantly, none mentioned parental responsibility. Many years ago someone said, "There are no bad children only bad parents." Why is it that in primitive societies, juvenile delinquency is almost unheard of. Native tribes in the forests of Brazil do not even have a word for it. The problem then, is in the intervention of Government. Once we become dependent on Big Brother to fix all of our problems, personal concern is mitigated and we must compromise away our God given authority as freedom loving citizens and be beholden to vote seeking politicians. Our situation is all predicated in the name of "civilization." We can become over-civilized. A pregnant thought which some refer to as Socialism. One perfect example is the "No smoking" laws which most consider as unconstitutional. The concept is gradualism as envisioned by Marx and Lenin.

Our politicians are referred to as "lawmakers." Political necessity thus demands that they conceive bills to be voted on regardless of merit as long as they get credit for them. They quickly forget that innocent taxpayers have to live with these laws even if these same lawmakers attempt to avoid obeying them, themselves.

Back to the juveniles. Young people commit crimes because they have had little or no guidance, either at home or at school. Nancy Hollister, the conservative, stresses severe punishment. The better side of the argument. However, she makes the same error as the others in reference to new MEASURES. She states, "This means that States must be free to spend federal money as they see fit on PROGRAMS that make available local resources and address pertinent crime issues." There is no such thing as "federal money," Nancy. There is only taxpayer’s money which is gleaned out of the productive end of society by every means fair or foul to fortify and further the political control of those doing the collecting. WE actually have over five trillion ($5,000,000,000,000) dollars of public debt bearing down on us. When will our public Administrators face up to their responsibilities and forget about a surplus that does not exist?

In The Wall Street Journal, October 13, 1998, Hadley Arkes and William J. Bennett state, in part – "People in the military have lost their rank – and been sentenced to jail – for ‘sexual harassment,’ gauged in a strict way. Should these standards imposed on the military apply in the same measure to the commander-in-chief?

"The president stands at the head of the civil service. Any civil servant who had a sexual affair with a subordinate and lied to cover it up would be removed from his job. If he lied before a grand jury, the penalties might even be more severe yet. The chief executive stands at the peak of this hierarchy. Do you take that to mean that he stands above the laws that apply to everyone else under his direction?

Rumor has it that hanky panky is carried on in the White House. I got this from an unimpeachable source.
Schodack Resident

Bumper sticker at the Scottish Games: "My sheltie is better behaved than your honor student."
Altamont Resident

An exasperated principal to a student: "It seems to me that you will have to start reading." "Ahh, ull you mean like books?"
Rensselaer Resident

Police arrested a mattress salesman for standing in back of every mattress he sold.
Sherwood Park Resident

Buy in Renss. County, keep the sales tax at home.
Rensselaer Resident

Pres. Clinton calls the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa an "Act of cowardice" – he should know.
East Greenbush Resident

The President has signed more executive orders than any other president in our history. So much for Congress and law!
East Greenbush Resident

Newly paved streets in E. Greenbush are a great improvement.
Park East Resident

Coming Attractions

• Next regular meeting will be Tuesday, January 12th, 1999 at the Town Hall, East Greenbush, 7 pm.
• Awards night will be December 3^rd at Evergreen Country Club, 6:30 pm. Cost is $15 per person.
• Members of goodwill solicited.