Unintentional Truth in Mannies' Sunday Profile on Sinquefield
While it served mostly to show that if you're a crackpot with lots of money you can get the media to write an uncritical story about you, Jo Mannies' Sunday profile on millionaire conservative Rex Sinquefield also provided us a narrow sliver of unspun truth.
With uncharacteristic analytical precision, Mannies writes in her story's third graf (emphasis added):
After making a fortune as an investment banker, Sinquefield is prepared to spend millions in the next few years to influence the Missouri public and help elect state and local officials who share his disdain for income taxes and troubled urban public schools.
Exactly.
Sinquefield, as many have noted, has such disdain for struggling urban public schools that is he is a key booster of voucher programs that would suck state funds out of urban public schools and send those dollars to private and religious schools. As with his plans for the state income tax, which he also disdains, Sinquefield wants to "fix" urban public schools by doing away with them.
If we needed any further evidence of Sinquefield's commitment to moving vouchers by any means necessary, consider his willingness to reward the governor's involvement in a recent House floor vote on a pending voucher bill with cold, hard campaign cash. A week after Blunt was seen actively lobbying the floor in favor of a failed House voucher measure, Sinquefield sent $100,000 to Blunt's re-election campaign.
So thanks to Jo Mannies who successfully used the story of one voucher supporter to --for once-- lay out the true motivations of voucher proponents everywhere. The exposition was so good that I can only imagine that Mannies created it accidentally.
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Tax Credit Panacea
Tax credits have done great things in Missouri, but to be able to use them you must have paid taxes or have taxes due. Most of the working poor and poor pay little in the way of taxes now and unless the credits were refundable, would have little use for them.
If the proposed credits were refundable, then the state's revenue would drop considerably resulting in an inablility to invest in all matter of infrastructure -- including but not limited to schools.
Tax credits are marketable outside of the tax system and have a "cash value," but it is highly unlikely (once again) that the most in need of credits would be able to access the tax credit system because the buyers typically focus on volume purchases to minimize the transaction costs. Additionally, the tax credit market discounts purchased credits to pay for administration of purchasing and redemption and to make a profit.
The schools need to be better. No argument. But, tax credits are a band-aid on arterial bleeding.
Anyone who knows the demographics of Missouri schools -- public, private and parochial knows there's insufficient capacity to simply make school selection a consumer decision -- credits or not.
Another bad idea in a cart-load of bad ideas.
Now Howard
Do you really love paying state income taxes that much? Do you love seeing a failing school district in St. Louis? Why are you disparaging this person for trying to right the system? He may not have the best solutions, but railing against his ideas without solutions doesn't cut the mustard in my book. The St. Louis school district is obviously broken - throwing more money at it will not fix the underlying issues.
"...about the concept of
"...about the concept of sucking taxpayer dollars out of the pot of money intended for public services and sticking them either directly or indirectly into the pockets of private interests concerned primarily with making a buck. It's a game that "small-government" advocates have played for decades. These players --whether for-profit private schools or corporate outsourcing experts-- cherry-pick the prime students/clients/customers, price "undesirables" out of the market, and treat public services as a "safety net" of last resort to which toss the hard cases...."
Matineeidol is actually a fan of bigger government, but also good ideas. I think you're off-base in your assessment of tax-credits. You're right that there's nothing new about them; we already use a state-sponsored tuition program for higher education because college is expensive and students who want to learn should be able to--so why not for our secondary education? As far as the taxpayer's dollar, they stand to benefit in the short as well as long run. Individual investors would choose to fund tuition scholarships as a subsidy for low-income families in failing school districts who do not have the option of moving to a better school district or paying a full tuition. Also,
"County schools, and even some private schools, generally spend less per pupil than the city district. According to DESE, Saint Louis Public Schools have a current average expenditure of $11, 402 per pupil. As a comparison, my district, Mehlville R-IX, spent an average of $7,144 per pupil in 2006, while the state of Missouri, on average, spent about $8,221 per pupil in 2006 (DESE-MO, 2007). As a rough estimate, if the city is required to pay tuition, plus transportation costs say an extra $1000 per pupil, per year– they would still save money by essentially contracting out to the county district. Whatever money is left over after this transaction would presumably be sunk back into the city, thereby increasing the per-pupil funds available to the district." (showmedaily.org and Department of Elementary and Secondary Education).
Not to mention the cost to taxpayers of welfare, incarceration and unemployment which we know is more likely for students without a diploma, and the tax they pay for failing public schools. It is this trend that "prices undesirables out of the market" by not giving an option for students who aren't receiving a decent education. They could even choose to go to a public school with that tax credit, but the bottom line is: what are we doing today for students in failing schools?
And why do you think some schools spend less per pupil?
There are good reasons for the difference in per pupil spending across school districts. Transportation, cost of living differences that impact salaries, and utility costs that vary widely depending on the age of the facility are just a few differences that affect per pupil costs. The other very important factor is that it is more expensive to educate some kids than others. A child from a low income family whose parents are poorly educated needs more resources provided by his school. A child with disabilities costs more to educate. A child without access to health and dental care, a child who is in a dysfunctional family, a child in foster care - there are many children who need more than others. Fair isn't giving everyone the same thing, fair is giving everyone what they need.
Poster Boy for Campaign Finance Reform
When the GOP decided Missouri should be the only state going in the wrong direction on campaign finance and made us the wild west of campaign cash, they said they wanted to do away with loopholes that made the system ineffective. The recent campaign finance reports point out that the old system (loopholed though it may have been) did limit contributions to some extent. All you need to know is that this Governor is taking 100's of thousands of dollars that he was not getting before. Something changed. Time to put the limits back on contributions in Missouri (and close any loopholes while you are at it). Time to pass LeVota's Law: http://www.house.mo.gov/bills071/bills/HB522.htm.
Misinformation, Status Quo Keep Solutions at Bay
Jo Mannie’s article was a profile rather than an opinion
piece. I am encouraged that someone in St.
Louis is looking at alternatives for repairing the
public school system, since the options that the school board members have
pursued seem only to bog schools down. If
educating children effectively is the goal, and tax credits (not vouchers,
there is a difference) would help do that, politicking tax-credits to death
would be a cavalier thing to do with children’s futures. I think everyone concerned about the St.
Louis Public School System would benefit from some research into tax credits,
as Rex Sinquefield has done. Try www.showmedaily.org for a more substantial blog on the subject.
There's nothing new or "alternative"...
...about the concept of sucking taxpayer dollars out of the pot of money intended for public services and sticking them either directly or indirectly into the pockets of private interests concerned primarily with making a buck. It's a game that "small-government" advocates have played for decades. These players --whether for-profit private schools or corporate outsourcing experts-- cherry-pick the prime students/clients/customers, price "undesirables" out of the market, and treat public services as a "safety net" of last resort to which toss the hard cases.
Calling Sinquefield's current scheme "tuition tax-credits" rather than vouchers does nothing to change the fact that the fundamental premise is about skimming off whatever marginal profit there is to be had from providing services traditionally provided through government while externalizing to the government all the risk, structural costs, and long-term downside. A scam is a scam, even if the scammer uses children and students as pawns in his racket.
"Businessmen" like Sinquefield would never had made a cent were it not for the legal, economic and transportation infrastructures set up by government which have allowed them to rape, pillage and plunder their way to personal fortune (ed note: Look at the way his disciples like matineeidol bootstrap on the work of others by trying to siphon away readers from Fired Up! to Rex's crummy blog!). Now he wants to tear this infrastructure down.
Wrecks our Schools, Wrecks Public Services, Wrecks Missouri -- Rex Sinquefield.
No basis for presuming Sinquefield PACs are legal
Isabella
Mannies' article and others describing Sinquefields' PACs incorrectly assume that Sinquefield's scheme and his over-the-limit contributions to Chris Koster and many Republicans are lawful exploitations of a loophole. There is a pending complaint before the Missouri Ethics Commission challenging the donations as violations of the Campaign Disclosure law. The Ohio Secretary of State is pursuing a similar complaint against sham PACs established by David Brennan, who also is a big promotor of charter schools and vouchers.