Op Ed: Starving Education
Demands Rapid Rescue
To Save A Generation

Party-Cults Offer ONLY Futility of Fight-Back.

Tax cuts for billionares and budget cuts for schools, the new American way? Photo Courtesy: Kiwanis Club of Richmond, Kentucky

(SALEM) - Always liked breakfast pancakes from mix, adding only water --the demanded solvent-- to traditional ingredients. Makes fine-tasting, nutritious results without fail. A little dry, but edible.

Then, I learned that `butter and syrup" are also mandatory elements. Now we`ve got something worthy of not just eating, but enjoying.

For school-kids, `butter and syrup" is far beyond what they receive: extreme-minimum course-list and overcrowded classes, overwhelmed teachers.

That universal political solvent --MONEY !!-- has been stolen from the essential process-mix in Oregon for twenty years.

Dollars-deposited from respected, protected, relied-upon corporate sources nationwide are long-gone, long-time, in Oregon. Those rate have been slashed regardless of consequences.

Corporate tax payments since late-70s: DOWN 71 Percent.
$1.8 BILLION, UN-collected in this budget-cycle.
Total since 73/`75 is $10.9 BILLION.
(Documented by OCPP (5/27/05)

That`s damage-done by constantly-escalated `tax breaks".

By 2009-11 it will continue to RISE, reaching $15.2 BILLION.

Unless some courageous leader tells the truth to the people; AND we `tell the truth" to Governor AND Legislature: "WE STILL RUN OREGON !"

Strong math, science, and foreign language(s) are ever more essential elements in all education. Oregon kids are deprived, deeply distorting their lifetime opportunity. Oregon children overwhelm short-funded, larger-classroom schools everywhere, frustrating struggling teachers.

Education`s funding-mix, heavily dependent on two `solvent"-sources, has been whisked away by Washington propaganda. D.C. that is, NOT `due-North".

These malign, massive Norquist/ATR/Bush impacts come by intentional manipulation, targeting legislators surrounded by corporate-delivered `winged-contributions --ready to fly away".

Read those taxes-uncollected numbers-above to see why: Disastrously demonstrated nationally by manipulations in other states, dollar-depleted `decisions" are mirrored in Oregon. But with even deeper depths of deprivation for our kids and other citizens.

WE are the ONLY state with the now-notorious `Kicker" killing off nationally recognized `solvent"-sources. WE are lowest-line on corporate tax payment summaries.

Then there`s Enron-PGE: Piles of pelf from tax-payments never delivered to the legal agencies, while Enron-time `veteran execs" are deeply rewarded.

(Many other factors are too complex and demanding for any single Op Ed. Watch for rest of this series.)

Personal and corporate Oregon tax-inputs have been slashed into ridiculous `thin-gruel" for our kids. `Butter-and-syrup"-solvent drained leaves small nutrition.

No matter how-cooked, this mix won`t ever fatten up to fry-right.

Every conscientious Oregon corporate leader is now clearly aware --and wise ones are working to offset-- corpulent conditions creating consternation. Long-lasting destructive debacle is unavoidable without mutual cooperative action soon.

The kids are clearly not only `very thin" educationally, but also hunger for real, rational and robust feeding. Surely that`s their Constitutional right in any civilized, rational, responsible Oregon. Courts in many states have made that clear across this land of ours.

Oregon Moms and Dads --and 16 school boards scattered across the entire state --now seek TWO BILLION DOLLARS in legal action threatening solid, sure impact on that lack of `both butter-and-syrup": Constitutionally-promised on the public record by special-Commission study set up by these same Legislators.

Same ones too mystified by corporate-tax/cutters to care for our kids since the early-`70s.

Revolting rational fact made clear in the suit and the Legislature`s own Commission report: The TWO BILLION deprivation-charged is ONLY for biennium under examination. Measured over the manipulated-years, the maximum-loss measures nearly ONE TRILLION.

(Guess who gets to pay THAT Piper`s-bill for this long-time Legislative Dunce`s dance !!!)

That is massive, manipulated, maximum deprivation deceptively driven by desperately distorted Legislative decision; done very deliberately by those determined to shape the State to their own interests --at any cost to common community. Many other states have already resolved similar suits and face billions of payout under court-order.

In Oregon, we`ve defied a principle shared in physical and economic worlds: If you remove support from anything it will collapse.

Snatch away the solvent and the pancakes won`t mix right; you get desert-dry dust, defying even desperate appetite.

Our Legislature --now manipulated by `yak-yak" and `fight back" political cults-- demands a real leader: A Governor who tells it straight from heart-and-head when we need to know `the facts" at `the heart-of-the-matter".

Obfuscation, equivocation, allegiance PLEDGED elsewhere will never serve nor satisfy. Responsible parents know how to discipline and guide even the most recalcitrant and disrespectful offspring; even those who willingly distort the truth and tell you only what you want to hear.

Your best bet for `the paddle" will come soon enough. It is your vote for Governor; use it wisely and well.

OR will you settle for thin-mix, burned pancakes --AGAIN ?

`More of the same - only deeper and dirtier" this time ??