Bronze Supporter
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i have a simple rule, i vote no on all tax increases irregardless of who gets the money or who pays the money.
+1 amen
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i have a simple rule, i vote no on all tax increases irregardless of who gets the money or who pays the money.
The people that do vote for it are misguided. Just like 66 and 67, where do they really think that 700 million is really coming from? Everyday it seems like they keep voting to raise taxes on something or somebody but it all rolls downhill to the commom people.
I'm sorry but teachers are VASTLY underpaid compared to the time they put into schooling.
I know teachers that have put in 15 years with a masters degree and is making around 50 thousand a year.
They are undermanned and the classes are just getting larger and larger. Their workload is getting bigger and harder, they deserve pay increases IMO.
Public education isn't this cheesecake situation where kids come to school, sit down, pay attention like people seem to think.
It's not the teachers. It's the admin/principals who are bringin in over 100k a year and the football coaches who get 65 grand a year and only teach two classes a day, one trimester a year.
Do I agree with the tax increases? **** no but complaining about the teachers getting a pay raise and benefits is laughable at best.
Do you not realize in some distracts, teachers have actually had their salaries FROZEN and will NEVER count towards their pay, which is based on teaching experience?
I'd like to see some of the people who piss and moan about teachers wanting a pay raise, go in and sit in a classroom with butthole kids 8 hours a day for 50k a year.
It's also ridiculous to think performance pay is an actual answer. Have you even stepped foot into highschool recently? You really think their pay deserves to be dockts because of parenting faults?
Is it their fault when parents don't care about their kids education enough to make them go to school thus resulting in bad grades? Is it their fault that the funding keeps getting cut and they are expected to actually teach in a 50 minute class with 40-60 kids in it?
I dare you to try and teach in a small room that is packed with horny, testostorone filled males that are trying to constantly impress the opposite sex.
Public education isn't education anymore, it's daycare.
Your expectations are absolutely ridiculous.
That picture is more than a little disturbing.
First I have say to I might switch my masters to teaching. Second I disagree with all of the unions and other crap. They are paid well and I did spend a year in a class room with my son. Wasn't bad and about the easiest job I had.
My first real job was in the military and you don't want to compare wages or hours worked there. I would beat the teachers hands down in that area except for pay. I made about 850 every 2 weeks and worked years of 7 days a week for the most part and was in Somalia and Iraq. No holidays for most as the military works around the clock. Did that for 10 years then left
After that I was an journeyman ironworker and worked 6 12 hour days and with overtime I was get close to your mention salary but I had to work 10x's harder for it.
I spent a couple of thousand a year on tools, clothes, boots, and other items. So I don't like hearing teachers complain about buying pencils, paper, or other items.
You know why they don't quit? Because they love the pay and benefits and will not get near that in the private sector.
Ask them for performance base pay and what do you think will happen?
Plus there are many other low wage workers around here that teachers make double what they do and don't work nearly as hard. Look at all the construction, framers, and many others.
I know people who work in drug and alcohol counseling with masters and they make 34,000 with crappy benefits. So don't tell me how hard it is for them.
Teachers have a great job with awesome benefits and I don't want to hear it's for the kids anymore.
Is walking out on strike for the kids? If it is why is the topic always pay raisers and health care? Just something to think about
You "believe" teachers work 200+ days a year? Sorry, the maximum school year in the country is 180 days. Inservice days? Having meetings and seminars, or whatever the heck they do?
kids sure aren't learning anything those days, that's for sure. How about fewer "inservice" days and more teaching days?
The point is, no matter how you stretch it, teachers "work" far fewer weeks per year than any other "full-time" employed people. Whether it's 33 or 34 or 35 weeks a year it's far fewer weeks than the 52 weeks in the "year" of the "they make only $50,000 a 'year'" statement.
And as I said, many teachers work a second job during those many weeks they have off every year, so their income isn't just the $50,000 "a year" (really 7-8 months) you keep quoting.
You act as if people are forced to go into teaching at gunpoint. There is no shortage of people who want to be teachers compared to say, nurses. Obviously college students are looking at what teachers do, what they make, and how many weeks they work in their "year" and are deciding "that's a pretty good deal".
If they were really that "underpaid" no one would be going into that field, there would be a shortage of labor, and wages would rise. That isn't the case, lots of people happy to earn "only" $50,000 to work 33-35 weeks a year. So no tears for them.
When you look at the quality of students competing to get into medical school, law school, dental school, pharmacy school, business school, graduate engineering school, etc. the students going into education at are the bottom in terms of grades and test scores. There is a reason a MBA earns more than someone with a masters in education.
Just because the administrators and principals are even more overpaid (I'm sure principals have the same 33-35 week year that teachers do) than the people doing the real work doesn't mean teachers are underpaid. If they were really underpaid we would be having to import teachers the way we have to import nurses (whom the free market says are truly underpaid, because there is a chronic shortage of them), but we don't. There is no shortage of 2.5 GPA college graduates willing to work 33-35 weeks a year.
You can certainly "feel" or "believe" that teachers are underpaid, and maybe that NBA basketball players are overpaid, but the free market sets wages. If there were lots of people who could play at the NBA level, players would be easily replaceable and couldn't demand high salaries, and incomes would fall. But that doesn't happen, because for all of the guys who would like to play in the NBA, only a tiny percentage can play at that level, so they can demand and get the big bucks.
Meanwhile, there is no shortage of C+ college graduates who can do what teachers do, so they can't demand higher wages, because they are easily replaced by other C+ graduates.
Now, I think all government workers tend to be overpaid, especially in education, because unlike in the private sector there are few consequences for poor performance or failure. In the private sector if an employee doesn't perform they are fired, and if a business can't compete or puts out a shoddy product it goes out of business. A poorly performing company can't just take more money from its customers the way the government can take more money from us in higher taxes.
But the public schools can continue to employ marginal employees and do a mediocre job of their primary mission and yet suffer no consequences.
Most parents have no other choice but public schools to send their kids to, and the public education establishment knows it and wants to keep it that way.
How else could they continue to do a mediocre job, work 33-35 weeks a year, and have high job security until they can start collecting those PERS checks?
Well, the maintenance guy at the apartments where my son lives is an illegal immigrant, and speaks a "little" English. He told my son that he makes $14 per hour and gets a "free" apartment off the books, he's on call for emergency's, and is paid for 50 hours per week, at $14 per hour = $700 a week, plus $560 a month free rent = about $43,120 per year, he's unmarried but claims 12 dependents so pays no taxes, claims all his dependents are in his native country. Now compare that to what we pay the people who teach our kids...............
So an "illegal immigrant" files a w4 and claims 12 dependants? I cant remember the last time I heard of an employer hiring an illegal on the books let alone filing tax forms. If the illegals are filing tax returns they must have a SS# so why is he an illegal getting paid under the table?:huh:
Totally inapplicable scenario there, but no I did not. Some distributors tried to pass on price increases and lost a bunch of business to those that did not. Sysco made out like a bandit because of it. Drivers are the one that suffered the most.
from bugeye:
Socialism is when the people and the government take over private enterprise in order to equalize the distribution of wealth. Since the reverse of that wealth distribution is happening in the US, we are heading toward the state where the goverment and private enterprise cooperate and command the people, it's called fascism, and that is more the direction we we are heading in.
not quite. Socialism is when the government owns and controls the means of production, and distributes the proceeds as IT sees fit.
fascism is when the people own the means of production, but the government controls it and the distribution of the proceeds.....
Proceeds can be in the form of goods, services, or cash.
Bottom line, though, Bugeye, you are right... NEITHER is what we signed up for.
Tea party anyone? That was the response of the Colonists to England's attempts to turn fascist. 'One more "definition" I'll toss into the pot:
tyranny is when those in power rule on the basis of their power and strength. The original construction of our government is that the power devolves from the people, and returns to govern them as THEY see fit.
Now tell me, which of these two patterns is closer to our present reality?
It was the TYRANNY of the British Crown and Parliament the colonists threw off.
can we do it again? WILL we do it again?
Since Socialism was defined in Marx as the transition state to communism equalizing the distribution of wealth was a requirement. Of course, we have democratic socialisms all over Europe and they would fit into your definition. Idea was not to give a lecture on Socialism, just to show that ain't what is happening here.
Your definition of fascism is wrong, where did you get that I know of no example in the entire history of the world that fits your description. For example, Franco's Spain, Hitler's Germany, or fascist Italy were nothing like that, the people didn't own the means of production? This kind of clouding of the meanin of these terms is Beckian in nature, and based on propagating confusion.
The new tea party people are just a corporate plot, as a great man once said about them, "The real Boston Tea Party was not brought to you by the East India Company".
I don't see much Tyranny going on in our current politics, just a highly compromised, corporate dominated, system lead by a Moderate Republican admin, who is fighting uphill battles trying to make tiny, and inadequate, populist reforms. The tyranny that is the most dreadful is the state of mind of most of the posters on this web site. There is nothing more tyrannical than the mind of someone who knows nothing but the lies that some two bit pundit was well paid to feed them, and then acts as if this information is absolute truth. INHO, that fascist state of mind is a necessary prerequisite for real political tyranny. Lets face it a bunch of factless dittoheads, who always agree with each other is the fertilizer required to grow a tyranny.
If Eastern Oregon were a state, it would be one of the poorest in the country. Big-city taxpayers have been subsidizing it for years.
You're kidding, right? Years ago I used to be an auditor for one of the biggest, oldest banks in Oregon. The richest branches per capita, out of more than 100 branches statewide were all in E. Oregon.
The branch in tiny Moro County had an average balance of more that $1 million just in checking accounts!! Can you comprehend that? You have just 300 checking accounts and there's more than $300 million dollars in them!! That's including the ones that have just $200 in them!!
The average balance in all bank accounts in E. Oregon is far higher than Portland which is full of the welfare and crack-head types. Portland is also full of common working people.
Who do you think my wife's family, which owns a 4,000 acre wheat and cattle ranch (free and clear) in E. Oregon subsidizes, anyway?
Do you think some junior public defender who makes a lousy $100k per year "subsidizes" those E. Oregon ranchers? Don't you realize that there are doctors and lawyers and owners of McDonald's franchises etc. in all of those E. Oregon towns too?
Man, I've been reading your posts and am tired of you being so full of yourself. No matter how successful you may become as a lawyer, you'll never have, free and clear, as nice a home and land as my wife and I have down here in the Rogue Valley. I doubt that you'll ever make as much money as my WIFE does, and that's no joke.
30 years from now it may finally dawn on you that you're just one more person trying to negotiate a way through this life. In fact 30 years from now there may be no United States of America as we know it with the opportunities which exist now. We're too busy trying to give it away.
I recommend some humility and thankfulness for what the founders of this nation gave us which makes it possible for you to even be doing what you're doing now. This is a great country, has been a great country, but it won't stay that way if we stay on the road we're on. We will revert to a skeleton just as every other socialized country has done.
You're kidding, right? Years ago I used to be an auditor for one of the biggest, oldest banks in Oregon. The richest branches per capita, out of more than 100 branches statewide were all in E. Oregon.
The branch in tiny Moro County had an average balance of more that $1 million just in checking accounts!! Can you comprehend that? You have just 300 checking accounts and there's more than $300 million dollars in them!! That's including the ones that have just $200 in them!!
The average balance in all bank accounts in E. Oregon is far higher than Portland which is full of the welfare and crack-head types. Portland is also full of common working people.
Who do you think my wife's family, which owns a 4,000 acre wheat and cattle ranch (free and clear) in E. Oregon subsidizes, anyway?
Do you think some junior public defender who makes a lousy $100k per year "subsidizes" those E. Oregon ranchers? Don't you realize that there are doctors and lawyers and owners of McDonald's franchises etc. in all of those E. Oregon towns too?
Man, I've been reading your posts and am tired of you being so full of yourself. No matter how successful you may become as a lawyer, you'll never have, free and clear, as nice a home and land as my wife and I have down here in the Rogue Valley. I doubt that you'll ever make as much money as my WIFE does, and that's no joke.
30 years from now it may finally dawn on you that you're just one more person trying to negotiate a way through this life. In fact 30 years from now there may be no United States of America as we know it with the opportunities which exist now. We're too busy trying to give it away.
I recommend some humility and thankfulness for what the founders of this nation gave us which makes it possible for you to even be doing what you're doing now. This is a great country, has been a great country, but it won't stay that way if we stay on the road we're on. We will revert to a skeleton just as every other socialized country has done.
Obviously Eastern Oregon has plenty of wealthy, successful people - and I applaud the hard work that you and your family have obviously done to get what you have - but it's also the poorest part of the state:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_locations_by_per_capita_income
As far as negotiating my way through life, what in God's name do you think I've been trying to do for the last ~14 years I've been on my own? I haven't been collecting welfare, that's for sure...
I'm very thankful for all of the great things this country offers.
Your personal attacks don't bother me at all. If you think it's arrogant for me to share my personal ambitions, or to have opinions that differ from the norm on here, it's your problem - not mine.