Drowned in a Bathtub

Paying taxes is one of life’s certainties. Everyone of us pays something and most of us grumble as we do. An invisible entity is taking something from us that we worked hard to earn and it is natural to feel animosity. The only thing that may be worse is alimony.

Like a magician performing a sleight of hand trick, there are ideologues who need us to focus on these negative feelings. They hypnotize the electorate with a constant claim that taxes are too high despite the reality that federal taxes on the middle class are at record lows. Politicians play along and sign pledges not to raise taxes that then result in decisions that are best for their cause rather than the country as a whole. All the while, their real goal is to shrink government “to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

This strategy fails because deep down most of us know that taxes are a necessary evil. It is the way we pay for the government services that we depend on. Without taxes and fees, how could the government have built the roads that we travel? Who would employ the soldiers that protect our country and the police that protect our homes? How would we guarantee that all children have the opportunity to be educated?

There is little in our country’s budget that is not considered sacred by some interest group. Therefore, cuts are politically impossible to make. At the same time, tax increases have also become impossible to implement. The end result is our federal deficit, which was on full display during the Bush administration.

The years between 1998 and 2001 were four of the twelve years since 1940 that our country has actually posted a budget surplus. The events of 9/11 helped to change that because of both the economic consequences and the resulting war in Afghanistan. Like the victim of an unscrupulous used car salesman, Bush then let the neocons talk him to taking the option of a second war in Iraq. Rather than funding these wars with tax increases, we had our taxes cut. This was the first time in history that taxes were cut during war time. The President then expanded Medicare and paid for this new prescription drug plan with general funds that did not exist.

While, the ability to borrow against the full faith and credit of the United States gives the federal government the ability to protect itself against bathtub drownings, local governments do not have this luxury. Proposition 13 limits the ability of the government to raise Californian’s property taxes without regard to need. More recently, a school district in suburban New York finds itself held hostage by a sect of Hasidic Jews who are running the school board not as public school parents but as taxpayers.

East Ramapo Central School District is comprised of two high schools and the middle and elementary schools that feed it. I graduated from one the schools, Spring Valley Senior High, with what I feel was an excellent education, including enough AP and other credits to skip almost one full year of my college education. According to the school district, it was named by Newsweek magazine as one of the top 500 high schools in the country.

Hasidism are an insular branch of orthodox Jews who send their large families to their own yeshivas where they are free to separate the genders, establish curriculum that focuses on religious lessons and limit any secular influence. However, this does not relieve them from the responsibilities of paying hefty property taxes, from which the school district obtains a significant portion of it’s operating budget.

When the Hasidim first started moving into the area the district had a population that could support giving some services, such as busing, to placate the perception that it was unfair to support services that they were not using. However, as their percentage of the population grew significantly much of the middle class population was displaced. Eventually, two-thirds of the students within the district were attending nonpublic schools. Conditions were ripe for a showdown.

Special education was the issue that finally caused a schism. By law parents are entitled to have the public education system pay for a private school if the public schools cannot accommodate their needs. The Hasidic community tried to use this as a way to funnel tax dollars to the yeshivas by having them handle the education of their special needs children. The school district fought back by stating that they were better equipped to educate these students. Unable to reach a compromise, the orthodox community used their electoral advantage to take control of the school board.

Under the new board drastic cuts were made to the operating budget. The schools’ deans for discipline were all fired, security guards and teachers were cut, the reserve fund was spent and AP classes, sports programs and extracurricular activities were all eliminated. While publicly blaming these cuts on the need to reduce increases in property taxes, the district funnelled additional funds to the private yeshivas including the attempted sale of two school buildings at below market rates.

It is readily apparent that students are already paying the price for this example of governmental homicide. They are unable to enroll in the classes that they need and some are forced to have schedules with multiple lunch periods and study halls. Additional cuts that have been proposed will mean that half of all students will not be able to graduate in four years. Opportunities to explore interests outside of the core curriculum are no longer available.

Society will also pay the price for the district’s slashing of educational spending. Some of the cost will be financial. For example, high school dropouts are more likely to end up in jail or reliant on public assistance. However, the biggest cost may be the lost opportunity for students to realize their full potential.