I recently heard Bill Sizemore, the self proclaimed taxpayer advocate, on the best radio talk show in Oregon to tout his new initiative for 1998. Dan Carlin was way too congenial with this right wing, ideological sleazebag. Less than 3 minutes into the interview Sizemore was busy bashing public employee unions, blaming them for the funding problems. He is one of many phony "free market" advocates whose sole purpose is to promote competition for the profitable and less troublesome areas in which government uses taxpayer dollars to provide services.
Unfortunately, NONE of the school voucher programs force private schools to lower admission standards to compete for the high cost "problem" children and/or their families. The fact is that sometimes as little as 5-10% of the children can take up over half or more of a school's resources; the very same children and families that the private schools screen out. No wonder private enterprise is so much more cost efficient! I actually heard an interview with the superintendent of the private school that Sizemore's kids attend. He freely admitted that he had a distinct advantage over public schools in that they don't have to deal with the "problem" kids. How quaint? While teachers routinely dip into their personal finances to pay for resources to improve their teaching, Sizemore is out union bashing and promoting schemes to allow private schools to skim the cream off the public schools enrollment - along with sizeable revenues. I'll gladly race any NASCAR driver and his machine through any large [100k or larger] city: I pick the time, they obey all the traffic rules - I get an exemption, and I pick the routes for both of us. So much for "competition".
The reality of Sizemore's "government spending limitation" measure is that there are 2 [not one] bottomless pits in government spending: schools AND prisons. In order to meet the mandates of the mass incarceration measures - which were not opposed by our so called "taxpayer advocate", despite the fact that the price tag was grossly underestimated to the point of fraud - simply huge expenses will have to be made to build and maintain jails and prisons. There is another measure that would not only ease this mandate but provide additional tax revenue that Sizemore will not support: The Oregon Cannabis Tax Act. Just as private schools and private business which desire "competition" for taxpayer money pick and choose which business they will service, Sizemore picks and chooses which types of government spending he will speak out against and which remedies he will promote. He is nothing more than a pompous fraud!
2/19/97
