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An astounding one-half of all U.S. states now face lawsuits by public schools demanding that judges order an increase in funding. Parents are shocked to learn how much public schools already consume in taxpayer dollars per student, in some states as much as $18,700 per pupil per year. Unwilling to streamline bloated bureaucracies, the public school system demands tax in-creases or bond initiatives to jack up the money flow, but taxpayers are resisting these raids on their pocketbooks So, where can free-spending liberals go to get more taxpayers’ money? They run to lawyers and activist judges to get more money to spend, even though policy and spending decisions and especially tax increases should originate with the legislature. Judges who relish their supremacy over other branches of government are happy to impose their own social theories even if it means over-turning the will of the people. Liberal legislators are inciting these lawsuits nationwide as a way to appease the teachers unions while avoiding accountability. In September, a Texas judge declared the school funding system unconstitutional and threw out state limits on property tax rates. In August, the Spokane Public School Board joined a lawsuit with other Washington State school districts to demand court-ordered funding increases. The school districts hired the law firm of Bill Gates’ father, Preston, Gates and Ellis, to loot the taxpayers for millions of dollars. In New York State, 17 school districts joined the Utica City School District lawsuit, filed in July, to demand that a judge order increased funding. A Utica official said that, without additional funding, 190 jobs would be eliminated. Since when do judges have the authority to raise taxes in order to save teachers union jobs? Since when do judges have authority to raise taxes at all? On April 26, a Massachusetts superior court judge issued a 300-page advisory ruling to dictate the future of education and said that the court would retain jurisdiction to make sure its orders are obeyed. On May 11, a state district judge ordered Kansas to close all its public schools until the state obeys the court’s demand to change the way the tax-payers’ money is spent on education. This ruling is now on appeal. Judges have no competence or authority to run schools, and none of these lawsuits will raise educational standards even if they do raise school income. Litigation to compel increased funding of public schools that stretched over 13 years took the Idaho high court to its breaking point. The Idaho Legislature had passed an unusual statute authorizing judges to raise taxes for schools, an innovative device to enable the legislators to avoid the political consequences of voting to raise taxes. In August, the Idaho Supreme Court stopped this racket by unanimously prohibiting judges from raising taxes for public schools. Hooray for one court that re-cognizes that taxes are an issue to be decided by democratically elected representatives who are accountable to the voters, not by judicial supremacists. |
