New Schools and the Taxpayers' Money

Over the past several years, the State of Ohio received its share of the so-called tobacco settlement (shakedown) from the tobacco companies. It was in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and was supposed to be put into a trust fund so that the interest it made could be used for various worthwhile state projects, such as they are. I read in the paper several weeks ago that the fund is now, for all intents and purposes, depleted. The money was spent on school improvements.

I didn’t have to look far to see where the money went. There is new East High School and new Chaney High School in Youngstown. There are several new elementary schools. The old schools have either been sold to charter schools, torn down, or abandoned. This was an investment in education…an investment in the future.

What a crock!!!!!!! Here’s a news flash. If you couldn’t teach these kids in the old schools, you sure as hell won’t be able to teach them in the new schools. The two most glaring examples of this boondoggle approach to education is Volney Rogers Jr. High School in Youngstown, and Warren Harding High School in Warren.

Volney Rogers High School was for all intents purposes “new”. It was only 35 years old and in good condition. It was built on the Westside of town when I was in high school. St. Christine’s Catholic School, right down the street was built at about the same time, and is still up operating just fine…teaching kids the old fashioned way. 2 x 2 still equals 4 no matter what the age of the structure in which it is taught.

What is disturbing is that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the structure that was there. Only in the public sector can a 35 year old building be deemed insufficient to teach the same things they were teaching in one room school houses as late as 70 years ago.

Warren Harding High School is a magnificent structure that couldn’t be duplicated today at an acceptable price even if they tried. Instead of preserving the building, and fixing it up, they are tearing it down, and have built a new Harding High with construction that I guarantee you will be nowhere near the quality of the one that is being torn down. New construction, these days, usually means cheap and shoddy.

The new Chaney High School in Youngstown is 2 years old, and has a feature that the original Chaney did not have… a lock up room that serves as a jail cell to incarcerate violent students while waiting for the police. Although I haven’t seen it for myself, sources tell me that school is fairly beat up for being as new as it is.

Here’s the basic truth. Unless there is discipline and self motivation, you can throw all the money you want at schools, and learning will not improve; not for the students, nor for the government who is wasting your money

Energy Madness

Are you tired of paying $3.60/gal for gasoline? Then you are in luck. Pretty soon you will be paying $4.00/gal. But don’t you worry, Congress is on the job, and has determined the solution is to mandate that 7.5 billion gallons of Ethanol be added to the nation’s fuel supply by 1012, and that starts with “E” and that rhymes with “c” and that stands for corn. So in addition to $4.00/gal gas, you will be paying $8.00 for cereal and $4.00 for bread as farmers plant more corn instead of wheat. Isn’t government wonderful?

Here is the lesson to be learned. Whenever government interferes in free markets, chaos ensues. Now, everybody agrees that some regulation is needed to prevent abuses and fluctuations in free markets, such as banking regulations. But when it involves social engineering resulting from a vocal bunch of whackos who can holler louder than anyone else, stuff happens. Make no mistake about it, environmentalism is not only social engineering, it has become a religion. And for some reason, all of these rules and regs only apply to the United States.

We are the laughing stock of the world as we slowly strangle our economy with environmental regulations that are not only over the top, but off the charts entirely. The surprise isn’t that energy prices are so high, it’s that they aren’t higher. And folks, they are going to the stratosphere unless this country comes to its senses.

Clinton, Obama, and McCain can point their fingers at the oil company “windfall” profits all they want. At the end of the day, they are operating at an 8% profit margin, which is the generally accepted profit margin for most American companies. All of the energy companies have done a miraculous job in provided somewhat reasonably priced energy in the face of regulations that should have put them out of business, and will put us out of business unless they are changed.

Is there anywhere in the United States you can drill for oil either on or offshore? The Chinese are drilling for oil at the limits of Cuba’s territorial waters…taking our oil. Bill Clinton vetoed a regulated plan to allow for drilling in ANWAR 10 years ago saying that it would take 10 years for it to come online and was therefore unnecessary. Well, 10 years is up, and wouldn’t it be nice if it were coming on line now. So much for strategic planning.

Ted Kennedy sued to prevent the establishment of a wind energy farm off the coast of Cape Cod because it would ruin his view. And Al Gore, Mr. Global Warming, is making a fortune trading so called “carbon credits” notwithstanding the reality that more of the earth’s oceans are covered in ice than has been evidenced in the last 50 years and the mean temperature of the earth is actually going down. You think what Enron did was bad? Carbon credits are a fiction on pieces of paper, and you are footing the bill. This is snake oil, folks!! Wake Up America!!!!

When was the last time we built a nuclear power plant? When was the last time we built a refinery? When was the last time we built a hydroelectric dam? Now the whackos are out to stop solar energy farms and wind power farms. To make things worse, we are using food for fuel, which is downright immoral.

When the rest of you are ready to shout “uncle”, let me know. Until then…happy $200.00/barrel oil.