In Alabama "Black voters help defeat Amendment One"

[jody]

Black voters help defeat Amendment One
QUOTE
To the surprise of many politicians, area precinct totals suggest that black voters like their white counterparts overwhelmingly rejected the tax plan pushed by Riley.

Almost all of the voters who cast their votes at Benjamin Davis Elementary in Decatur are black, but 70 percent of the precinct's voters rejected Riley's plan.

Of those casting votes at Cashin Homes Center, another predominantly black precinct in Decatur, 63 percent opposed Amendment One.
UNQUOTE

Alabama voters don't trust politicians with a ballot statement that says more taxes "may be used to fund programs including, but not limited to, the furtherance of excellence in public education,".

For those of you from other states who have been so sarcastic in condeming Alabama voters for rejecting "Riley's Tax Package", there is much more to the issue than what you might have gotten from the national media.

[goobergunch]

1. "More to the issue".

I'm open...what's there that I haven't heard?

[jody]

2. What have you heard? eom

[goobergunch]

3. That the economy is horrible in AL,

that the state's tax system is the most regressive in the country, and this proposition helps fix those two things. Also, that the fundies are ticked at Riley because of his support for the proposition.

[jody]

5. OK, and my reply is

"economy is horrible in AL", absolutely and it is among the hardest hit in the US.

"state's tax system is the most regressive in the country", absolutely but the proposed changes did not eliminate that condition. In fact, Riley's web site carried a study showing that after AWOL's tax cuts are considered, the income tax burden for his tax package would be completely on:

Single taxpayers, no children, gross incomes between $30,000 and $75,000,
Single taxpayers, 1 child, gross incomes between $50,000 and $75,000,
Married taxpayers, no children, gross income $50,000,
Married taxpayers, 1 child, gross income $50,000.

Amendment One was very complex including a bill that would have copied Texas' lead in making it very easy to fire tenured teachers in k-12.

True the fundies are ticked, but the biggest concern among voters in my area was the lack of detail about how our broken education system will be fixed.

[goobergunch]

6. Interesting... (n/t)

[AP]

8. Unfortunately, it would have been easier to fix the education system

this bill would have broken than it will be to ever move toward progressivity.

The progressivity was the real money loser for big business. That's why they probably made sure the education bill was part of the plan.

Perhaps it was lose-lose, but it's really really unfortunate that this didn't win. Can you imagine if it had gotten through. It almost certainly would have improved the economy. That's not a lesson most Republicans would want you to learn.

[jody]

9. Excellent point re tax increase helping economy. We have AWOL on one

hand saying a tax cut helps a growing economy and one nearing a depression and a Rep governor saying a tax increase is necessary.

The governor managed to offend every big power group among businesses, forestry, and agriculture by having his tax package prepared by his personally selected group of CEOs and then demanding that the legislature and voters take it all are none.

As my friend Forrest said, "stupid is, as stupid does"

[AP]

11. Tax increase or decrease, no matter what, the key is to have a

progressive tax code.

[sendero]

4. my take...

... is that the main issue was that the new funds were not specifically earmarked for a specific purpose, i.e. education.

People have been burned this way before - ask a lot of Texans how they feel about the lottery revenues going into the general fund when it was *sold* as being for education.

Sadly, Alabama really needed that $$ and so now there will be huge cutbacks. What are you gonna do?

[jody]

7. I hope the pols and educators will get together and cut waste and come

up with solutions to our problems. The children suffer and all the pols and educators do is cry "more money". In fact, there is no significant correlation between the amount of money spent per student and student performance on tests, about .09.

[AP]

12. Where did you get this statistic. I'd love to read that study.

Obviously, so much of government these days is just crony socialism for the wealthy and well connected.

I'm sure school districts weren't interested in buying thousands of urine test kits until some well-connected, ethically casual Republican figured out that it was easier to have a legislated market for your product than it was to actually have to develop, produce and market a product wich the public wanted to buy.

I'd love to see schools cut out waste like that. However, the idea that buying more books, hiring better teachers, feeding kids better meals, teaching kids in buildings which say to them that you care about their safety, and having more extracuricular activities (which all cost money) DON"T contribute to better students is beyond belief.

[shatoga]

10. Devil is in the Details

It was a "pig-in-a-poke"
Vote yes or no without being allowed to read the entire amendment.

Take the word of a governor who won via one county "correcting the results" by giving all Libertarian votes to the Republicans.

Take the word of a Governor who cut a deal:
Greater restrictions re Voter ID
Non violent Felon Voter Rights Restoration
He agreed to both as a package.
Signed the restrictions/ vetoed the Voter Rights Restoration.
Riley proved he couldn't be trusted to keep his word.

The previous Governor had fixed the education funding problems and left a modest surplus for Riley.
Riley spent with both hands during his first months in office;
then turned around and began crying for more.

Far more than the projected deficit.
$400 million more than the projected deficit.

Riley can't be trusted!

Voters rejected the "pig-in-a-poke" that Riley didn't trust them enough to let them know what the entire package said in total.

I wouldn't buy a used car from Riley,
but he wanted to raise taxes 1.2 billion without any guarantee that even a single penny would go to education.

[w4rma]

13. IMHO, it was too big, too complex and offered too many targets (n/t)

[lcordero]

14. Dissect this statement for a second

These are politicians talking:
"may be used to fund programs including, but not limited to, the furtherance of excellence in public education,".

"may be" really means "will most certainly not"
"but not limited to" means that they reserve the right to use the money anyway they see fit.

I see it the way that they do, I will not tolerate any "semantics" or "wordplay".

On edit: I despise people who wave carrots in front of somebody and have ABSOLUTELY no intention of giving them the carrot no matter how much the person bends backwards trying to earn it.