President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

debate meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

 

RFK also believes Wi-Fi causes cancer and vaccines cause autism. The guy is certifiable.

 

More labor abuse, of a 20-year employee and -- imagine that -- head of the engineers union when NJT engineers are asking for a raise. Another friend, retired, was head of the local BLE. You can't spell "insubordinate" without T-R-A-I-N:

James P. Brown, general chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and a veteran engineer, was fired by NJ Transit, officials said.

“Mr. Brown was dismissed and currently has an appeal pending, awaiting arbitration,” said Jim Smith, an NJ Transit spokesperson. No other details were provided.

Brown, who has worked as an NJ Transit locomotive engineer since 2002, told NJ Advance Media he was dismissed for “insubordination” late last year. He said he was deemed insubordinate because he refused NJ Transit’s request to write a letter in June 2022 to union members advising them to come to work on the Juneteenth holiday."

 

RFK is rolling over in his grave, you hope.

I do wonder how JFK/RFK would’ve evolved as politicians in later years. Maybe they’d be in the Trump mold. Maybe they’d moderate a bit, like Teddy.

 

If Garland was the Secretary of Defense the Red Army would be marching up Pennsylvania Avenue.

 

At least some nice music would be playing.

 

Gov. Greg Abbott vetoes more than 70 bills amid property tax impasse

Here's another one where Abbott is going to screw things up. They're trying to drastically cut/get rid of property taxes, as Republicans have never met a tax cut they don't like. Property taxes are the way most schools are funded, as they are a consistent amount and don't fluctuate with the economy. Education advocates are afraid that their funding and the quality of education in the state will suffer as a result. The biggest beneficiaries of that tax cut would be large corporations (mostly oil and timber interests) and wealthy people with large land holdings.

Alabama has the second lowest property taxes in the nation. Our schools are ranked in the 40's of 50, depending on the methodology. Sales tax in Birmingham is 10% and includes groceries and prescription drugs. Texas educators *should* be afraid. If a replacement funding mechanism is not fully in place - not a plan, but committed funds - they'll be fighting for funding from then on. Stupid idea. In a general sense, you can pull up a list of the states with the lowest property taxes and a list of the states with the lowest ranking elementary/secondary schools and there's a fairly obvious correlation.

Hawaii, for instance, has the lowest property tax percentage in the nation - but the average home cost there is over $600k, which allows the total dollars collected to offset it.

Lowest property tax Educational rankings

Hawaii 21
Alabama 41
Colorado 16
Louisiana 48
South Carolina 49
Delaware 22
West Virginia 44
Nevada 42
Wyoming 43
Arkansas 27
Utah 10
Arizona 38
Idaho 47
Tennessee 39

Texas is currently at 28 per the source I'm using. Obviously, Hawaii, Colorado, Delaware, and Utah have funding in place other than property tax or other educational boosters.

Sources used to knock this together quickly - no extensive research:
15 US States with Lowest Property Taxes in 2023 (msn.com)

The Best and Worst States for Education 2022 - Intelligent (Using the overall ranking)

 

No property tax. No state income tax. Those Texas sales taxes are going to skyrocket.

 

They'll just cut funding on virtually everything the state does. You know, stupid shit like roads, schools, all that shit. They want guvvmint completely out of the operation of schools. With vouchers they can just hand all the tax money to Billy Bob's Babtist Bible Academy.