I warned you months ago when council members began discussing another income tax increase to support public safety that it was all a ruse to get more money in the City's coffers to use for other purposes just like the 2007 public safety tax ploy. Indianapolis Star political columnist Matt Tully is all giddy because of a deal brokered between the council and the administration to spend $20 million on pre-K education over the next five years, which supposedly will be matched by another $20 million from the business community.
The City doesn't have money to fix pothole-filled streets, broken sidewalks, neighborhoods without sidewalks or streetlights and so on, but it finds money to create a massive new spending program that it is not even required by law to fund. The new money was found by "scouring" the budget according to Tully. The program, which supposedly targets low-income families, never really made much sense since the federal government already provides 100% of the funding to those families for Head Start so now we learn that low-income standards will be relaxed to allow more to participate in free pre-K education.
Christmas is coming early to the Tully household this year. All of that lobbying for pre-K education will lead to a big bonus for his wife, who is a corporate executive at Eli Lilly and president of the Day Nursery, which is expected to be the biggest beneficiary of the new spending, the driving forces behind the initiative. Don't believe a word of their hype, Seizing control of IPS school board and lining up new spending on pre-K education has nothing to do about improving the quality of education; it's all about funneling your tax dollars into the pockets of the education profiteers and the media whores like Tully who pine for them.
I'm not sure how this point could seem to be so lost on you. To the people moving the money around, Pre-K education IS a public safety issue. To their minds, they're reducing the number of adorable black toddlers who will grow into vicious thugs.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with you that the motives are insincere and the plan, in the long-run, will leave many other important problems neglected, you have to admit, if they're going cloak their money-grabbing behind something, they can't do better than the pretense of helping toddlers. I don't think you're going to change anything by arguing that those who fall into this "think about the children" trap (myself included) are somehow being fooled, as your headline implies. Ultimately, the kids will get something out of the deal, even if the profiteers get more, and the rest of us get less. Who would want to take the little the kids do end up with away from them?
Most of the kids they claim to want to help have already been eligible for Head Start for the past 50 years. Who do you think attends Head Start? Go look at the inner city teens who turn into career criminals and you will find that most of them grew up in single-parent households who sent them to Head Start. They want to expand participation in existing federally-funded Head Start program. Think about that. Follow the money.
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