Charter schools opposed
Sen. Doug Libla
Poplar Bluff
Dear Editor:
There is quite a stir going on at the state Capitol building lately, in both the Missouri House of Representatives and Senate regarding charter school expansion from St. Louis and Kansas City to all across Missouri.
Recently, Senate Bill 292 “the Charter School bill” was debated, and met with resistance from several bi-partisan senators engaged in a multi-hour filibuster. House Bill 581 “the Charter School bill” vote has also stalled. What has caused this lack of support for charter school expansion in the legislature?
First, let’s examine the dollar cost “per student” of operating charter versus public schools. Because of their comparable student size, Kansas City’s mix of charter and public schools versus Springfield public schools is a good sample. Kansas City has 15 high schools — Springfield has five. Cost per student for building operations and administration in Kansas City is $2,924 — Springfield $1,374. Transportation cost per student for Kansas City is $1,109 — Springfield $446. Overall cost per student in Kansas City is $4,033 — Springfield $1,820. That’s a whopping 55 percent less.
As of now, 27 of 65 authorized Missouri Charter Schools (41.5 percent) have closed their doors. More than $785 million dollars of taxpayer money has disappeared along with those schools. In comparison, there has been one Missouri public school closed by lack of performance, five due to financial issues, and nine schools are “provisionally” accredited for a total of 15 schools out of 517 public school districts (3 percent).
If our public schools achieved the same dismal record of success as charter schools, the outcry all across Missouri would be deafening; we would have closed 214 public schools. A 41.5 percent failure rate is unacceptable to consider any expansion of statewide charter schools.
Electric vehicle subsidies for the rich
Bert Dirschell
Centertown
Dear Editor:
Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-MI, and Lamar Alexander, R-TN, are pushing to expand the federal subsidies for electric vehicles (rich men’s toys).
Seventy-eight percent of the taxpayers who received the EV tax credit in 2016 had at least a six-figure income. Tesla’s customers have an average annual income of $293,000. Less than one percent of EV credits went to households earning less than $50,000.
The cruel joke on taxpayers is these “electric” cars are really fueled mostly by fossil fuels. Sixth-four percent of our electricity comes from burning fossil fuels and another 19 percent comes from nuclear power. (another 6.6 percent comes from wind and 1.6 percent from solar).
The $7,700 EV tax credit was supposed to start phasing once a manufacturer had sold 200,000 EVs. GM and Tesla have already reached the 200,000 threshold. Stabenow and Alexander, and others who have been bought by the EV industry, want to remove the cap on subsidies. Even without removing the caps subsidies would still cost taxpayers $7.5 billion from 2018-2022.
What is even worse is that the self-serving DC scum don’t even have the guts to increase taxes to pay for this handout to the rich. They will fund it with more debt piled on future generations.
Write your Missouri senators and representatives and let them know that you don’t want more debt piled on your children so that the feds can hand out free stuff to the rich.