Sunday, March 11, 2007

Bob Van Velkinburg Says: Utah has the best legislators that money can buy

Hopefully, within the next few weeks someone will contact you and ask you to sign a referendum petition to repeal HB148.

Sign it!

HB148 is the legislation recently passed in the last session that would use taxpayer money for parents who want to send their children to private schools. It is not my purpose to discuss here the many things that are bad about vouchers but I would like to zero in on this question.

Why would so much money be spent on this voucher issue? It is estimated that almost $500,000 was spent by people and organizations who favor vouchers.

Even more curious is why would an organization based in Wisconsin called "All Children Matter" want to spend $290,000 of their money to support this issue in Utah? Of course this organization is heavily funded by the Wal-Mart and Amway Heirs but what dog do they have in this fight?

Then there is the local Utah organization called "Parents for Choice." They paid back the Republican Party $70,000 for the cost of their dirty tricks flyers. Another $110,000 in direct contributions to their candidates. Parents For Choice PAC shelled out $58,000 to their picked candidates. Another $58,000 to elect their School Board candidates.

So you can see why Utahns can say with some degree of pride, "We have the best Legislators that money can buy."

Go to www.utahnsforpublicschools.org for more information.

Bob Van Velkinburgh

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are a lot of good people watching the voucher legislation in Utah, let us hope that it passes to give parents a greater voice in their child’s education.

Anonymous said...

I fail to see why parents did not have a voice or "choice" before the voucher bill was passed.
You have not been able to come up with any points or facts about "choice". The reason is because parents did have a choice before. Vouchers are about ripping off the middle class taxpayers.

Anonymous said...

Richard,

Vouchers are empowering moms like me to provide an education for my child

Anonymous said...

Anonymous #2 -

"Vouchers are empowering moms like me to provide an education for my child"

Oh GAG. You have got to be kidding me. Like there wasn't anything before now? Good luck with that whole line of thinking. It smacks of "I would never get ahead without this government program" -- if that's what you're saying, then you are admitting that it is AOK for taxpayers to fund your private choices.

What in the hell is conservative about that?

Anonymous said...

It’s a simple matter of choice and freedom.

You believe in the re-distribution of wealth via our tax dollars for education.

I believe that parents know better than school officials on how those tax dollars should be spent – hence vouchers.

For example, if we put with every child a voucher, what ever school we send that child too (public or private) that school gets the money that is ear marked for that child.

That way, we can apply free market methods to our educational systems, successful schools will prosper, unsuccessful schools (and teachers) will be done away with and hence, the free market system works and parents have a greater choice in education and how their tax dollars are spent.