Written by Nick Caraway – 

JJ brought an interesting thing to my attention when she brought up the Jetton bill in her recent post. People usually have thoughtful comments, but i noticed that a lot of people were not fully aware of teachers’ situation. First of all, I’m not for looking a gift horse in the mouth. Getting stuff tax free may not seem like much, but it’s something I guess. These days, we are just happy to get anything we can get our hands on.

Truth be told, a beginning teacher gets a very competitive salary in most urban school districts. Starting pay has nearly doubled in the 20+ years I have been teaching. That probably matches the rate of inflation. The problem comes after that. I have a masters degree. That gets about 1000 a year extra. I also get a small stipend for special education. Add all that up and my pay is not a heck of a whole lot more than it was when I started. I am worlds better as a teacher. I cringe when I think of stuff I did as a rookie. I think any other veteran teacher would say the same. However, I am not going to complain about pay. I live a comfortable life.

One of the things we used to get was a 250 dollar tax rebate on our income taxes for supplies we needed to buy for our job. It didn’t cover everything, but it made a nice dent into it. Teachers usually buy supplies for their students, bulletin boards, posters, and occasionally buy supplies for actual teaching. Sometimes budgets allow for these things, but they never go far enough and you often have to go through mountains of red tape just to get simple supplies.

If you are a parent you have noticed what some call compliance creep in the business. Every year we get the list for supplies from our daughter’s teachers. Every year the list grows and becomes more expensive. Most years we end up spending more than 100 bucks for the supplies. Many families can’t afford that. Unfortunately, that’s one of the reasons why the bill is so high. More than half of what we buy doesn’t go to our daughter. It goes to the other kids. If you have kids you’ve probably noticed the same thing. Teachers ask for kleenex, dry erase markers, multiple notebooks, pens, pencils, and paper. Some of these things are used by students. Most are used by the teachers or other students.

This is part of the hidden cost of bringing kids back to school. They provide us with the worst hand sanitizer money can buy. So, most teachers supply their own. You also have other associated costs with keeping classrooms safe for students. Some schools can afford that stuff, but many are doing good to remain open. So, the teachers foot the bill or they pass it down to parents that can afford to pitch in.

So, I’m not looking 8.25 percent in the mouth, but it’s also not nearly enough. Maybe the funds going to education in the new stimulus will help. The devil is always in the details and how the money actually gets dolled out. I’m looking forward to seeing how it will impact us in the classroom.

Nick

Okay, would Mitch be saying this is he thought for one minute that Republicans were going to win back the senate?

No, he would not.

Who does he think he’s kidding?  Drained of comity and consent? From a man who held the senate hostage for a year over a supreme court nominee? And then rammed through a last minute appointment for Trump.  Oh, please.  We were there January 6th. We saw scorched earth, compliments of Mitch McConnell.

Dick Durbin responds …

Mitch McConnell is a mean, crooked, desperate old man and losing control of the senate is the worst thing that’s ever happened to him. And he’s going to be cussed meaner if his wife gets indicted.

Here, right here, is what I do not understand about Republicans.

Why does every damn thing have to revolve around taxes?  Here is an article from my local newspaper that publishes 3 or 4 times a week.  This was on the front page and got itself a blue background so everybody could see the hard work of one of the last remaining Republicans in the county is doing in Austin.  I’ll let you read it because it ain’t long.

Whoop-de-damn-do.

First of all, why do teachers have to buy school supplies?  That’s crazy.  We don’t expect government judges to buy their own computers, expect nurses to buy their own syringes, nor do we expect garbage men to buy their own tires for the truck. I know teachers who carry a second job just to be able to afford being a teacher.  We seem to find plenty of money when the Governor wants something.

How ‘bout we pay them a wage commensorate with their education?  Then if you expected them to buy their own supplies, I wouldn’t get so mad.

Sales tax in Texas is $8.25. So yeah, whoop-de-damn-double-do.

Jetton, you are not helping teachers. You are sending yet another message that things do not need to get better for them. 8.25%? Hell, they are supposed to give their church 10%.  I’m talking to you, Jetton, you fund schools or you give teachers a raise but don’t give an 8.25% tax break on spiral notebooks and expect me to tap dance for you.

And by the way, Dude:  How is this “putting more money directly into the classroom?” You’re expecting them to spend more of their own money?

My mailbox is filled with Ted Cruz complaints this morning from all over the country and elsewhere.

The major complaints seem to deal around his book writing hanky-panky.  Ted writes books, uses his campaign funds to advertise those books so people will buy them, and then personally pockets from the profits of those books. You can’t profit from your campaign account.  But, he does. Turns out being a U.S. Senator is a well-paying day job while you actually spend your time working on your writing career.

And, as only the criminal mind of the Zodiac Killer could plot, he may be profiting off a “shadowy” company by using his campaign funds to actually buy his own books and then pocketing the 10 – 15% royalty himself.

One day before the Georgia Senate runoff elections — and two days before the Capitol insurrection — a leadership PAC attached to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a mystery company that had previously bought copies of Cruz’s book, according to recent filings with the Federal Election Commission. The expenses raise questions about whether the controversial conservative senator (and Cancún frequent-flyer) used those political campaigns, and Donald Trump’s attempt to subvert the democratic process, to raise money for himself.

And this ain’t no chump change.  We’re talking $1.2 million.  That pays for Cancun vacations.  The Salon article is long and you might want to keep a pencil and pad close at hand to make notes so you can follow along, but it’s a fascinating look into the minds of people who scam for a living.

And then there’s our friends in Canada —

Thanks to everybody for the heads up. 

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has played Greg-in-the-Box, jumping up and shouting about anything he can think of, to distract from his incompetence during the polar vortex.

His first distraction was to suddenly and unexpectedly “open” Texas by erasing mandatory masks, social distancing at restaurants and bars, and threatening local authorities who felt like it was way too soon.

Well, when he did that his base was happy, but nobody else was.  Even the state’s conservative newspapers shook their finger at him.

And, the attacks on Biden were falling flat.  Biden is a nice guy who can talk in complete sentences even though he stutters, so making fun of him seems almost cruel.  And I think they finally figured out that Obama and Hillary aren’t coming to take their guns, so now the enemy is “the Democrats.”

This Sunday, Abbott went on Fox News and asserted loudly and talking all fast, that Democrats were going to steal votes with cocaine.  Cocaine. Is that still a thing? Maybe it is among Republicans but Democrats can’t afford it.

Now, I’m gonna give you his exact words but when you read it, you have to talk so fast that little spittle things form at the edges of your mouth and occasionally fly off to make a life of their own, and loud. Be loud.

Describing his time as Texas attorney general, the governor then recalled an “amazing story” about vote-buying. “It was Barack Obama himself who knew about the dangers of ballot harvesting in the state of Texas,” he told a credulous Bartiromo. “Because under his administration, he sent his U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas as well as the FBI to south Texas to arrest and to prosecute people who were involved in ballot harvesting that were using cocaine to buy votes through the ballot harvesting process in the state of Texas. It is a way to commit voter fraud and it cannot be allowed.”

Bartiromo exclaimed in response: “This is absolutely extraordinary, governor!”

No, that’s not extraordinary. It’s caca del toro, that’s what it is.

Never happened.  He just made it up because it sounds bad.

I don’t think he’s gonna get much better. Keep your eye on that sucker because he’s gonna try to holler his way to the White House.