Thanks Obama
Tennessee has a school district that shut down. Closed the doors. Turned out the lights. Made themselves gone.
Because … Obamacare. Yep, that’s it. The head of the school district explains —
“Clay County’s inability to generate the revenue to offset the mandates is what’s caused this to come to a head,” he said. “The straw that broke the camel’s back was really the Affordable Care Act for us and it has made it very difficult for us to have our employees properly covered and meet the mandates of the law.
One of the reddest counties in the state can’t afford to provide health insurance for their teachers.
Well, that’s not exactly true. They can. They just don’t want to.
County Commissioner Parrish Wright contends that the district does have enough funding to get through the end of the school year and officials could take up the issue later if the tax referendum doesn’t pass.
Hush, now, Commissioner Wright. We wouldn’t want people to know that it wasn’t Obama’s fault.
Maybe y’all would go to the town square and wait for money to trickle down on you.
Thanks to Larry for the heads up.
And yet other school districts, including some in Tennessee, have managed to stay open. Gee, I wonder what makes your district different, County Commissioner Parrish Wright?
Incompetence?
Just out of curiosity, how did they manage to have their employees properly covered before the mandate? Warm blankies? Or possibly the same thing they cover mushrooms with?
1http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/mushroom_management_mushroom_theory_of_management
Nothing that a Republican such as Ben Carson couldn’t fix by giving the head of Clay County’s school district a brain transplant.
Or maybe just have him sit in one of his districts 4th grade math classes for awhile until he learns how to add and subtract.
2Reminds me of this:
“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.” — Stephen Colbert
I don’t accept that this is a “Christian nation,” but a lot of people who do seem to have trouble with significant and even emphasized parts of what Jesus said his followers should do for others.
3If they can blame anything on Obama they will. Racism is rampant in this country. He is rudely a Democrat, too.
4What is it about counties named “Clay” today? Two stories, back to back, about two different counties in two different states – both named Clay.
Might that be that there’s a conspiracy to call certain counties by certain names as a dog-whistle, “Morons! Come here!”
5This is, as usual, rationalization vs rationality. His ilk will never understand the difference.
6Maybe they should not pay such a high salary to town clerk like Kim Davis. And help keep their school open, unless they really prefer their children to be DUMB.
7What a pile of bullsh**!
8In too many districts teachers take the “vows of poverty” to teach. So TN wants to add bartering with chickens for their health care to the teacher load. Up next, hope they are invited to a student’s home for dinner or don’t eat. There’s always the Kansas plan; replace certified teachers with anyone who walks through the door.
9PKM, I can remember when anyone who walked through the door turned out to have a criminal background that was completely NOT checked out. And he took a teaching job I was to have.
10Wanna see a Red head really explode? Imagine one really believing Ben Carson could be President. They accept him as part of the Clown Car (bus?) for now, in order to pretend they’re not racists, but if everyone else dropped out, they wouldn’t know whether to crap or go blind. He’d be a GOP Obama and half the party would abandon ship.
11Teachers and custodial staff — which may be the same people — are the ones who are hurt the most. No jobs. No health insurance coverage. But lets not cry for the children. They are released into the real world and probably will do no worse than they would do with an education from what is apparently a junk school district. Plenty of those kids will have the chance to read books that are not available to them at school, to get jobs that are menial but puts change in their pockets, and to escape what is undoubtedly a serious brain-washing effort by the local district.
12It’s a damned shame when politics screw the future of children, whether it’s schools, food, safe water, healthcare, or any other damn thing that’s become a political football in this country!
Those parents who vote these vermin into office at all levels should be on their prayer bones right now, begging forgiveness for being the dumbest sons ‘o bitches in the country. They are loading their children with burdens they can’t carry, and it makes me sick.
13“[T]he Affordable Care Act for us and it has made it very difficult for us to have our employees properly covered and meet the mandates of the law.”
My takeaway from this is that, previously, the school district was purchasing low-cost sh*tty policies for their employees, policies that don’t meet the minimum standards required for by the ACA; e.g., policies in which a big chunk of the premiums went into the insurance company’s profits rather than for medical care.
14@TheoLib
15My thought as well. After ACA the district’s insurance plan was non-conforming and they are too cheap to bring policies up to the impossibly high standards of ACA. :}
And the totally sad part of this is that faced with their total lack of care of others and their displayed incompetence they will probably be re-elected or at least some form of clone will be elected by the people they are screwing! And the people then complain that the socialists are hurting them!!!
16I met here in NC a bright RED dude who complained that the ACA caused him to loose the very bad insurance that his bright RED employer refused to upgrade.
I swear Clay County sounds like Alabama where there are public schools that try to raise enough money to pay the electric bill and buy bathroom tissue! Minimum wage and BELOW is the story in most of Alabama in order, so the state says, to keep businesses like foreign car companies in the locality. And ‘cuz all the peons are paid so low there is no use in going in their direction for tax $$, and the businesses are sacrosanct, the entire state suffers needlessly. ‘Course, raising that minimum wage to a living wage would make a Red state commie libtard! Oh, and making sure the ones who suffer the most from all this can’t get a break on obtaining the type of ID the state demands for voting goes a long way towards keeping the same old same old. Utter and complete shame on ‘Bama!
171. I don’t blame the school board. They note that their county – which is in the heart of Appalachian poverty – has the 7th highest property rate in the state already. There really is a point at which you can raise taxes too high, albeit it’s a lot higher than most republicans believe.
2. I believe the state’s to blame for not funding education and keeping the whole state barefoot and pregnant. THERE’S NO STATE INCOME TAX, and they’re proud of that.
3. OF COURSE, like Kim Davis, he’s a democrat. It’s the south. It’s a civil war thing. Republicans freed the slaves, democrats were pro-slavery, and that means your daddy, his daddy, and thus you, are a democrats.
18@Wyatt Earl
With all due respect, of course you blame the school board. They were elected and tasked with providing education to the little mushheads in their jurisdiction. To not do so and yet nor resign is woefully immoral. School districts, fire districts, and police and perhaps others cannot walk away from their responsibility. Tax rate is only part of the issue. The district needs to timely bill property owners and timely collect from those same property owners.
Here again is an example of the utter myopia of the Tea Party and their billionaire overlords. In the end, an educated society is a wealthier society, including the billionaires.
Gawd I hate the Tea Party for killing the GOP and hiding the body.
19Since other school systems are functioning, did he just admit that He is incompetent???
20Of course, MICR, what you say about the tea party is correct, but the Board can’t squeeze blood/turnip, etc. This is Appalachia. People have no money. There is no capital for anybody to start a business. There are no jobs with decent wages. The school board would have to tax the poverty stricken to help the poverty stricken. This is a problem all over the state, and if Nashville and Knoxville and Memphis won’t invest in these rural communities, then they can at least be taxed enough to let the state fund education.
21@Wyatt Earl
Texas, a larger state, tried the Robin Hood beginning about 1992 or 3. Same idea, take some of the tax revenues from property rich school districts and give it to property poor districts. It was reviled by property rich districts. After all they had McMansion sized football stadiums to build.
Eventually the Texas Supremes were presented with a suit that alleged the Robin Hood provisions amounted to an unconstitutional State Property Tax and Robin Hood was dismantled.
I see nothing wrong with a State funding education, but if that becomes the reality, any “local control” will go as well. Seems to me these Tea Partiers would rather have the sh*t end of the stick than lose their gawd-given local control.
But then I’m just a curmudgeon that thinks all education should be free and available to students regardless of age, etc.
22Micr, you socialist! Next you’ll be saying we should have a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people”. Oh… wait…
23Folks, this is a load of Do-Do Del Toro. It’s a power-play with uncertain goals. Is it to destroy the local teacher’s union? Maybe.
Is it to force the state to take over funding schools? Possibly.
Is it to drive out schools altogether in this region, and eliminate property taxes? It could do that.
What it is NOT is a rational response to a crisis situation.
24