MATC Tax is an Investment

By Robert Miranda
5/30/06

This article is from WisOpinion.com The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com

MILWAUKEE -- Recently, the MATC board voted to increase the tax levy by 5%.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tried to sensationalize the news by placing the story on the front page of the newspaper. The first part of the paragraph of the article read, “…the school's tax levy 5% in the coming fiscal year, outpacing inflation and contradicting the growing anti-tax sentiment in the state.”

The “growing anti-tax sentiment”? From whom? Right-wing talking heads on radio?

The right-wingers are in an uproar over this increase, because it’s a political issue they know they’re able to easily argue and encourage public dissent. It’s an issue that radiates with property owners’ suffering from increased costs of living and decreasing retirement benefits.

The anti-tax fringe groups are quick to jump on this elementary and simplistic argument because it plays to the public’s frustrations. “It’s your money!” the right-wing political parrots bellow in unison. “They’re taking your hard earned cash!”

Interesting how that argument failed to materialize when these same right-wing champions of School Choice cheered increasing Milwaukee property taxes to support that program.

A clear case of hypocrisy is once again showing itself to the public from these anti-tax, pro-corporate welfare jesters of right-wing radio mumbo jumbo.

The fact is this increase is designed to provide for better training and increased opportunities to Milwaukee County workers. The right-wing anti-government “defenders of the American taxpayer” should not stand in the way of the American workers' right to obtain quality training from a quality public institution of learning. Raising public ire about the salaries being paid to faculty members at MATC smacks of elementary knowledge about the field of learning.

To retain and attract the best faculty, institutions must pay top dollar if they want to be the best. Right-wing conservatives argue that paying these kinds of wages in public schools is wasteful, especially when these schools are located in areas that teach large numbers of poor and working class students.

But then, in the view of the right-wing, taxes should only be issued when right-wing political hacks and their allies on radio have the say as to who will get our tax dollars—police unions, any chamber of commerce and large corporations.

Look at this example: right-wing conservatives stay relatively silent when police union members get paid while suspended for an infraction. They fail to make a long and draw-out issue regarding the political power of the police union and its influence within the Republican Party. Right-wing talking heads shrug their shoulders and utter a small sentence of dismay at police and corporate corruption. They fail to rant and rave for weeks at the top of their lungs, and fail to produce radio commercials blasting corruption and injustice whenever a strong conservative Republican-leaning institution shows itself to do the same zany and wacky things they accuse unions and Democrats of doing with our tax dollars.

To be sure, if the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, or for that matter WEAC, did even a third of what the Milwaukee Police Association members get away with, teachers all over Wisconsin would be attacked by right-wing bloggers and radio pea brains, because as they would have us all believe, the teachers’ union, supported by the Democratic Party, can do whatever it wants.

Right-wing pundits talk from both sides of their mouths when it comes to “protecting the taxpayer.'' It’s not about taxes; it’s about politics.

The GOP and its right-wing nation of conservative parrot-zombies complain about education tax increases, because education unions are generally not a major contributing part of the GOP political machine. Right-wingers yelp like a small poodle when the police union pulls a silly stunt, i.e. demanding to get paid for simply putting on their uniform. Seldom does one witness an all-out attack against the police union by right-wing radio. That ferocity they employ while assailing pubic school teachers and the education unions is lacking when it comes to tax dollars being wasted and misused by political groups friendly to the GOP.

The 5% tax increase at MATC equals pennies on the dollar. The investment we make to MATC comes back to our society when the students who benefit from this increase are put to work after being trained with the skills employers need. These students are trained by some of the most professional craftspeople our community has produced.

This increase is an investment for our community and our future. As much as these right-wing hypocrites pushed for our community to invest in School Choice, they should be equally excited to invest in MATC.

--Miranda is a national award winning columnist, Latino community activist and publisher of the Milwaukee Spanish Journal. E-mail: rmiranda@wi.rr.com

Editorials on this issue:

From JSOnline:

Michael Nee, West Bend

Jim Gribble, Director Public Relations, MATC