Sometimes you just want to throw a thesaurus at our governor: Galling, appalling, terrible, awful, dreadful, disgusting … ahhh! Ironically, words fail me when I think about what Brad Little is doing to public education in Idaho.
The latest news of Brad Little’s attack on Idaho comes from Idaho Ed News that calculates that families with kids in private and religious schools can have all state taxes offset by money he took from public education. (Yes. Some caveats, but does ANYONE believe they won’t expand this terrible law?)
This is a new financial incentive to send kids to schools where rich folks were already covering tuition just fine. It’s not an accident. Public schools–one of America’s great achievements and best poverty-fighting tools–are being destroyed. And, our Governor claims it is for “freedom.” Understand, when this new breed of Trumpian Republican uses words like “freedom” or “liberty” or “choice,” they mean “Government Control.”
Now, every dollar of the $50 million in the “education freedom” giveaway to private and religious schools comes out of public school funds. It’s more bad news for the majority of us Idahoans who were born with regular old metal spoons in their mouths.
To get a little wonky, the Legislature decided not to cover public school “operational funds” this year. That’s a huge cut to schools that local districts–many of which are rural and poor–will “absorb.” Ask your superintendent if it’s a big deal. They’ll say, “yes,” and bluntly tell you that’s what paid for GOVERNMENT CONTROL … um … or as Brad says, “freedom.”
Of course Brad will lie about it. No one would want it if he told you the truth as in “Hey, this will cripple Idaho schools, destroy dreams and kill rural towns and–but it keeps my party’s zealots from burning down my chances to be re-elected as a feckless puppet of a governor.”
Instead, he says it’s all in the best interests of kids. And he’ll keep signing the most venal legislation that any out-of-state billionaire, gilded think-tank, or raging anti-freedom theocrat shoves through the Legislature.
It’s all bad. Let me say it again, it’s all bad.
It’s government control by an Idaho government that is firmly in the grasp of religious zealots and billionaires–each as rapacious as the other.
I am running for governor because we need someone who not only tells the truth, but who stands up to the liars who are doing our children and our state great harm.
With a nod to Mark Twain, I have this to say about Idaho’s governor: “There are lies, damned lies, and there is Brad Little.”