taxes

Make My School a Prison: Michigan School Superintendent’s Letter to Governor

Posted by joe@smartideasonline.com
The letter to the editor below, published by the Gratiot County Herald, makes some extremely good points – especially when comparing the $30,000 to $40,000 spent annually on each of Michigan’s prisoners, to the amount spent each year on school students.

Take a look at the letter, from Ithaca Public Schools Superintendent Nathan Bootz, after the break.  Bravo, Mr. Bootz, Bravo!

Dear Governor Snyder,



In these tough economic times, schools are hurting. And yes, everyone in Michigan is hurting right now financially, but why aren’t we protecting schools? Schools are the one place on Earth that people look to to “fix” what is wrong with society by educating our youth and preparing them to take on the issues that society has created.
One solution I believe we must do is take a look at our corrections system in Michigan. We rank nationally at the top in the number of people we incarcerate. We also spend the most money per prisoner annually than any other state in the union. Now, I like to be at the top of lists, but this is one ranking that I don’t believe Michigan wants to be on top of.
Consider the life of a Michigan prisoner. They get three square meals a day. Access to free health care. Internet. Cable television. Access to a library. A weight room. Computer lab. They can earn a degree. A roof over their heads. Clothing. Everything we just listed we DO NOT provide to our school children.
This is why I’m proposing to make my school a prison. The State of Michigan spends annually somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per prisoner, yet we are struggling to provide schools with $7,000 per student. I guess we need to treat our students like they are prisoners, with equal funding. Please give my students three meals a day. Please give my children access to free health care. Please provide my school district Internet access and computers. Please put books in my library. Please give my students a weight room so we can be big and strong. We provide all of these things to prisoners because they have constitutional rights. What about the rights of youth, our future?!
Please provide for my students in my school district the same way we provide for a prisoner. It’s the least we can do to prepare our students for the future…by giving our schools the resources necessary to keep our students OUT of prison.
Respectfully submitted,

Nathan Bootz
Superintendent
Ithaca Public Schools

Redneck fish story

Posted by joe@smartideasonline.com

A redneck with a bucket full of live fish was approached by a  game  warden in Central Mississippi as he started to drive his boat away from a  lake.

The game warden asked the man, “May I see your fishing license please?”
“WE do, now, do WE?” smirked the warden. “PROVE it!”


The redneck released the fish into the lake and stood and waited.  After a  few minutes, the warden said, “Well?”

“Well, WHUT?” said the redneck.

The warden asked, “When are you going to call them back?”

“Call who back?”

“The FISH,” replied the warden!

“Whut fish?” asked the redneck.

MORAL OF THE STORY:

We may not be as smart as some city slickers, but we ain’t as dumb as some  government employees.

You can say what you want about the South, but you never hear of anyone retiring and moving north.

Canadian Tax Story

Posted by joe@smartideasonline.com
Dear Joe,
I received this from a Canadian friend I made on that Panama Canal cruise Mom and I took. Ed and I had a good time chuckling over the bureaucracies of our countries.
Love,
Dad

At the end of the tax year, Revenue Canada office sent an inspector to audit the books of a local hospital. While the auditor was checking the books he turned to the CFO of the hospital and said, “I notice you buy a lot of bandages. What do you do with the end of the roll when there’s too little left to be of any use?”

“Good question,” noted the CFO. “We save them up and send them back to the bandage company, and every now and then they send us a free box of bandages.”

“Oh,” replied the auditor, somewhat disappointed that his unusual question had a practical answer. But on he went, in his obnoxious way.

“What about all these plaster purchases? What do you do with what’s left over after setting a cast on a patient?”

“Ah, yes,” replied the CFO, realizing that the inspector was trying to trap him with an unanswerable question. “We save it and send it back to the manufacturer, and every now and then they send us a free package of plaster.”

“I see,” replied the auditor, thinking hard about how he could fluster the know-it-all CFO. “Well,” he went on, “What do you do with all the leftover foreskins from the circumcisions you perform?”

“Here, too, we do not waste,” answered the CFO. “What we do is save all the little foreskins and send them to Revenue Canada, and about once a year they send us a complete dick.”