Opposition to Referendum Equals Opposition to Prosperity?

Our good friend and local professor, Mpeterson, has weighed in on AFP’s calls regarding the upcoming school referendum and gets it completely wrong.

So, we have an out-of-state group that jumped into a local issue and decided not to bother following the law?

AFP is a national organization with a Wisconsin chapter.  The Wisconsin chapter is who is getting involved.  To say it is an “out-of-state group” would be like calling UWWC an “out-of-county group” because it is “headquartered” in Madison. 

And as has been explained to Mpeterson, AFP is within the law in making calls about the referendum.  Just because an advocacy group files a complaint does not mean that anyone broke the law. 

I know Owen is a big supporter of Americans for Prosperity—although how you can vote against the single biggest booster of economic prosperity in a globalized economy (improving the educational infrastructure) and still claim to be in favor of prosperity, doesn’t make any damn sense to me.

Indeed I am a supporter of AFP because I support their mission.  But the rest of that sentence is garbage.  As I articulated in my column last week, opposition to the referendum does not mean that opponents don’t support education or economic prosperity.  Schools are a part of the equation, but so is a reasonable tax burden, government accountability, rule of law, private capital, and a thousand other things. 

By Mpeterson’s logic, opposition to any school spending would constitute opposing prosperity.  So how much should we spend?  $20k per kid?  $50k?  $100k?  And what of the impact of such spending on the community?  Should that factor into the decision making process at all?  What about the seniors living on a fixed income where $300 in higher taxes is a serious issue?  What of them?  Do they not matter because we MUST spend more on schools else sink into economic ruin?  Not to mention that the proposed spending has nothing to do with better teachers, better curriculum, additional courses, or anything else.  It’s just about buildings. 

Mpeterson’s condescending attitude toward referendum opponents is one of the many reasons that citizens are becoming more and more disgusted with the professors and teachers in public employment.  They seem to think that the taxpayers’ pockets are bottomless and indignantly stick up their noses at anyone who suggests otherwise.