Fixing school funding woes: Our future depends on it

Fixing school funding woes:Our future depends on it
EDITOR:
I wish to express my concerns about the lack of priority given by our state representative body as a whole to our state's school funding problems.
I watched as the majority of school levies in my area failed in the recent primary elections. It would be unfair to lay the guilt for all of the failed levies on the individual taxpayers. With the poor economy, the high loss of jobs in Ohio and all of the cost cuts they continue to make against the elderly, you can't honestly hope to get any new taxes passed or old ones renewed. Even the communities considered well-to-do are barely getting their school levies approved as of late.
The current taxes we pay for state and local services are far too often misused as is. All of our schools could use additional funding -- I have no doubt of that. You see school systems with no busing, no sports and vital programs cut back or eliminated. That should embarrass all of our state representatives, but still they sit stagnate.
The sad part is that the Ohio Supreme Court has twice ruled that Ohio's school funding system, using property taxes, is unconstitutional. That means illegal, folks. As a property owner, I never understood why people who don't even own property should be allowed to vote on anything that would raise my property taxes anyway.
And, until you have a property tax bill of your own in your hand, please don't whine about my previous comment. With the property tax system we currently have for funding schools, along with some personal income taxes, smaller communities are at an automatic disadvantage from the start.
No child should be penalized on his or her education because of the size of the community. Every child should have the chance for the best education possible. That means putting every child from every community on a fair playing field. That can never be done with property taxes.
I have to now question the value of the Ohio Supreme Court's rulings. As to date, they have not been acted on by our state Legislature. Our state governing body evidently feels they have the right to ignore those rulings. It would be interesting to find out if all property owners could legally refuse to pay that part of their taxes or perhaps hold the funds in escrow since the court did rule that taxing system unconstitutional.
Everyone needs to start writing letters to their representatives to get them off their butts and doing one of the most important jobs they were elected to do -- come up with a funding system that gives all of Ohio's children the chance for the brightest future possible!
RENEE K. WIRE
New Middletown
It's time for people to uniteagainst Social Security cuts
EDITOR:
I recently read an article in The Vindicator about possible cuts in Social Security payments to the baby boomers. I am a baby boomer, and I have been paying into this system for more than 40 years. I worked hard, had modest earnings and did not spend my money frivolously or live beyond my means. Yet, with retirement fast approaching, I will need every penny I have (or thought I had) coming to survive my retirement years. I am being penalized for the year in which I was born.
The irony is that it seems to be OK for politicians to be voting themselves pay raises, playing politics with our money, and "borrowing" from our Social Security funds. It seems to be OK for this country to be led into wars and involved in causes not our own at an astronomical cost. Yet it is not OK for us to take care of our own!
I was taught that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were for the people and by the people, but it now appears to be for the rich, by the rich. I believe that it is time for all working people to unite in protest against the proposed changes in Social Security and Medicare benefits targeted at the baby boomers by writing to your elected officials or getting actively involved. The next segment of the population to be cut may be you!
JOHN PHILLIPS
Poland