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Monday, June 11, 2018

Jacksonville needs a half cent sales tax to help with education issues

I get it, nobody not even me a so called "far left socialist" likes taxes but you know what I think we all like less? Classes without teachers or with subs, classes to big to have discipline or for proper teaching to occur, schools without libraries, art, music and PE, and kids being shortchanged on a proper education. I like all those things a lot less than taxes.

If we can have a half cent sales tax to rebuild the stadium and build a new baseball ground and arena, if we can spend millions on a new score board then I believe we can pony up a little more for the city's children too. Don't they deserve it and the sad thing is we really haven't been left much of a choice as the republican dominated government in Tallahassee including the republican members of the Duval delegation have let us down over and over.

Politifact calls Rick Scott's claim of historic education spending mostly false. The legislature this past year allocated just an extra forty-seven cents per student in discretionary spending. When you factor in cost of living Florida's teachers are the worst paid in the nation and when you factor in inflation we spend a 1000 dollars less per student now than we did a decade ago and back then school districts had a lot more flexibility with their money. Now districts have to contend with a litany of unfunded or under funded mandates like the recent school security one. 

The republicans had an opportunity to call a special session to address school spending and they declined, which means we can't continue to wait for them to do the right thing any longer. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity.

If our elected leaders aren't going to do the right thing, then it is up to us as a community to do so.

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