Say Anything Blog

Last night I watched the Bismarck area state legislative debates. I found it very appalling at the falsehoods that the Democrats (mostly) were spreading.

Ryan Gustafson and the other Democrat running in the District (Mike Frohlich) both blamed the State Legislature for local property taxes rising.  They said that 20 years ago the state was funding 60% of the cost of education while today it’s only 40%.  They implied that the state cut funding 20%.  Nothing could be further from the truth.
I wrote a post on this back in June. Using data from the ND State Department of Education I saw that in 1985 the state government funded schools at $3,107 per student in 2005 dollars.  In 2005 the state supplied local school districts $3,419 per student. That’s a ten percent increase in real dollars not a cut! The federal government supplied the school districts with a lot more money. 

Even so local school boards went wild and spent 48.5% more money.  The problem isn’t with the State of North Dakota, it’s with the local school boards.

I did another post in September where I showed that the property tax increases in the last five years weren’t because there was more need.  But rather property values went up and local government agencies (including school districts) took the increase.  The fact that the housing market is up doesn’t have anything to do with the needs of the community.

Blaming the state for the actions of local school boards is just plain wrong.  You don’t fix the problem of overspending by throwing more money at the problem.  The fix supported by the Democrats and also the Republicans at the debate is crazy.

Ryan G also said that the state has the second lowest wages in the nation.  Of course he didn’t cite his source.  What I do know is that according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis we are a respectable thirty-second in per capita income.  Why do Democrats have to put the state down?  We’re about $300 behind South Dakota and well above Montana.

On a further note I found it interesting that Ryan G. seemed to be legislating for himself.  He wants better jobs for young people like himself, he wants the minimum wage raised for himself, he wants lower school loan interest for himself.  I guess he thinks we all owe him for something.