ND Democrat Communications Director Rick Gion, in one of his regular “news from the headquarters” posts, made a couple of silly statements I thought I’d respond to.

First is this:

Democrats have a real plan for property tax relief

Anyone who has followed the school funding/property tax issue knows darn well that their property taxes have gone up because state funding for K-12 education has gone down. It’s supposed to be between 60 and 70 percent. Instead, it’s now around 40 percent, causing local school districts to raise property taxes.

Yesterday, Brent Edison, along with our legislative leaders Merle Boucher and David O’ Connell, unrolled a plan for real, sustainable school funding and property tax relief. It isn’t a one time deal like the governor’s plan. Check out the article below for more details.

The fact that Brent Edison is trying to push tax and education policy is, as I’ve pointed out before, laughable.  Even if Edison succeeds in getting elected as North Dakota’s tax commissioner he still won’t have any control over tax or education policy.  The tax commissioner’s office is, essentially, nothing more than an administrator position for policies passed by the other branches of North Dakota’s government.

The fact that Boucher and O’Connell are now backing Edison’s ideas gives them teeth, given that they actually have some control over policy, but even with their backing there isn’t likely to be any progress for what they want given that the Democrats are outnumbered pretty much 2-1 in the legislature.  Plus, more state money for public schools is a bad idea.  I think most parents would agree that control over the public schools should, as much as possible, remain with local government.  By bringing in statewide dollars to fund local schools the local school administrators and policy makers lose some of their control to the state level policy makers.

Besides, simply throwing more and more money at education doesn’t usually improve the quality of education our kids get.  Throwing money at a problem seldom solves it.  The way to improve education is to introduce more accountability for teachers.  Personally, I think the best way to do that is to promote school choice.  Tie tax money to the students and let their parents decide which school, public or private, the kids attend.  That would force schools to compete with one another for students and money, which in turn would raise the overall quality of education.

But teachers unions oppose this, of course, so the Democrats can’t possibly support it even though it works.

The second silly thing Gion wrote is this:

Grotberg is grasping at straws

Republican Senate candidate Dwight Grotberg held news conferences in Bismarck and Fargo yesterday. He was telling reporters that Senator Kent Conrad has not done enough for farmers and for energy policy. I think Grotberg is confused. What a bunch of hooey!

Senator Conrad fought hard for disaster relief in this last session. He led the charge. Grotberg’s party shot it down. In fact, President Bush said he’d veto the disaster relief if it passed the House.

Hooey, eh?  Is it hooey to question Senator Conrad’s record on agriculture when, after over two decades in office, North Dakota’s farmers still need billions upon billions in agriculture aid every single year?

That’s not hooey at all.  That’s a legitimate point.