Oh...The Schools...

Everybody is up in arms about how the school district is wanting to increase taxes on 2nd homes by 1.5% and the County Council pretty much not wanting to do that. This is a long and complex problem. Could it have been handled better? Without question YES. But what did we get? A muddled thing where everybody is at fault (in the eyes of the other guy). Let's see. County Council is in a bad position because anytime you make cuts to education, you better be prepared to piss a whole bunch of people off. But blame can easily be put on the school district because that bunch has not been exactly cost conscious and there is some waste there.

But the school district can hold your innocent kids and the defenseless teachers in peril. I don't like this one bit, but if you don't tow the line, it will obviously have consequences. And besides the school district can blame state law. because of South Carolina Real Property Valuation Reform Act. So then it comes around to the state. Well we now have 3 different groups to blame and from that we also have the resident vs. non-resident fracas. So now what? Well every person or group has his/her own agenda. Mainly "Don't tax me, tax that man behind the tree" mentality.

I don't have the answers. And even if I did nobody would listen anyway. I blame everyone... including myself. The school district/school board, because they should not have let things turn into this mess. County Council because They had to know with all of these people moving in here, somebody would have to pay for it. The state because the whole tax the guy who doesn't vote here was a really shady at best. And finally I blame myself for voting for all of these idiots into office in the first place.

So now all we can do is take the cuts they are handing out, remember who voted how, and remember who to vote for next time. That is about it. It sucks, if me and my wife didn't make relatively the same amount of money, her with 15 years, board certification, and a Master's degree. Me with my Army experience, and medical schooling, we would be sucking wind right now. But because we tend to be savers (generally... except for the house anyway) we will do ok. And our combined income is fairly high, but if something were to happen to us, one of us were to be killed or become disabled or we divorced, we could never make it on just one paycheck. I hope things get better, but until it does, we need to stop blaming the other guy and start doing what we can where we can.