Charter schools in Ky the latest in a long line of GOP flim-flam and cons

Surprise, Surprise: Republicans are Robbing You Blind

Five years ago this May, I published an op-ed in this very paper, where I clearly explained the myriad reasons why charter schools are a bad idea. They’re boondoggles. Cons. Flim-flam of the most insidious kind. They pillage the taxpayer of public funds in order to provide a substandard product and they undermine public education—both for school employees and for students and parents. Which is why I suppose it makes so much sense that so many Republicans in the Kentucky General Assembly are trying so hard to make sure charter schools are forced upon you and your kids. It makes sense that these Republicans support an effort that is so clearly based on a greed-driven desire to siphon off limited state funding meant to be used for the public good because, well, making the rich richer and the rest of us poor seems to be the only Republican ideology these days. Every Republican seems to wake up each morning with one goal in mind: how can we use the state to make sure that rich people take everything, poor people get nothing, and the middle class pays for it all?

Just this legislative session alone, Republicans have passed the following bills:

▪ A bill that phases out and eventually eliminates the state income tax. This bill saves the poorest Kentuckians less than $50 per year and puts state funding for all state expenditures like roads and bridges and schools and first responders entirely up in the air. Just lowering the state income tax from a flat 5% to a flat 4% (which the bill does next year) eliminates over 1.3 billion dollars in state funding. That’s more than the state spends on its entire school system per year. Gone. Poof. And why is it necessary to imperil our state budget in this reckless way? Well, eliminating the income tax saves the richest Kentuckians over $50,000 a year. That’s why. How do Republicans plan to pay the state’s bills? Their only suggestion so far has been to tax groceries. Groceries. So I have to pay more for my food, just so some rich people don’t have to pay taxes? Republicans, man.

▪ A bill that rejects over $50 million in federal covid relief money for things like food stamps for Kentucky’s poorest citizens. Apparently free money given to you by the feds is bad if it’s used to help poor people buy food. I dunno, I guess accepting this money would just make these Republicans feel too good and that’s probably a sin or something, who knows.

▪ A bill that cuts unemployment insurance in half. As if state unemployment benefits were enough to live on to begin with, now, once again, working people are mandated to do more with less, while wealthy corporations continue to receive massive subsidies.

▪ A bill that continues massive state subsidies to Churchill Downs and keeps a tax carve-out for them specifically at 1.5%. Democrats introduced an amendment to raise this tax to the normal sales tax rate of 6%, which could have raised approximately $325 million per year in state revenue. Republicans voted it down. Churchill Downs reported profits of $1.59 billion in 2021.

Noticing a pattern yet? Republicans seem to love bills that either raise the tax burden on the working class/poor, but hate bills that make rich people or wealthy corporations pay their fair share. Their consensus is clear: state funds are to be used for the purpose of taxing regular people and giving that money to the rich, instead of using it on public services. Roads, bridges, schools, universities, healthcare, all that is less important to the average Kentucky Republican lawmaker than making sure their rich friends don’t have to pay taxes.

It should therefore be no surprise to any of us that these same grifting con-artists are willing to sacrifice your child’s education so they can make some rich people even richer. Such is the Republican way, after all. Which begs the question: Why do we keep electing people who would rather see teachers laid off than tax a millionaire even a penny more? Why are my tax dollars going to pay for someone else’s private jet? And why do so many of the people we elect to state government think that is not only fine, but the desirable outcome? Charter schools are just the latest Republican con in a long line of Republican cons meant to steal your money and give it to rich people. The only question is: how long do we choose to accept this?

Miles Devon Skeens IV is a practicing civil litigator and the owner of Skeens Law, PLLC in Louisville.

This story was originally published March 25, 2022 at 10:19 AM.