Right-wingers fuck over Eugene's kids - again

Measure 5 bites us in the ass again. From the Register-Guard:

The Eugene and Bethel school districts may be millions of dollars poorer next year because of a decision Thursday by the Oregon Tax Court.

Judge Henry Breithaupt ruled that a city-sponsored tax levy funding school activities such as physical education, library services and health care was unconstitutional.

Passed in 1990 as a revolt against rising taxes in the Portland metro area, Measure 5 also held out the promise of narrowing the funding gaps between urban and rural school districts by placing the burden of funding K-12 education on the state instead of local governments. Voters soon discovered that school funding equalization would mean a race to the bottom, as the anti-tax activists who shoved Measure 5 down our throats made damn share that the state would be unable to find the funding necessary to provide all of Oregon's children with a quality education. In other words, our kids became victims of Grover Norquist's homocidal fantasy of drowning government in the bathtub and Don McIntire and Bill Sizemore's war on public employees.

We know what these people think. Fuck social obligations. Fuck taking care of those who need our help, because I've got mine. More importantly, this short-sighted thinking ultimately screws the state's economy - as our quality of education drops, companies looking for an educated and trained workforce will look for greener pastures, and our kids lose ground to those who are willing to pay for (either public or private) education. All so some rich assholes can afford the gas for their motorhomes.

Oregonians need to seriously re-visit Measure 5. Moreover, we need to get over our anti-tax hysteria and realize that, in the long run, this myopic "taxes can only be bad" mindset will only shoot us in the foot and hobble the futures of our children.