RUSH: Get this. This is from the New York Times today, actually from yesterday. “An extra $5.6 billion,” that’s $5.6 billion, “must be spent on New York City [skrool] children every year to give them the opportunity for a sound basic education which they are guaranteed under the state Constitution.” This, a court appointed panel has found. A court appointed panel says $5.6 billion is needed. “Beyond that, $9.2 billion worth of new classrooms and laboratories, libraries, and other facilities must be built and maintained to relieve overcrowding, reduce class size, and provide the city’s 1.1 million [skrool] children with an adequate place to learn.” Now, if I add this up, that is $14.8 billion. What’s the $5.6 billion for if the $9.2 billion is for classrooms, labs, libraries and other facilities? Now, here’s the question, though: “How much of that should come from the state or the city itself, the panel did not say, leaving unanswered one of the most daunting and contentious questions facing lawmakers responsible for coming up with the money.”
Well, I just can’t imagine where they’re going to get this money, can you, folks? I just can’t. What will they do in New York to come up with $14.8 billion when this court-appointed panel does not specify it has to come from the city or the state? Well, I can’t imagine what they’re going to do. Let me think about this for awhile, ladies and gentlemen, because this is a challenge, to come up with $14.8 billion. If I do the math here, that is 1.1 million students, and I’m just going to use the $5.6 billion here, first figure. That’s $5,090 per student more than what is already being spent per student.
With $5,090 per student let me tell you what you can do. You can get them all their own limousines. You can take them to 21 or Ben Benson’s or Patsy’s for lunch every day. You can then go hire your favorite liberal professor to come in and teach ’em in the classroom — and you’re still going to have money left over! Where is this money going?
An additional $5,090 per student more plus whatever this other $9.2 billion is. Now, you people in New York City, you’re famous blue citiers, New York, a blue state, and just listening to you all speak and watching your attitudes, you’re obviously smarter than the rest of us. You’re the elites in New York. You’re the people that run things better, that know better. You’re the ones that are smarter than everybody else. So how you gonna come up with this money? And by the way, how did the skrool system get in such a state that it needs all this money when it’s already got more money than it’s ever had before if you all are so smart? If you are the best and brightest, especially the ones in the education system, why, they’re the ones indoctrinating and teaching all the rest of us and they know better, folks. They’re the smart ones. How can this happen to them? I’m just joking about not knowing how they’re going to get the money. The first thing they’ll do is raise taxes.
That’s the first thing they’ll think of. In fact, this will be greeted with a smile. The fact that they need $5.6 billion and then another $9.2 billion, this will all be greeted with a smile by certain bureaucrats in New York who will think, “Automatic tax increase! It’s ‘for the children.’ Why, it can’t lose! We’re in a blue state. Blue staters love taxes and tax increases especially when it’s ‘for the children,'” but will they be able to raise taxes enough to collect all of this revenue and not choke off any economy? Probably not. My guess is, ladies and gentlemen, that there might be, before this is all said and done, there might be an effort to obtain federal funds in this crisis, in which case it will mean that the blue state elitists and pointy heads will be reaching out to those of you in the red states, you ignorant, hayseed, pickup-driving, church-going, idiot-sounding hicks will be reached out to by the elitist pointy heads, smartest-people-in-the-world New York blue staters to bail them out of their woeful education circumstance.
I’m not suggesting this. I’m not necessarily predicting it. I’m just saying I won’t be surprised if this happens because the first thing they’ll want to do is raise taxes and of course these idiots in the blue states will go along with it. “Oh, do you want to raise my taxes? Where do I go to sign up?” Other comments from the story: “We need to roll up our sleeves and make sure the legislature enacts this reform so that the children can get what they need,” said Michael Rebel, director of the campaign for Fiscal Equality. These are the plaintiffs in the case. “This report marks a major turning point in a case that educators, advocates, and politicians are counting on to transform the city’s [skrools]. Nearly every state has battled over [skrool] spending in court but the case in New York is one of the biggest, both in terms of dollars and the number of children involved, and most closely watched [skrool] financing lawsuits in the nation. While the courts have refrained from holding legislators in contempt for failing to act, this report in New York is a significant step toward a court takeover of what has been traditionally been a legislative role, deciding exactly how much money should be spent on schools.”
Oh, yes, it’s exactly what — the New York Times, by the way, is ecstatic about this. You can read the glee in this paragraph. “Reports say significant step toward a court takeover….” Yes! “…of what has traditionally been a legislative role deciding exactly how much money should be spent on schools.” Yes! Let the courts do it because the courts is the only place liberals make any progress in the country today. “This case has been wandering through the state’s court systems for eleven years, and in those eleven years judges have taken pains not to step in and dictate exactly how much extra money should be spent on the city’s [skrool] children, but the legislature essentially forfeited that prerogative by its own inaction, this panel said.
The panel of referees said it, therefore, falls by default to the judiciary to fashion an appropriate remedy to insure that the sound basic education constitutional mandate is honored.” There you have it: $5.6 billion more to run the New York City schools and anybody want to take any bets on just how successful this new money will be in straightening out the New York school system?
The current New York City public school system budget is $13 billion, ladies and gentlemen. It’s $13 billion. It’s $13 billion now. They want an additional $5.6 billion, or it’s all going to crumble. It’s all going to fall apart. Is this not typical blue state procedure? It’s going to add up to thirteen grand a kid, folks, $13,000 per kid in the New York City public school system. Where is the money going? Are the janitors still buying yachts? This is typically what blue states do: They just throw money at whatever problem in the world. Be it the Great Society, be it the war on poverty, I don’t care what, throw money at it, and then ignore the results and say, “We just haven’t spent enough yet.
It can’t be that we don’t know what we’re doing because we’re the smartest people around. We’re the elites. We know these things so it must be we don’t have enough money.” And all the while we’re not supposed to judge the results here. The intentions are it. Another pathetic item in the news, from Tucson, a federal judge — I predicted this on this program, folks:
(Arizona Republic) “A federal judge blocked the state of Arizona yesterday from implementing Proposition 200 at least for the next three weeks.” Prop 187 all over again. “California judge David Bury granted a temporary restraining order after lawyers hired by The Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund argued that people will be harmed if the voter approved initiative is allowed to take effect. Attorney Hector Villagra said, ‘Individuals are likely to be denied benefits to which they are legally entitled.”
This denies benefits to illegal immigrants just like Prop 187, exactly 187, an activist judge rolls in there and says, “The people don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t know what to do. Their vote was stupid.” He didn’t say it that way but that was the impending conclusion of his result, and so he threw it out. This has only been thrown out for three weeks. The state of Arizona responded that the will of the voters is entitled to be obeyed, but the judge, in his four-page ruling said the challenges have raised serious questions about the legality of the initiative.
The judge said, “It seems likely that if Proposition 200 were to become law it would have a dramatic chilling effect upon undocumented aliens who would otherwise be eligible for public benefits under federal law, even though the language of the initiative specifically exempts those programs mandated by federal law.” This is the left for you, folks. This is judicial activism. This is how it happens. The people vote. It goes against the will of some liberal judge and the liberal judge throws it out saying, “It’s unconstitutional,” saying, “It will deny somebody benefits,” as though the sole role of the federal government is to provide benefits to illegal immigrants in the country! Speaking of illegal immigrants, by the way, the new label has been coined by the people who hate labels. The left in this country who can’t stand to be called “liberals” have come up with a new label: Anti-Immigrant.
(Reuters) “Republicans who want to slow immigration to the United States and crack down on illegal immigrants believe they are gaining political strength and public backing, which may pose a problem next year for President Bush. Bush has already signaled his intention to push a major proposal to allow some of the estimated 8 million to 10 million illegal immigrants in the country to gain legal work visas for up to six years as part of a ‘guest worker’ program. But he may face growing anti-immigrant sentiment, not only his own party but in the country at large, several opponents claimed.” So if you support immigration enforcement, you are anti-immigrant. If you support the enforcement of current immigration law, you are now anti-immigrant, despite the fact it’s bipartisan across the country. “Led by powerful Wisconsin Rep. James Sensenbrenner, the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, anti-immigration conservatives…”
That’s the second time I see in this story by Alan Elsner at Reuters: “anti-immigration conservatives recently defied the White House by insisting that a bill to reform the nation’s intelligence services include anti-illegal alien provisions, such as driver’s licenses.” Anti-immigration, folks. So we who want to enforce the nation’s immigration laws, we who wish to get tough on it as a national security measure as well as everything, we are “anti-immigrant” now. Just as when if you are anti-affirmative action, you are racist. It’s the time-honored and, frankly, worn-out tactic of the left, and it survives. It’s alive and well but it’s a new age. This stuff is not going to have the simple route into the fabric of our society that it’s always had in the past. Don’t worry about this stuff, folks. This is good. I mean, what the judge did is not good, but this all is going to end up causing a backlash. This is no different than the Supreme Court of Massachusetts ordering the legislature to come up with a law legalizing gay marriage. That’s not how it works in this country. The legislature comes up with the law. They pass it; they debate it; send it to the governor and then the state decides whether it’s constitutional or not. State Supreme Court. You don’t do that. A mayor of San Francisco illegally marrying people, that causes a backlash, and that’s the kind of backlash that will be caused with these activist judicial rulings.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here is a great example. We just got through talking about this renegade judge out in Arizona. You remember the name Sol Wachtler, Mr. Snerdley? Sol Wachtler? He was a big muckety-muck judge in New York till he had some sort of a personal scandal that derailed him for a while, but he’s now teaching constitutional law at the Touro Law School. T-o-u-r-o, the Touro law school. He has a piece in New York Newsday today. It’s just unbelievable. He says, “Don’t revert to the days of Dred Scott. Bush should pick judges who interpret the Constitution as a living document subject to change.” Dred Scott is a prime example of judicial activism! Nothing in the Constitution supported the ruling which upheld slavery. Dred Scott upheld slavery. Nothing in the Constitution supported it. There was no backup for it. It was judicial activism that gave us Dred Scott. It’s that kind of thing we don’t need on the bench. This guy’s teaching law! He’s teaching constitutional law to young skulls full of mush in New York. Brian in New York City, speaking of the devil. Welcome to the program, sir. Nice to have you with us.
CALLER: Well, I’m not a devil but I certainly sometimes feel I live with them. Hey, Rush, I live in New York, and am a registered Republican, and it is just sickening to continue to see the unbelievable amounts of money that are being spent on a public school system that continually and undoubtedly fails the students that are forced to go to it. If you’d look at the numbers, we are spending roughly $13,000 per student to send them to school. What do you think would happen if we took that $13,000, cut it in half, and handed every parent $6,500 to have them have the ability to go get their children an education, and you allow private enterprise to come in and build schools. You know, with a capitalistic idea of making money, you would cut the budget in half and I absolutely guarantee you you would get a better product than what the kids in this city are continually forced to go.
RUSH: And that is why it will never happen.
CALLER: It’s just unbelievable.
RUSH: The fact that you will end up with a better product is why it will never happen. These public education systems exist for one purpose, and that’s to promote and maintain their own existence, and the primary way you do that is eliminate competition. You try to keep as many — and you certainly protect the teachers and the administrators because this $13 billion a year, this is simply a make-work project for civil employees of New York City and state employees in New York. That’s all it is. The idea that they’re then supposed to educate kids, that’s the reason they exist, the public reason they exist, but they’re obviously not educating kids. We’ve had stories left and right, and I’m sure you remember these being in the city, that over half of the Hispanic and minority students are dropping out before they get to their junior years.
CALLER: Part of the reason they’re dropping out is because the schools are just simply so dangerous. It’s gotten to a point, there’s metal detectors at every school. These kids cannot possibly get an education at these schools, and then it creates bigger problems obviously down the road. Not only is it a huge waste of money to keep these kids in these schools but on top of that you’re then creating, even the ones that graduate, quote, unquote, graduate, are then going into a job market — first of all, they go into a college market where they’re not prepared with the basics to be able to go and get a better education.
RUSH: Doesn’t matter; doesn’t matter; doesn’t matter. The New York university system is there to accommodate them. If they want to go spend all their class time protesting various things down on 8th Avenue, they’re free to do it. It’s amazing. This is a blue state, folks. This is a great example, and is it any wonder these people end up voting Democrat, which is another one of the reasons why this stuff exists. They’re little indoctrination centers there. That’s a great idea, cut the $13,000 per student in half, give the parent $6,500 and say go make the best deal you can in a private school. You’ll see schools pop up all over the place to handle these kids, and that is why it will never happen – and that means that what’s in the best interests of the churrin is not going to happen, and that’s really the problem when you get right down to it.