Reporting on key Nebraska K-12 education issues on a daily basis from Susan Darst Williams, a writer who lives at the base of Mount Laundry, Nebraska. To subscribe to this blog's mailing list, and see a variety of other education features and information, visit the main education website, www.GoBigEd.com
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Monday, March 14, 2005
Posted
8:37 AM
by Susan Darst Williams
The Legislature’s website has posted a mighty interesting listing of lobbying expenditures in the Nebraska Unicam over the last year.
Of course, you see eye-popping budgets for Big Gambling, Big Booze, Big Pharma, Big Health Care, the tobacco people, the trial attorneys, all the usual suspects from corporate Nebraska, all the utilities and cities and so forth . . . and then there are the education lobbyists.
Here’s a partial listing. To wit:
University of Nebraska, $100,099.00
Nebraska State Education Association, $87,353.49
Lincoln Public Schools, $80,303.46
Nebraska Council of School Administrators, $72,461.66
University of Nebraska Medical Center, $52,000
Omaha Public Schools, $50,631.75
Millard Public Schools, $28,757.33
Nebraska Rural Community School Association, $25,000
Nebraska Association of School Boards, $15,785.00
Class 1’s United $13,600
Westside Community Schools, $12,875.05
Nebraska School Finance Coalition, $11,377.16
Nebraska Association of Retired School Personnel, $5,000
That’s only a partial list of education lobbyists over the past 12 months, but it comes to more than $555,000, or $11,300 for each of the 49 state senators. That’s for education influence peddling alone. Last I heard, state senators were paid $12,000 a year. Hmm, hmm, hmmmmmm.
Look at that beefy $87,000 being poured out by the teachers’ unions, vs. that scrawny $13,600 by the country schools in Class 1’s United. Those two are adversaries on the bill that would wipe out Nebraska’s rural schools. It’s a David-Goliath situation. Oh, well: look what Gambling With the Good Life did to Big Gambling despite being outspent by a zillion to one. Miracles do happen!
But boy, the political power being expended with an impact on education goes far, far beyond these lobbying clients. We saw that last week when, incredibly, the bill to ban mercury from childhood vaccinations went down to defeat in committee despite a mountain of evidence pointing to a link between mercury and autism and other learning disabilities.
If you browse the lobbying list for pharmaceutical companies on http://www.unicam.state.ne.us you will be amazed to see how many of them are on there.
Hmm, hmm, HMMMMMM.
What don’t you see, at least not much? Lobbying expenditures for grassroots parents and taxpayers on education issues and spending.
No wonder we never get our way on anything. That giant “L” you see on our foreheads is not for “Legislation.”
Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, HMMMMMMM . . . D’OH.
Comments:
Look at tie-in between bill to give tuition break to illegals and interests of big education on the vdare.com blogsite:
“I'm a student at the University of North Texas in Denton, and have had the unfortunate experience of watching my tuition costs go up every semester and my classes overload with incompetent students who rarely speak english. To make matters worse, scholarship/grant resources are drying up and now even subsidized loans are almost impossible to get.”
“Of course, I could just bite the bullet, live like a pauper and work my way through school right?”
”Wrong.”
”I spent last week in a line with 300 students filling out applications for a minimum wage warehouse job. Those are now as precious as gold here since the local economy here in Denton is now unable to provide the student body with enough jobs because the local employers prefer to employ illegal immigrants who will work for ultra-low wages, take any abuse, and never leave their jobs under any circumstances…”
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“I'm a student at the University of North Texas in Denton, and have had the unfortunate experience of watching my tuition costs go up every semester and my classes overload with incompetent students who rarely speak english. To make matters worse, scholarship/grant resources are drying up and now even subsidized loans are almost impossible to get.”
“Of course, I could just bite the bullet, live like a pauper and work my way through school right?”
”Wrong.”
”I spent last week in a line with 300 students filling out applications for a minimum wage warehouse job. Those are now as precious as gold here since the local economy here in Denton is now unable to provide the student body with enough jobs because the local employers prefer to employ illegal immigrants who will work for ultra-low wages, take any abuse, and never leave their jobs under any circumstances…”
