Veronica v. Religinuts

[veronica_rich]

I covered a local government meeting tonight.


I've been covering small government for over 11 years. I've seen councils, commissions, school boards, you name it; I've seen justified pay increases, unjustified expenditures, graft, outright stealing, everything. Tonight's meeting was quite a bit of fun.

Long story short: The council was passing its yearly budget. In order to finance the increases, it had to pass a tax rate increase, which it has never done in damn near 20 years - the price of waiting so long is it shot up like 20 percent, instead of doing it a few cents each year or two over time. Property owners in the area are damn near having heart attacks.

The bulk of this money is going to local schools - basic salaries, operations, that sort of thing. (One public official noted aloud that families who move into the area with children cost more in public money than they bring in. I think I love him.)

This is certainly a breederific, God-fearing, Republican-lovin' area, just so you understand what we're dealing with. There were some people there who were protesting the tax hike, including one councilman (who ended up voting against it), whom I'll call X, whose basic premise was something like "well geez, I had kids in the school system and I think education's important, but this seems very steep." Translation: "I want to run for office again next year and WIN, and my kids are no longer in school, so who cares?"

Another councilwoman comments that yes, the kids need education, but what about their parents having to pay more taxes? (It's times like this I show my professionalism at work: I managed to take notes instead of standing up and pointing out PLENTY of us have no children, anticipate none, and still have to pay for public schools.) I have a revolutionary, basic idea, folks: If you aren't willing to fork up for their education, DON'T FUCK AND GET KNOCKED UP AND KEEP IT.

I also couldn't help thinking, on a purely personal note, that most of the people who bitch their property taxes are about to go up a few hundred dollars are the same fuckfruits who happily put Bush back in office after he pissed away $80 billion-plus in taxpayer money unsuccessfully invading a foreign nation. (Gee, why do you THINK your taxes are going up so much? Could it possibly be the federal government isn't giving your state - and in turn, city - as much money as it used to get because it's being funneled to Haliburton and Lockheed-Martin?)

But the best part of all of it was this: The realization for these people that the reason taxes are going up SO much is FOR THE CHILDREN. Period. What makes this humorous is the overwhelming anti-choice, religious mindset most people in this community have - not everyone, but the vast majority, I would observe.

On a final note: Two weeks ago, X e-mailed out something having to do with publicly-funded daycare, questioning the use of tax money for this. I made some reply that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, he ought to get used to more publicly-funded daycare *needing* to be available. He (correctly) interpreted my stance on the choice issue and made some condescending religous reply about how he was glad my mother hadn't held to the practice of abortion, to which I replied (again, quite correctly) that I had not expressed an opinion, merely pointed out a fact not many people are considering whey they make both the anti-choice and "don't touch my tax dollars!" argument. So tonight, after the meeting, I couldn't resist - I went up to him, smiling, and said, "I told you kids cost money, didn't I?"

Comments

[smtfhw.livejournal.com]

As regards your final comment, I have to say you were far more restrained than I would have been! Joined up thinking would be nice but you're never going to get it in local government I fear.

[yoiebear.livejournal.com]

Oh, you have so much more nerve than I do! I couldn't say that to a councilmember. At least not one that I have to deal with on a nearly daily basis. Then again, I think shit like that during every damn council meeting and I cover two cities. That is one council meeting a week and one board of education meeting a month.
My sentiments are with you on the last statement. You don't have to agree with abortion, but kids do cost.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I'm only restrained because I have to work with these people regularly. I learned LONG ago in a small county, you have to pick your battles wisely if you are the press. You can disagree, but you have to do so in a fashion that doesn't leave mud all over you. (The hell of it is, X is a nice fellow, but I don't agree with some of his outdated ideas.)

I can only recall one time in 11 years I lost it at a semi-public meeting and, in polite language, told a couple of commissioners to go fuck themselves and quit pretending we didn't all know they were illegally screwing the county taxpayers. I think I scared all the other county officials in attendance - usually I either took notes, asked questions, or joked on occasion with them. But the two commissioners in question - one gave me a wide berth after that and the other became MUCH nicer toward me, so it was totally worth it.

Local government agrees on things a LOT of the time - usually the wrong things, but hey. LOL

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Read my reply above to the other poster, the second paragraph in particular. I should add that my editor had no problem with me blowing up at them - I'd put up with their abuse quite enough over a three-year period and had damn well had enough when they tried to run another of their little scams and draft me into actually treating it like a legitimate news story. (I wrote about it, all right - hehehehehe - but I left myself out of it, obviously.)

You wait 'til you've done this enough years. It gets easier to talk.

[smtfhw.livejournal.com]

Sometimes only ones professionalism saves one from saying exactly what one thinks! If you ever resign and go off to work somewhere else, I rather imagine your last council meeting could be quite interesting...

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

The county I cover now is an adjoining county - not the one I live in - so I don't have as personal an interest vested in it. Now the one I worked in back in Missouri, I also lived in for several years, and boy howdy, did I have to work to keep my mouth shut there!

[yoiebear.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't play the game of "could you please turn this political agenda into a real story" game. I catch it before it even makes its way to my editor. That's a good thing, believe me. Last week I kept getting calls about the stories "I didn't put in" the Belpre Homecoming tabliture. I kept having to remind the people at the chamber of commerce that "I didn't forget" to put anything in. They forgot to tell me what stories they wanted in the tab and I'm not a mind reader. I did the stories, but they were not in the tab. I don't take that shit well.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I hated tabs and special sections. When you're on salary (as I was) it didn't mean any extra money for ME - just more work in addition to what I already had to crank out for the paper each week - but the ad people sure got that extra nifty commission.

[yoiebear.livejournal.com]

I'm on hourly and I didn't get anything extra for doing the tab, OK, I take that back. I got 2 hours of overtime pay, which I had to pay for in taxes. I also was bitched at by the chamber of commerce because, for some crazy reason, they think I work for them. Yeah, the ad guy for that city got a nice commission for that tab, it was FULL of his work.

[captsparrow4evr.livejournal.com]

You go, girl! City councils and boards are so full of sh*t, aren't they? One of the anti-choicers biggest talking points is how, if the 40 million--and where did that number come from, I wonder--fetuses that were aborted had been born, there would be so much less for the rest of us to pay in taxes. The only _problem_ with that theory, of course, is the associated _costs_ to raise those 40 million (obviously unwanted) children would have _raised_ taxes. *shakes head* Stupidity breeds--who knew?

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Actually, it makes sense that stupid people would be the largest segment of breeders. It doesn't take much to make a baby - all you have to do is fuck, in the vast majority of instances. It takes more effort and planning to inhibit conception or abort a fetus (which, however you feel about abortion, you have to admit it takes more effort to plan and carry through with it than it does to simply let the parasite grow to a birthing stage).