SmashMouth

@tvc184 This is some of the discussion I posted about a year ago. I will admit, there may have been changes to the proposed legislation since I made these statements. Also, the comments jump around a bit, because it is a combination of previous posts.: "I am a pretty conservative guy, but I am against school vouchers. Who pays for the public schools (several of which were just built in my town of Lumberton)? I have yet to hear a comprehensive argument that pushes me to the school voucher system, and I've read quite a few. And I really have issues with taxpayer money being given to private "for profit" schools. With all the schools that have an open campus nowadays, there are other options for a quality education other than school vouchers. There's not usually a school bus to service private schools at this point, so the child already has to get picked up / dropped off. Folks do it all the time. Regardless, there are plenty of reasons against it. A voucher program that allows any Texas student to use public money (I like to think of it as "my (our) money") to offset the cost of private-school tuition would divert dollars from public schools, tightening already tight public-school budgets, without a proportionate reduction in public school costs - possibly to the point of raising taxes to keep them afloat. I also think it will incentivize the private schools to raise price of tuition (to put in their own back pockets) because they are getting subsidized by, that's right, my (our) money. I'm not saying school vouchers don't have some merit. Just not enough in my opinion. The average annual tuition for a private-school lands between $11,000 and $14,000. The proposed voucher would give a kid approx. $8,000 dollars toward that tuition (2024 numbers). The family still has to come up with the balance. Let's say you have a kid that goes to a private. Dad's a lawyer, banker, businessman, etc. and pays the full tuition to send his kid to the private school. With the voucher system in place, the dad will now get $8,000 towards the kid's tuition. A net savings of let's say $3,000 on the low side. No problem, right? Meanwhile, another family who is not so fortunate who sends their kid to public school has the same opportunity to send their child to private school and pay the $3,000 difference. Awesome, right? Only problem is they can't afford it, so that kid stays in public school that is now getting less funding. Net sum, the better off family gets a break on sending their kid to a private school for a helluva lot less, and the lesser off family is stuck in the same place they were to begin with. All to pay a privatized for-profit institution and have the quality of the public-school fall even further behind. That struggling single mom still won’t be able to send her kids anywhere. A voucher won’t cover rides to school (wherever that may be), uniforms, the entirety of tuition, they don’t have to have free lunch programs, etc., etc. A voucher won’t help a mom in a rough place get her genius into a private school that doesn’t exist in that area. But it will help that guy in River Oaks with the tuition bill on his three kids that he’s already paying. If the schools lose a percentage of their students to private schools, they’re going to have their funding cut, right? But much of their expenses won’t go down. The only way for this to work is if we raise local taxes to subsidize them for the funds that the state is redirecting to the voucher program… that’s what no one wants to explain. As an example, Lumberton is not failing to provide a proper education. Neither are the majority of the schools in our area where I live. This is a political move with the ruse of being used to keep liberal indoctrination away from our kids. While I agree with keeping our kids from being led down the happy blue path, I don't agree with the way they are trying to do it. Texas Conservatives (of which I am) are simply doing this to garner support from the right. If you think they really give two craps about your kids, my kids, any kids, then remember we are talking about politicians. We are being given a poor solution which will raise taxes in the end and could possibly be harmful to a lot of middle-class families on down to the lower class. There can be other ways to do it than school vouchers. From a guy that doesn't like paying any more taxes than I have to, I am definitely against it. I am also against fixing one problem by causing many more problems."

Look up what?

When I was coaching in STJFL, Lone Star was not the same. We would scrimmage Lone Star teams occasionally, but there was no affiliation between the two. I’ve been out of it for a long time, so I may not know what the hell I’m talking about. Lol.

Beaumont, HF, HJ, Jasper, LCM, Silsbee, WOS? Not sure if all those are still charter organizations anymore though.

1. I don't believe you only paid a total of $1,000 in principal in 20 years unless you were skipping payments. 2. You sound like a poor money manager. No offense, most people are. 3. There are thieves that take money from others and celebrate their gains at others' expense too.

I agree, the poor should not be punished for being poor. Honest question though, how are the poor punished with taxes? And I have been on that side of the street too.

Well, several thousand have so far, so....

Agreed. I'm on the fence on the topic. But it should be put to public vote, in my opinion. I can definitely see some harm done to the public school system with vouchers.

No you didn't. You paid some of the principle and probably even more of the interest. That's how a loan works. The entirety of the loan includes principle, interest, and possibly processing or origination fees. Let me ask you this: If I have a credit card, and all I pay is the minimum payment, and it takes forever to pay it off, should the government pay it off for me? How about my house? My car? My furniture? Anything else I pay for on credit?... or Should I be smarter about my finances and pay off more principal each month instead of paying just the minimum requirement? Look, you know better. Don't make excuses. And at the same time, quit throwing rocks in glass houses.

With all due respect, that is a pat response of the radical left. What about the contracts the Biden administration "gave" him?

If you're so concerned about someone giving money back, why don't you give back the money you were given for your school loans?

US laws do not prevent illegal aliens from purchasing or owning property. Unlike many other rights, homeownership does not depend on a person's immigration status. Anyone, including illegal aliens, can buy a house if they have the necessary funds. Whether they should be here or not, those houses are still either their property or the mortgage companies' property (or a little of both). Doubt we will being seeing any bulldozing going on.

Did you read the part that no air traffic controllers lost their job?

When Covid hit, we laid off 820 out of 1,000 employees. I personally took an 80% pay cut for almost 2 years to help keep the business alive and operating as did several others. It was horrible all the way around. But it was necessary. Sometimes tough financial decisions have to be made. Lots of companies didn’t make it because they couldn’t manage themselves into survival. As a nation, we are having to make those sacrifices still. It’s not fun, but it’s necessary.

Thought so. That’s a contract which requires a product or service to be delivered to the buyer at the financial risk of the vendor. It’s how business is done.

Ma'am. That sounds extremely like you from reading your posts. Js.

Waaaaay more than $8k. Lol.

Who is getting federal aid? And what federal aid is he getting?

Book smarts and common sense are two separate things. Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, never graduated college. Einstein dropped out of high school at the age of 15 and failed the entrance exam for the Swiss Federal Polytechnic, a prestigious institution in Zurich. Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder, and CEO of Facebook, did not graduate from college. Henry Ford, an American industrialist and the founder of the Ford Motor Company did not go to college. Walt Disney, a pioneer in the entertainment industry and the co-founder of The Walt Disney Company, did not go to college. He dropped out of high school at the age of 16. Thomas Edison was a prolific inventor and one of the most famous geniuses of all time. He dropped out of school at the age of 12. You want me to keep on listing instances of people who are geniuses that don't have a college degree or even a high school degree (far less a doctorate) that are extremely smart? I would be willing to bet that thousands of people without a "JD", @LumRaiderFan included, that could've done better than Kamala Harris as VP.

That war has been going on for around three years - Biden did nothing to help the peace effort. Today marks one month since Trump's inauguration. Give it a little time.

Ma'am. Set the Kool-Aid down. ABC News 02/10/2025 - "Federal contracts to SpaceX doubled at the beginning of the Biden administration, going from $1.1 billion in the 2020 fiscal year to $2.2 billion in the 2021 fiscal year. The contracts continued to grow under Biden, reaching $3.7 billion during the 2024 fiscal year." "In 2021, SpaceX netted a major multibillion-dollar contract under the Biden administration to send the first woman and the first person of color to the moon as part of NASA's Artemis program, whose long-term is the exploration of Mars." "SpaceX's defense contracts then grew under the Biden administration, doubling from $856 million in 2023 to $1.8 billion in 2024 as the company won new contracts for the National Security Space Launch program. In all, SpaceX has earned more than $5 billion in contracts from the Defense Department." Do you think it's sad that Biden's administration awarded Musk's companies contracts? Or do you think it's even more sad that persons of your ilk try to find anything possible to complain about in light of the great things Musk and the Trump administration are doing to save ALL of us money from frivolous and idiotic spending. I'm not poor anymore, and I won't pretend to be in financial hardship. But I once was. And I'm not so well off that I don't have to adhere to a budget at home. We are over 37 trillion in debt as a nation. If you were personally in deep debt, would you have to find ways to save? Would you have to give up certain things to make ends meet? Would you get rid of cable, cook more at home, cut out trips and other entertainment? Would you seasonally adjust your thermostat? Would you opt for keeping your vehicle for a few more years after paying it off instead jumping into another car note? Would you refinance high interest loans and consolidate your debt? Would you opt for a higher deductible on home and auto insurance policies to lower your premium? Would you make a list for grocery shopping that adheres to your budget and helps avoid impulse shopping - maybe even use coupons and look for items on sale? Would you make every effort to avoid loans and live on a cash basis instead of racking up credit card debt that becomes virtually impossible to payoff when only making the minimum payments (not to mention the additional high interest you incur)? There are literally dozens of more examples I could give, but if you answered yes to many or even any of those leading questions above, then you are doing the same thing Trump, Musk and the DOGE are doing. It's all common sense. Your "So sad" comment says that you are either uninformed, prejudiced against anything Trump, or stupid. I'll choose the first two for you. Let's say your not stupid but just uninformed and prejudiced (the non-racial kind). Open your eyes. Think before you speak (or post). Look at more than left wing articles to get your information. I do. Notice that I quoted ABC News and not Fox News. That gives more credibility to my argument, because it was published by a left leaning media source. It doesn't allow you the opportunity to say, "Oh, that's just propaganda from a conservative source." (see @Reagan posts, lol) Give yourself the chance to sound intelligent. Because oftentimes you don't.

You are right. It hasn't. But this just happened today: From ABC London Desk - "...President Donald Trump unilaterally announced an immediate start to direct peace talks with President Vladimir Putin to end the Kremlin's war on Ukraine. Trump said in a post to social media on Wednesday that he spoke with Putin by phone, adding the two leaders "agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately" to end the fighting in Ukraine after nearly three years of Russia's full-scale invasion." Sorry, but it's taken him a few weeks (instead of Biden letting it go on for years with no end in sight). He's cut off spending billions on a non-US war and has at least got things rolling towards peace. He got your boy Biden beat for damn sure on this one... Many say due to weak world leadership, Biden is directly responsible for at least a part of this conflict in the first place.

He did say this on 12/12/24: "Look, they (Biden/Democrats) got them up. I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard," he said in the interview published Thursday. "But I think that they will. I think that energy is going to bring them down. I think a better supply chain is going to bring them down. You know, the supply chain is still broken. It’s broken," Trump said. - NBC News, Rob Wile

Can you show me exactly what he said? I'm not familiar with your claim.

He was only in office for 2 weeks when you posted this, ma'am. While I know you were used to Biden, et. al. running America in the ground in less than 2 weeks, it takes longer to build it back. Here's something that may make sense. You can burn a house down in just a few hours, but it could take a year or more to rebuild. If everyone would get in line, get out of the way and let him do his thing, you will see some amazing things. Bet.