Arch how are you doing tonight
good and yourself
oh that yeah fine kind of tired
yeah me too
where am i calling
pardon me
where are you
i'm in Lewisville
Lewisville okay i'm in Garland um have you read anything about how they propose to uh come up with the taxes to increase the funding for schools
little bit
what do you think about it equalization of funding
that's a hard issue to decide uh on the one hand you don't want to have to take away but on the other hand you don't want uh the poorer school districts to go under either and uh here in Lewisville they had a thing on the ballot that they wanted to
uh rollback the taxes on everybody's houses and everybody would save
uh-huh
uh twenty dollars a year or whatever but it would cut back twenty million dollars in to the schools and i happened to know a good teacher here in the school district and she was really against it because that would just take away all all their money
um-hum
and as far as i'm concerned you know hey twenty bucks a year is not too much to me and they could raise a few more dollars and get better uh things for the schools that's what we need because we got
you know Texas is known for it's poor schools and that's too bad because we got little kids and we're uh not too pleased about that
but we're not funding them like other states either though you know it we're not funding our schools like other states either
pardon me
that's true
that's right but just because we've got a lot of money doesn't mean that's gonna solve the problem
yeah i know that's that's only part of the problem
i mean i think there's a lot of waste in in schools i'm a teacher i feel that yes i feel i definitely feel that way all this money that's being paid for administrators
i think we're gonna see
are you
okay
i think were gonna see a day come
yeah
hum-um i can
i think i think we're gonna see a day when schools uh grade schools are gonna be charging tuition just like colleges are uh and it'll only be to those who are having kids going to school that's probably the most fair way but
you know uh that way old people don't have to have have money going to the schools because they don't have little kids going to schools
but uh i wouldn't be surprised if that happens within the next few years uh that sort of thing happening and uh we'll see what happens
well they're already talking about freedom of choice you know for schools that's an idea
yeah
yes
um
i don't know that i think has
pluses and minuses because uh those that
are economically disadvantaged won't have the ability to make a choice the choice will be thrust upon them and so where's the freedom of choice no freedom of choice in that case and that's
that's true
but like in Garland you can choose the school that you're going to can you tell this is past bedtime um
like in Garland they get to choose the schools that they're gonna go to but they got to have the transportation to them if it's out of their district you know out of their area i mean
yes
so and i like that because you can find out the good schools in your area
yes
i think the only way they're gonna really get to the problem and solve it is to have equal funding for every school in the state whether you it's in a poor tax district or a high tax district and uh
that's the only way that i can see it's gonna be resolved is there are gonna be people in the rich district that are gonna fight that and and it's gonna be a real bad mess because there's people on every side of the problem
so just distribute it equally and not raise taxes
yeah
and they should give every teacher a a hundred percent raise that that's the problem is the teachers don't get enough money and anybody who could be a good teacher doesn't want to become a teacher usually because they don't pay enough
i mean when i was in college i did a lot of teaching uh for my degree and uh i got a lot of good out of that and i liked teaching but i really couldn't go into teaching because it was not economically feasible for me to do so
yeah what do you do
i'm a mathematician
oh so you picked a good field then you picked a good field
pardon me
oh i don't know there are better fields to pick
well
yeah but that's not a bad one
i mean
yeah where i you know kind of stuff i do i i use my education quite a bit but where i was before i wasn't using it hardly at all
so it all depends i mean it depends on where you wind up i guess but i really enjoyed teaching it you know i but wouldn't mind getting back into it someday but who knows what'll happen in the future
the way people are being laid off right and left it's all a matter of uh what happens next
but uh back back to the taxes though i mean uh it's a difficult issue no one wants their taxes raised but on the other hand you got to do something
yeah
what do you think about a state income tax
i can see that there might be a reason for one but i would hate to do that because uh that would be very difficult for my family financially to to afford a state income tax
and
most states have it i know and i've lived in states that have had it but
way uh way financing is now if we had a state income tax i'd uh have a very hard time financing my house again you know paying off my mortgage each month that's so that's a problem
um
which just matter of we'll see what happens i'd rather have that i guess than have a state state lottery because when you bring
but didn't they pass that thing that we were gonna have a lottery or not
no it didn't
oh
which means there's a higher probability of now having a state income tax even though good old tax and spend Annie my favorite
uh decided that uh during the campaign she said we weren't gonna have a state income tax and now she's gonna renege on that which i expected her to do anyway uh we'll see what happens i don't know
at any rate uh
so what about your income tax
think they're hitting you too hard
actually no um
no
i'm surprised that my uh my income taxes are as low as they are we just finished our income taxes and we're getting a nice little refund back this year which is which is nicer than having to pay out
uh which is a matter of uh
um i'm surprised it's
well considering the national budget i think George Bush wanted one point four trillion dollars
for the national budget and for a family of four like what i got that comes out to over twenty two thousand dollars that we it it's our share to pay in but i'm not paying that much income tax
huh-uh
and you're gonna think well wait now where's the other eighteen thousand dollars or whatever coming in where how how is that coming from me i guess it comes from companies and businesses and whatnot but
it's interesting i don't know i can't imagine i guess that's why we're going in debt so deeply
they bring in half a trillion dollars and they spend one point four and then the rest goes to to the national debt
which just keeps accumulating i don't know what else do you think about them let's see the state
that's about it i guess
and the city tax the sale tax they used to you really didn't even think anything about it when you bought something but now you do it figures in what is it seven p oint
yeah
yeah
seven percent or something it depends on where you're at some places in Dallas i guess it's like closer to eight and places like in Lewisville it's a lot closer to seven
i don't even know how they figure it really i'm glad i don't work in a store
hum-um
how's that
because i wouldn't want to have to figure this seven point something percent i guess they've got a little table though and it's all written out
oh yes
so it wouldn't be so bad all right so you think
that's the way to do it
federal tax is okay
state tax you can see the logic of it but
you don't think it would be economically feasible for your family and ours see both of us are teachers and we got four in our family too
no
yeah
we don't need anymore
and so when you start taking talking taking more out of your paycheck to go to the state income tax
uh
but we can do this tax sheltered annuity that's the only thing that's saving us
yeah i think what we need what uh the government the state government needs to do is get in there and cut spending
because when they got all this fraud and waste going on they need to just get in there and and get out the garbage that's in there right now i mean i once heard that uh
uh for the for the federal government at least that if they uh
uh well for like on the welfare system if they gave all that money directly to the people every welfare recipient would be making like forty five thousand dollars a year
and you know they're not making that much money they're making probably more like five or six on the welfare so where's the other ninety percent going well it's going to the some fat guy in the middle who's sitting there on his behind all day doing nothing but filling out papers
part
lots and lots of people before they get it
lots of people yeah yeah
but still i work in southeast Dallas
and a lot of my children are from poor
you know socioeconomic areas homes and it's just like they always have money they they always are dressed nice you know most of them are fairly nice not like you would think a a poor person would be
yeah
and i mean they've always got dessert money or they've always got you know dollars on them and everything and i'm thinking you know this isn't right because my children don't have that
yeah well i don't have that a lot of times if i've got a dollar in my wallet it's like boy where do i go where did where'd i find that
yeah and you give them you know they get their free lunch and they throw most of it away but then they have their money to go buy dessert and that they eat
wow
you know it's just you see garbage pans i mean pails just filled and we pay people to haul them off right
yeah right
and the like a guy does it and he has his own pigs
quite a quite a world we live in
that he
yeah it is oh well is that you got anything else to say i don't think i do
oh well
yeah that's all i have to say thank you
okay well talk talk to you later then bye
um-hum bye
