Over the weekend I came across an editorial at the Detroit News with the following title - "An iPod for every kid? Are they !#$!ing idiots?" That made me curious so I clicked the headline to read the full article.
What I read made me wonder if this was a late April Fool's joke or something.
From the Detroit News:
We have come to the conclusion that the crisis Michigan faces is not a shortage of revenue, but an excess of idiocy. Facing a budget deficit that has passed the $1 billion mark, House Democrats Thursday offered a spending plan that would buy a MP3 player or iPod for every school child in Michigan.
The $38 million dollar proposal to outfit "all Michigan students" with iPods or other similar MP3 players is absurd. We are currently facing a $600 million budget deficit this year and a $2.1 Billion deficit next year.
Here is what Michigan Democrats want to do:
- Increase our taxes
- Cut business taxes
- Release 2,400 inmates from our prison system
- Tax businesses that do business in Michigan but do not have a location in Michigan
- Spend $100 million to improve downtowns
- Spend $38 million so kids can have iPods
Now I don't know about all of the school systems in Michigan, but a couple of the local ones here have leaky roofs, 30+ year old heating systems, 20 year old textbooks, and have overcrowded classrooms.
Do you think those kids would rather have textbooks that are current and decent classroom space that you don't freeze or get soaked in or snazzy iPods that can be used for "educational" purposes. Sure some of the kids will choose the iPod, but you would have a hard time convincing me that it would be filled with "educational" items.
I am tired of hearing about how our state government has to raise taxes to balance the budget because they have cut everything they can only to see that they want to do the same old "tax and spend" garbage as always. If Michigan is ever going to make it out of this recession we need to let our legislature know what we do or don't want and have them listen to us or elect representatives who have a better handle on how to fix our broke state.
We are selling the t-shirts below for $16 with 50% of the profits being donated to the Food Bank Council of Michigan. Make a statement and raise some funds so that the hungry in Michigan can be fed even if they don't have an iPod.
To buy a shirt just click the t-shirt image to arrive at our Goodstorm store.
UPDATE:
My jaw still smarts from when it hit my desk the other day after reading the article mentioned above. Then, I was browsing over at the Detroit Free Press and I see that Apple, maker of the iPod, paid for at least part of a trip for the two Michigan lawmakers sponsoring the bill to come visit Apple in northern California.
The lawmakers visited other sites and hit other topics such as the wine industry. It just seems interesting that they made this trip and visited with Apple earlier this year and now they are sponsoring a bill to put $36 million in Apple's bank account so kids in Michigan can use iPods to help their learning experience.