Spin-Doctor Politics
I love it when the spin-doctors get a hold of political information and then do a fancy two-step backward dance trying to make things look different than they really are. Yesterday a story came out about New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer’s budget he’s getting ready to present later today. The numbers yesterday said he was cutting $350 million dollars in state aid to schools in this year’s budget. As part of his election platform he promised extra dollars for schools so they could better themselves. Of course the story from yesterday caused a shockwave across many school districts. What does losing $350 million dollars in the overall budget do at a local level? A very real question.
Later in the day, the spin-doctors got a hold of the story and started doing some back tracking to make it sound not quite as bad. Now the spin says the original projected number for school aid in the budget was $1.25 billion dollars. But now, a report out of Albany, New York says that schools will share approximately $900 million dollars more than last year.
It’s all spin folks. Governor Eliot Spitzer made a promise, now he’s going back on his word. But then again, that shouldn’t surprise too many people. It seems the Governor is becoming a master at going back on his word, or at least putting a different spin on things so it doesn’t look as bad as it is. I have a feeling he loves the word truthiness which means a shading of the truth. Not really true, not really false. However you say it, the bottom line is this. Govenor Spitzer has been running around the state freely telling everyone he’s going to give them a bunch of money for various projects. He has to find the money from somewhere, so why not rob the educational process for children.
Governor Spitzer says the decrease in funding to schools is due to current economic strains that are facing not only New York, but the rest of the country as well. If that’s the case, and if the Governor truly believes that, then he should start thinking twice before tossing millions of dollars around for senseless projects to cities with no sense of accountability.
Just my two cents,
Dr. Rus
