Et tu CDE? Et tu O’Brien?
May 12th, 2010 — Budget, Education, Politics, Taxes & Fees
Our official, state web page is pretty bland and not very informative. A few years ago I asked if I could substitute this site, or at least link to it. "No," was the answer. The state pays for the official page and state money can't support anything political or partisan.
Fair enough. Except that it doesn't seem to apply to sites endorsed by the state's Dept. of Education and Lt. Governor.
A link on CDE's home page takes you to a list of bills by a group called EdNews. In the opinion section that site trashes Democrats.
For instance, on SB10-191, which some of us have questioned, it says:
I single out Democrats for an obvious reason; to vote for Senate Bill 10-191 – aka the teacher evaluation and tenure bill – means bucking the Colorado Education Association, the most powerful education interest group in the state. The CEA is pulling out all the stops – including fear-mongering, arm-twisting and fact-twisting – to defeat this bill.The organization obviously views SB 10-191 as an existential threat; not to teachers but to itself. Why? Because if SB 10-191 becomes law, it means the CEA failed to muster the political force to stop it, despite having both houses of the legislature and the governorship in the hands of the Democratic Party, CEA’s longtime soulmate.
The next post is an endorsement from Lt. Governor Barbara O'Brien:
The site's attacks on Democrats go beyond education policy. For instance, it also goes after our attempt to shore up tax revenue.
We passed a bill to collect sales tax on purchases from out-of-state, online retailers just like we do from local stores. It would bring in more revenue for the state and eliminate the unfair advantage the online stores currently have.
EdNews attacks us and the Colorado Education Association for supporting the bill:
Perhaps CEA should strive to be more honest, or at least to do its homework by reading this thorough and careful analysis from the Tax Foundation (H/T Free Colorado). Among other things, the analysis shows that Amazon taxes:
- Are “unlikely to produce revenue in the near-term”
- Make the playing field less (not more) level between brick-and-mortar businesses and their Internet-based counterparts “because they require Internet-based businesses to track thousands of sales tax bases and rates while brick-and-mortar businesses need to track only one”
- “Undermine legal certainty, burden interstate commerce, and harm economic growth”
So maybe CEA is ignorant of tax policy and chose to accept the official fiscal note that claimed Colorado’s Amazon Tax (aka HB 1193) would raise nearly $5 million more state revenue per year. Or maybe CEA is just trying to provide cover for its allies in the legislative majority at the State Capitol.CEA’s choice in supporting tax policies conveniently appears less dependent on how the policies affect school funding than on how they affect the interests of its Left-leaning political coalition.
Our fiscal notes are prepared by the legislature's non-partisan economics staff. They scrupulously avoid being influenced by any legislator.
Strange that a website that claims to support schools would attack our attempts to pay for them. Stranger that the CDE and the Lt. Governor would endorse a site that attacks a bill the Governor supports
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