Surgical Words

Let’s talk about tax dollars.

First, I’ll be straight: I receive the benefit of a tax-funded education. I’m writing this on a school computer, a machine paid for by the district. I was homeschooled for a time, so I’ve seen two worlds of education and couldn’t say which has helped me more. I’m grateful for the opportunities that have been provided by this education, but as a future taxpayer, I also see the school district as an inefficient machine.

The residents of Greenville County (who own a car) receive one of these every year:

Exciting. What’s more interesting is this breakdown:

That’s right. 56% of all vehicle taxes go to the schools. That’s a lot of money. Even in this sample from the county tax website, it’s $1,370.69. For one car.

There must be a lot of cars in Greenville County, because according to the 2007-2008 Greenville County School District (GCSD) budget report, the total local tax revenue was $156,191,700.

My sister (who is in college) jokes that she doesn’t understand numbers above one million. As an amount of money, I certainly can’t wrap my head around one hundred fifty-six million dollars. If I got this answer in math class, I’d recheck my work. This is not a reasonable answer.

So where does this money go? A lot goes to perfectly reasonable things, like getting kids to school, which costs $10,935,418. That’s buying new buses, maintaining the old ones, and finding trustworthy employees to drive them.

Another $1,109,317 is set aside for teacher supplies. And yet teachers at my school have to beg students for dry erase markers? Something is wrong here.

Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.

— H.L. Mencken