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Budget Priorities, Subsidizing Communism, Right to Work, and Science Olympiad

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

1.         Budget Priorities:  Can we agree on one thing?

            While leftists, rightists?, and libertarians may disagree about whether taxpayers should be required to subsidize poor people, we all ought to be able to agree that taxpayers (mainly the middle class) should not be required to subsidize businesses and other middle class or wealthy people.  Government should not be picking favorites among businesses, forcing one to subsidize another, and it should not be picking favorites among taxpayers, forcing one middle class person to subsidize another. 

            While much of state spending is justified on the grounds of helping “the poor”, the fact is that most of state spending benefits people who are not poor – profiting those who have more political clout at the expense of those who have less.  If we only could agree to stop subsidizing the middle class, wealthy, and corporations, we could slash our state budget dramatically and could provide plenty of tax relief to everyone, which would attract more businesses and better jobs, would leave much more money in people’s pockets to spend for their own priorities rather than to benefit some state bureaucrat, and would make the state a much better place in which to live. 

2.         Subsidizing Communism

            Carla Wallace has made a one million dollar donation to the University of Louisville to endow a chair to promote her communist views.  If that donation were being made to a private school, I would think it was great.  Ms. Wallace certainly is free to do anything she wants with her money.  However, this donation comes with strings attached.  In this case, Kentucky taxpayers will be paying for the administrative overhead, housing, etc. to promote Wallace’s communist views, and the Kentucky Bucks for Brains program, which was supposed to be used to attract scientists and develop business in the area, will be socking taxpayers for another one million dollars to match Ms. Wallace’s donation.  Ms. Wallace has pulled off quite a coup – sticking the people of Kentucky with the biggest part of the tab to promote her communist religious views.  I wonder what would happen if someone came up with a million dollars to endow a chair to teach Christianity.  Would the University accept the donation?  Would Bucks for Brains pony up a matching million?  Which elected officials are responsible for this outrageous expenditure of taxpayer money?  Will someone own up and name names, or should we just throw them all out and start over with a fresh crew?

3.         Right to Work

            A group has started promoting a “right to work” law in Kentucky.  This would be a very beneficial law, which would attract business and thus would benefit workers.  Currently, people can be required to join a union and pay dues to that union in order to work in a particular business.  Many states currently have “right to work” laws, which protect workers from this type of discrimination, leaving them free to choose.  I hope Kentucky will join them in providing Kentucky workers such freedom of choice.

4.         Science Olympiad

            I spent this past Saturday at the Science Olympiad in Louisville, where students from area middle schools and high schools competed in a wide range of events.  Some had built bridges and towers and competed to see which could support a certain weight using the least amount of materials.  Others competed in written competitions on such topics as fossils, genetics, computers, and chemistry.  My husband and I had helped some of the girls from Assumption High School with their projects, and we were very pleased that two of those projects took first place:  One was a trebuchet, which we nicknamed “Chuck”, since it was similar to a catapult and competed for distance and accuracy in “chucking” a projectile.  Another was a robot, which had to pick up ping pong balls, carry them a certain distance, and put them inside a box which was taller than the robot itself.  Jessica Fernandes, from Assumption, won that competition, and we are very proud of her, especially since we know the struggle she went through to make her robot work! 

            I was happy to see so many students being so excited about science.  It was also interesting to see what a high percentage of the students were of Asian descent.  Obviously, their families are encouraging them to apply themselves to areas that really count rather than spending their time hanging out at the mall or playing video games.  These kids are part of a culture of success.  These are the kids who will be going places, becoming the highly-prized “knowledge” workers in the next several years.  There was no news coverage of their efforts.  I saw no state officials trying to figure out how to spread this culture to more students.  Instead, state officials are just looking for more money to feather their own nests, which, of course, does nothing to grow and develop more motivated “knowledge” workers, just as subsidizing a chair at U of L to promote communism does not achieve the business development goals that were the justification for the “Bucks for Brains” program.    

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