Read it and weep.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Parents just lost some of their rights today when the Senate Committee voted ITL on a Bill that would have required parental permission before conducting a mental evaluation on a child.
Senator Letourneau voted with US on this Bill, but unfortunately Senator Kelly, Senator Lasky, Senator Merrill and Senator Bragdon voted ITL.
Sen. Letourneau brought up the incident with the 2nd grade child in Taunton who was subjected to a mental evaluation after drawing a picture of a crucifix. THis is one of many examples of the schools overreacting and now the school is going to be subjected to a lawsuit from the parents.
IF you see/talk to Sen. Lenourneau, please let him know we appreciate his vote in favor of parental rights on this issue.
Ann Marie Banfield
Education Liaison Cornerstone Policy Research
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
You be the Judge. Liar or not a liar?
"I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes." Barack Obama Liar, Liar Pants on Fire.
Last year you as a taxpayer had an additional standard deduction, up to $500 for individuals and $1,000 for couples, for state and local property taxes (section 63) (Personal Tax Incentives), this year this deduction no longer exists.
In my book that is a tax increase how about yours? Don't forget Newport and the SAU want to raise the Croydon school budget 29% over last year. Do you have the money to pay these extra taxes?
To read about other tax increases go to the Heritage Foundation's website.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Last year you as a taxpayer had an additional standard deduction, up to $500 for individuals and $1,000 for couples, for state and local property taxes (section 63) (Personal Tax Incentives), this year this deduction no longer exists.
In my book that is a tax increase how about yours? Don't forget Newport and the SAU want to raise the Croydon school budget 29% over last year. Do you have the money to pay these extra taxes?
To read about other tax increases go to the Heritage Foundation's website.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
It is Indeed Time to "Undo That Absurd Court Ruling!"
Anyone with half a brain cell knows that educrats, teachers unions and scum suckers living off school tax dollars were the bucks behind the Claremont and Londonderry lawsuits. This morsel of common sense appeared in the December 31, 2009 issue of the Union Leader.
Bob Odell and the Democrats in the legislature pander too much to these groups. Can any of these people think for themselves?
The current tax burden is disgusting, the one they will burden our children with because of their greed is unconscionable.
Cathy Peschke
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
School subsidies: The elephant in the room
Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009
As noted in this editorial (click for link), the last decade began with a huge dispute over education funding. Donor towns sued to stop having their money taken and redistributed to other communities' schools. At the start of this decade, donor towns are still with us.
The state spends about $1 billion a year on aid to local public schools. It claims and allocates that money not because the figure is somehow sacrosanct or because school districts wouldn't find ways to thrive without state aid, but because the state Supreme Court removed the Legislature's ability to decide whether to provide such aid and how much that aid should be.
Heading into the next budget, and the next decade, the single most important step the state could take to straighten out its finances would be to undo that absurd court ruling.
To his credit, Gov. John Lynch tried. But his fellow Democrats in Concord could not destroy the goose that might one day soon lay the income tax egg. A judicial requirement to raise education subsidies annually will, over time, create a financial crisis sufficient to convince legislators to find a new source of substantial revenue.
The most recent budget raised school subsidies by $123 million to comply with the court's dictate. The amount Gov. Lynch and legislative Democrats swiped from the Joint Underwriting Association, a private non-profit group, to balance the budget: $110 million.
Removing $1 bllion a year from the Legislature's control via a dictate that education funding must never be cut but funding for social services and law enforcment may makes no sense. Legislators must retake the authority to decide how to spend that money. Failure to do so will lead to a crushing level of taxation never before seen in this state.
Bob Odell and the Democrats in the legislature pander too much to these groups. Can any of these people think for themselves?
The current tax burden is disgusting, the one they will burden our children with because of their greed is unconscionable.
Cathy Peschke
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
School subsidies: The elephant in the room
Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009
As noted in this editorial (click for link), the last decade began with a huge dispute over education funding. Donor towns sued to stop having their money taken and redistributed to other communities' schools. At the start of this decade, donor towns are still with us.
The state spends about $1 billion a year on aid to local public schools. It claims and allocates that money not because the figure is somehow sacrosanct or because school districts wouldn't find ways to thrive without state aid, but because the state Supreme Court removed the Legislature's ability to decide whether to provide such aid and how much that aid should be.
Heading into the next budget, and the next decade, the single most important step the state could take to straighten out its finances would be to undo that absurd court ruling.
To his credit, Gov. John Lynch tried. But his fellow Democrats in Concord could not destroy the goose that might one day soon lay the income tax egg. A judicial requirement to raise education subsidies annually will, over time, create a financial crisis sufficient to convince legislators to find a new source of substantial revenue.
The most recent budget raised school subsidies by $123 million to comply with the court's dictate. The amount Gov. Lynch and legislative Democrats swiped from the Joint Underwriting Association, a private non-profit group, to balance the budget: $110 million.
Removing $1 bllion a year from the Legislature's control via a dictate that education funding must never be cut but funding for social services and law enforcment may makes no sense. Legislators must retake the authority to decide how to spend that money. Failure to do so will lead to a crushing level of taxation never before seen in this state.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Healthcare Bills Unconstitutional
I will remind my readers that although this site primarily deals with education reform and school taxes the assault to our freedom and the tax impact of the current Administration's policies can not be ignored.
The healthcare Bills are unconstitutional. Please take the time out of your day and call your representatives and senators and tell them to vote no on this healthcare legislation. Real reform involves opening up individuals to by insurance from any company not just a few and torte reform. Real reform will revolve around a reduction of mandates not more mandates.
The following piece appears in the Wall Street Journal.
Quote of the Day - "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents..." --James Madison
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Why the Health-Care Bills Are Unconstitutional
If the government can mandate the purchase of insurance, it can do anything.
By ORRIN G. HATCH, J. KENNETH BLACKWELL AND KENNETH A. KLUKOWSKI
President Obama's health-care bill is now moving toward final passage. The policy issues may be coming to an end, but the legal issues are certain to continue because key provisions of this dangerous legislation are unconstitutional. Legally speaking, this legislation creates a target-rich environment. We will focus on three of its more glaring constitutional defects.
First, the Constitution does not give Congress the power to require that Americans purchase health insurance. Congress must be able to point to at least one of its powers listed in the Constitution as the basis of any legislation it passes. None of those powers justifies the individual insurance mandate. Congress's powers to tax and spend do not apply because the mandate neither taxes nor spends. The only other option is Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce.
Congress has many times stretched this power to the breaking point, exceeding even the expanded version of the commerce power established by the Supreme Court since the Great Depression. It is one thing, however, for Congress to regulate economic activity in which individuals choose to engage; it is another to require that individuals engage in such activity. That is not a difference in degree, but instead a difference in kind. It is a line that Congress has never crossed and the courts have never sanctioned.
In fact, the Supreme Court in United States v. Lopez (1995) rejected a version of the commerce power so expansive that it would leave virtually no activities by individuals that Congress could not regulate. By requiring Americans to use their own money to purchase a particular good or service, Congress would be doing exactly what the court said it could not do.
Some have argued that Congress may pass any legislation that it believes will serve the "general welfare." Those words appear in Article I of the Constitution, but they do not create a free-floating power for Congress simply to go forth and legislate well. Rather, the general welfare clause identifies the purpose for which Congress may spend money. The individual mandate tells Americans how they must spend the money Congress has not taken from them and has nothing to do with congressional spending.
A second constitutional defect of the Reid bill passed in the Senate involves the deals he cut to secure the votes of individual senators. Some of those deals do involve spending programs because they waive certain states' obligation to contribute to the Medicaid program. This selective spending targeted at certain states runs afoul of the general welfare clause. The welfare it serves is instead very specific and has been dubbed "cash for cloture" because it secured the 60 votes the majority needed to end debate and pass this legislation.
A third constitutional defect in this ObamaCare legislation is its command that states establish such things as benefit exchanges, which will require state legislation and regulations. This is not a condition for receiving federal funds, which would still leave some kind of choice to the states. No, this legislation requires states to establish these exchanges or says that the Secretary of Health and Human Services will step in and do it for them. It renders states little more than subdivisions of the federal government.
This violates the letter, the spirit, and the interpretation of our federal-state form of government. Some may have come to consider federalism an archaic annoyance, perhaps an amusing topic for law-school seminars but certainly not a substantive rule for structuring government. But in New York v. United States (1992) and Printz v. United States (1997), the Supreme Court struck down two laws on the grounds that the Constitution forbids the federal government from commandeering any branch of state government to administer a federal program. That is, by drafting and by deliberate design, exactly what this legislation would do.
The federal government may exercise only the powers granted to it or denied to the states. The states may do everything else. This is why, for example, states may have authority to require individuals to purchase health insurance but the federal government does not. It is also the reason states may require that individuals purchase car insurance before choosing to drive a car, but the federal government may not require all individuals to purchase health insurance.
This hardly exhausts the list of constitutional problems with this legislation, which would take the federal government into uncharted political and legal territory. Analysts, scholars and litigators are just beginning to examine the issues we have raised and other issues that may well lead to future litigation.
America's founders intended the federal government to have limited powers and that the states have an independent sovereign place in our system of government. The Obama/Reid/Pelosi legislation to take control of the American health-care system is the most sweeping and intrusive federal program ever devised. If the federal government can do this, then it can do anything, and the limits on government power that our liberty requires will be more myth than reality.
Mr. Hatch, a Republican senator from Utah, is a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Blackwell is a senior fellow with the Family Research Council and a professor at Liberty University School of Law. Mr. Klukowski is a fellow and senior legal analyst with the American Civil Rights Union.
The healthcare Bills are unconstitutional. Please take the time out of your day and call your representatives and senators and tell them to vote no on this healthcare legislation. Real reform involves opening up individuals to by insurance from any company not just a few and torte reform. Real reform will revolve around a reduction of mandates not more mandates.
The following piece appears in the Wall Street Journal.
Quote of the Day - "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents..." --James Madison
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Why the Health-Care Bills Are Unconstitutional
If the government can mandate the purchase of insurance, it can do anything.
By ORRIN G. HATCH, J. KENNETH BLACKWELL AND KENNETH A. KLUKOWSKI
President Obama's health-care bill is now moving toward final passage. The policy issues may be coming to an end, but the legal issues are certain to continue because key provisions of this dangerous legislation are unconstitutional. Legally speaking, this legislation creates a target-rich environment. We will focus on three of its more glaring constitutional defects.
First, the Constitution does not give Congress the power to require that Americans purchase health insurance. Congress must be able to point to at least one of its powers listed in the Constitution as the basis of any legislation it passes. None of those powers justifies the individual insurance mandate. Congress's powers to tax and spend do not apply because the mandate neither taxes nor spends. The only other option is Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce.
Congress has many times stretched this power to the breaking point, exceeding even the expanded version of the commerce power established by the Supreme Court since the Great Depression. It is one thing, however, for Congress to regulate economic activity in which individuals choose to engage; it is another to require that individuals engage in such activity. That is not a difference in degree, but instead a difference in kind. It is a line that Congress has never crossed and the courts have never sanctioned.
In fact, the Supreme Court in United States v. Lopez (1995) rejected a version of the commerce power so expansive that it would leave virtually no activities by individuals that Congress could not regulate. By requiring Americans to use their own money to purchase a particular good or service, Congress would be doing exactly what the court said it could not do.
Some have argued that Congress may pass any legislation that it believes will serve the "general welfare." Those words appear in Article I of the Constitution, but they do not create a free-floating power for Congress simply to go forth and legislate well. Rather, the general welfare clause identifies the purpose for which Congress may spend money. The individual mandate tells Americans how they must spend the money Congress has not taken from them and has nothing to do with congressional spending.
A second constitutional defect of the Reid bill passed in the Senate involves the deals he cut to secure the votes of individual senators. Some of those deals do involve spending programs because they waive certain states' obligation to contribute to the Medicaid program. This selective spending targeted at certain states runs afoul of the general welfare clause. The welfare it serves is instead very specific and has been dubbed "cash for cloture" because it secured the 60 votes the majority needed to end debate and pass this legislation.
A third constitutional defect in this ObamaCare legislation is its command that states establish such things as benefit exchanges, which will require state legislation and regulations. This is not a condition for receiving federal funds, which would still leave some kind of choice to the states. No, this legislation requires states to establish these exchanges or says that the Secretary of Health and Human Services will step in and do it for them. It renders states little more than subdivisions of the federal government.
This violates the letter, the spirit, and the interpretation of our federal-state form of government. Some may have come to consider federalism an archaic annoyance, perhaps an amusing topic for law-school seminars but certainly not a substantive rule for structuring government. But in New York v. United States (1992) and Printz v. United States (1997), the Supreme Court struck down two laws on the grounds that the Constitution forbids the federal government from commandeering any branch of state government to administer a federal program. That is, by drafting and by deliberate design, exactly what this legislation would do.
The federal government may exercise only the powers granted to it or denied to the states. The states may do everything else. This is why, for example, states may have authority to require individuals to purchase health insurance but the federal government does not. It is also the reason states may require that individuals purchase car insurance before choosing to drive a car, but the federal government may not require all individuals to purchase health insurance.
This hardly exhausts the list of constitutional problems with this legislation, which would take the federal government into uncharted political and legal territory. Analysts, scholars and litigators are just beginning to examine the issues we have raised and other issues that may well lead to future litigation.
America's founders intended the federal government to have limited powers and that the states have an independent sovereign place in our system of government. The Obama/Reid/Pelosi legislation to take control of the American health-care system is the most sweeping and intrusive federal program ever devised. If the federal government can do this, then it can do anything, and the limits on government power that our liberty requires will be more myth than reality.
Mr. Hatch, a Republican senator from Utah, is a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Blackwell is a senior fellow with the Family Research Council and a professor at Liberty University School of Law. Mr. Klukowski is a fellow and senior legal analyst with the American Civil Rights Union.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Attend vote on HB 368 on January 6, 2010
Last year over 1000 homeschoolers showed up at the Capitol to rally against HB 367 and HB 368. In the Democrats thirst for tax dollars and control of New Hampshires' children they try to ram HB 368 down our throats again.
I am sharing the following email I received.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Hello Home-schoolers!
The House of Representatives will be meeting at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday January 6th at the State House in Concord. On this day your representatives will be voting on House Bill 368.
Have you spoken with each of your representatives?
Do you know how they will be voting on this bill?
Will you be attending?
It is worth contacting your district representatives: phone or mail. Simply ask for them to support the bipartisan (14-6) vote of Inexpedient to Legislate and to not support any amendments.
My representatives were very supportive. Two of them were not going to commit until seeing everything in front of them on that day, but after a few minutes of speaking with them about the education committee vote on November 19th, they agreed to support the ITL recommendation. This was very rewarding to hear! FYI: I did get 3 answering machines and recommend that you have prepared a message that you can leave right on their machine asking for their ITL vote. Also, don't forget to let them know you are their constituent. This is very important to them.
Let's make this New Year a great one for home education! See you on January 6th!
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Evil Bill by Representative Day will be voted on 1/6/10
I received the following regarding HB 368 please share.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
It is *critical* to contact your Representatives about this bill, preferably by phone. Emails and letters are too easily dismissed and overlooked. Ask your reps to vote YES to support the ITL on HB 368. The HEC vote of 14-6 on 11/19/09 may be the single biggest reason we can get support from the full House. Many of the reps look to the committee vote to determine how they should vote and know little about the bill themselves. Your comments to them may be the only solid information they have going into the vote.
You can find contact information for your Representatives here: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/ns/whosmyleg/
I posted some talking points on the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance forum. Feel free to use them if you wish.
Reasons to vote YES to support the ITL of HB 368:
#1: The HEC recommendation is ITL.
The House Education Committee had a bi-partisan vote on 11/19/09 of 14-6 to recommend HB 368 as ITL, after creating several subcommittees to study home education.
#2: The amendment by Rep. Day goes far beyond the original bill, incorporating language from HB367 that was ITLed in 2009. These rules are clearly designed to create greater burdens for homeschooling families, and dissuade families seeking alternatives from considering homeschooling.
a. Lists numerous specific curriculum requirements, which exceed the curriculum requirements of NH public schools. This is not fair or equal under the law.
http://www.ed.state.nh.us/education/standards/advisory6.pdf
b. Require annual evaluations by certified teachers AND standardized testing, increasing the cost and time requirements of compliance with no benefit to the students, home education programs, or participating agencies.
c. Allows the DOE to make future changes to evaluation requirements without any legislative input, creating an undefined and moving target.
d. Forces test scores and evaluations to bypass families and go directly to participating agencies, blatantly calling all home educators liars. As Rep Day wrote in the minority opinion, "parents pay the evaluator and can shop for positive evaluations ".
#3: Representative Day has commented that homeschoolers are unreasonable and would oppose any change. Chair Rous said in the 11/19/09 executive session that New Hampshire's home education laws are not excessively burdensome according to her research. However, according to the Home School Legal Defense Association, a national home education advocacy group, the proposed amendment would make NH the most restrictive and burdensome in the country.
http://www.hslda.org/elert/archive/2009/12/20091216134642.asp
The HEC has seen several bills in recent years that would seek radical change to existing home education laws. HB 368 is only the most recent, and with Rep. Day's amendments, the most egregious.
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
It is *critical* to contact your Representatives about this bill, preferably by phone. Emails and letters are too easily dismissed and overlooked. Ask your reps to vote YES to support the ITL on HB 368. The HEC vote of 14-6 on 11/19/09 may be the single biggest reason we can get support from the full House. Many of the reps look to the committee vote to determine how they should vote and know little about the bill themselves. Your comments to them may be the only solid information they have going into the vote.
You can find contact information for your Representatives here: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/ns/whosmyleg/
I posted some talking points on the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance forum. Feel free to use them if you wish.
Reasons to vote YES to support the ITL of HB 368:
#1: The HEC recommendation is ITL.
The House Education Committee had a bi-partisan vote on 11/19/09 of 14-6 to recommend HB 368 as ITL, after creating several subcommittees to study home education.
#2: The amendment by Rep. Day goes far beyond the original bill, incorporating language from HB367 that was ITLed in 2009. These rules are clearly designed to create greater burdens for homeschooling families, and dissuade families seeking alternatives from considering homeschooling.
a. Lists numerous specific curriculum requirements, which exceed the curriculum requirements of NH public schools. This is not fair or equal under the law.
http://www.ed.state.nh.us/education/standards/advisory6.pdf
b. Require annual evaluations by certified teachers AND standardized testing, increasing the cost and time requirements of compliance with no benefit to the students, home education programs, or participating agencies.
c. Allows the DOE to make future changes to evaluation requirements without any legislative input, creating an undefined and moving target.
d. Forces test scores and evaluations to bypass families and go directly to participating agencies, blatantly calling all home educators liars. As Rep Day wrote in the minority opinion, "parents pay the evaluator and can shop for positive evaluations ".
#3: Representative Day has commented that homeschoolers are unreasonable and would oppose any change. Chair Rous said in the 11/19/09 executive session that New Hampshire's home education laws are not excessively burdensome according to her research. However, according to the Home School Legal Defense Association, a national home education advocacy group, the proposed amendment would make NH the most restrictive and burdensome in the country.
http://www.hslda.org/elert/archive/2009/12/20091216134642.asp
The HEC has seen several bills in recent years that would seek radical change to existing home education laws. HB 368 is only the most recent, and with Rep. Day's amendments, the most egregious.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Parental Rights Bill
I was sent the following information that I am sharing. Our family will attend weather permitting.
Cathy
Next Thursday, January 7th at 1:15pm, is the first hearing for the Parents' Rights bill sponsored by Reps. Itse and Dumaine. Use this link to see the text of the bill:
CACR0029
This bill would allow parents to direct the health, education, and general welfare of their children.
Although it not specific to homeschooling and has other impacts, we believe it would strengthen our rights to home educate our children without the state's interference.
I know many of us will be in Concord the previous day for the homeschool bill's floor vote, but it would be helpful if we're able to attend on 1/7/10 to support this bill, too. Please share this information with your friends and family who support parents' rights.
Children and Family Law CACR 29 LOB 206 Th 1/7/10 @ 1:15pm
Thanks
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Cathy
Next Thursday, January 7th at 1:15pm, is the first hearing for the Parents' Rights bill sponsored by Reps. Itse and Dumaine. Use this link to see the text of the bill:
CACR0029
This bill would allow parents to direct the health, education, and general welfare of their children.
Although it not specific to homeschooling and has other impacts, we believe it would strengthen our rights to home educate our children without the state's interference.
I know many of us will be in Concord the previous day for the homeschool bill's floor vote, but it would be helpful if we're able to attend on 1/7/10 to support this bill, too. Please share this information with your friends and family who support parents' rights.
Children and Family Law CACR 29 LOB 206 Th 1/7/10 @ 1:15pm
Thanks
Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
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