Category: News and Opinion

Like many Americans of the past 30 years, the people of Poway, California wanted more in government services, in this case new schools, but didn’t like taxes, and weren’t likely to complain as long as they got what they wanted. The future was not one of their concerns. And like many politicians, the Poway school board gave them exactly what the whiniest generation in U.S. history wanted. How they did so has now become a scandal that has received national attention.

“School officials said the long-term bond was needed if the district was to continue with a school construction program in these difficult economic times” according to the San Diego Union Tribune. “Board member Marc Davis pointed to the taxpayer approval of the bond measure in 2008 without a tax increase. ‘We had those parameters and we executed or operated within the parameters you had given us,’ Davis said, adding: ‘There are no backroom deals. There are no shenanigans. There is no fraud.’” Not in the legal sense, I suppose. But there is the fraud that Generation Greed has perpetrated on those coming after, and not just in Poway. As the future no one cares about continues to arrive, and politicians and the media call for “creative” ways to pay for things now that so much of people’s taxes are going to past debts and public employee retirement benefits, New Yorkers should pay attention to what the Poway Unified School District did.