Gerald McCormick speaks in this file photo.House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick charged this week that a multi-county lawsuit challenging Tennessee's funding of public education as inadequate really amounts to "suing the state's taxpayers for a tax increase ..."
Isn't that the epitome of politicians' double-talk to deflect responsibility from their own failures?
No, Rep. McCormick. It really amounts to suing the state's lawmakers and administrators for being unwilling or incapable of fully funding the laws they've put on the books to use the taxes Tennesseans have already paid for our schools and our children. Specifically, the suit filed Tuesday charges that Tennessee has "breached its duty under the Tennessee Constitution to provide a system of free public education for the children of the state."
It would have been nice to negotiate better funding -- read here, full funding of the state's Basic Education Program -- as McCormick suggested during his double-talk. But negotiating takes two, and it seems that the only people really talking the talk and walking the walk were the advocates of better funding while state officials just smiled, nodded and walked away from their fiscal and management responsibilities year after year after year.
Taxpayers -- especially those with children and grandchildren in Tennessee schools -- are not fooled by the McCormicks of our Tennessee General Assembly.
We want our schools better funded, better managed and making improvements. And we want all of that now.