Would you be willing to pay higher taxes to fund school safety?

[Nordmadr]

That is a poll question being asked on CNN right now. Personally, I'd like to find the answers to the underlying cultural problems that are causing our kids/other adults to commit violence in the schools. I could make any range of arguements for a number of cultural factors that could be contributors.

It's just like giving anti-depressants to someone without trying to figure out WHY they're depressed.

Olafr

[Gman]

1. Hell no I wouldn't pay more in taxes

I'd like to see the school district that I pay an obscene amount of property taxes to show they have some kind of simple, rudimentary knowledge of how to run a school system and not go through money like it is water.

[GeorgeGist]

7. How obscene?

[Gman]

20. Obscene

No redeeming social value and pertains to prurient interests.

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. No - for the same reasons you gave. The money would be better

spent elsewhere, trying to stop the reasons for the shootings.

It's like law enforcement - thanks to the republicans ("We value LIFE!") we now have twice or more as many prisons as we had twenty years ago; spending ridiculous amounts on the prison system - which has alsop mostly been privatized, so that we can waste even more money - and cutting all the programs that were helping people to stay out of prison: Head Start, public schools, vocational training, health care, treatment, social services, etc.

[Nordmadr]

8. Exactly. A hand up rather than a boot in the teeth.

It would be a start. Smarter not harder.

Olafr

[BOSSHOG]

3. I'd be willing for the top two percent to pay more taxes for that purpose

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. I'd like to know where a 13 year old punk gets an AK47.

No, I don't want to pay more to fund school safety. We pay too much already.

[slackmaster]

21. He got it from his parents' safe

The fools evidently gave the kid the combination.

[Bitwit1234]

5. Social Security Fund

Hell why don't they just raid the social security fund. Seems like every time they need money they raid this. No wonder they are constantly saying it is going broke. If they would have left the money there instead of using it for other things social security would be fine. And not just the republicans have stolen money from social security, democrats have also.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

6. How about actually having a mental health care infrastructure?

That might solve these problems, and a whole lot more.

[Wcross]

9. No.

I would support holding parents liable for the actions for their offspring. I would support looking into the heavy use of mind altering drugs prescribed to these kids. I would support some teachers being allowed to carry firearms in school. The teachers who volunteer would be required to go through training and screening to carry.
The only other alternative to armed teachers is either total confiscation of ALL firearms in civilian hands or secure the schools like a prison.

[YOY]

10. How about taking .1 percent of the existing military budget and

fixing up the school system period. Security, faciliities, everything.

Oh wait, Military Contra, I mean we need a new model of submarine to fight terrorism... :eyes:


Lockheed Martin: We never forget who we are working for: Benjamin Franklin

[China_cat]

11. Most definitely would

when you consider that this year, for the first time, absolutely NOTHING, nada, not one red cent of my property tax is going to fund the schools. I don't know how our governor is funding them but the schools are no longer being paid for by property taxes.

THAT is obscene.

[Bill McBlueState]

12. it depends

It depends on who's in charge of deciding what it means to fund school safety. If funding school safety means school kids are randomly subjected to actions that border on civil rights violations, then no, I don't want to pay for that. If it means we're going to train and hire staff to better recognize and counsel problem kids, that might be worthwhile.

[Kittycat]

13. No, we already pay $8K/year, and they're trying to get more funding for...

Overcrowded schools, and planned expansion because our area is growing faster than they can build the schools. 5 years ago, this town had 13K residents. Today we're somewhere around 45-50K, and expected to double in 3 years. They just opened the new H.S. two years ago, and are already posting a bond request for a 3rd, along with 13 more elementary & jr. High schools to accomodate the growth.

What I would like to see is for the Federal Government to stop paying for this war, and put the money back into the programs in place prior!

[Golden Raisin]

14. I'm for penalizing the NRA

$10 million everytime there's a school incident. I'm for sending the parents/grandparents of the kids involved to jail. You always read in these stories that the kids got the guns from a gun cabinet at home or in Uncle Billy's house or Grandad's. We have reaped what we've sown. We are a nation that glorifies, glamorizes and dehumanizes violence and simultaneously allows guns to proliferate. I'm only surprised there aren't more of these school cases.

[RB TexLa]

15. Aren't schools located within police jurisdictions?

They are located in areas served by a local police department, a parish or county's sheriff's office and a state police troop?

[npincus]

16. tax increase not necessary

US is flushing $6-8 billion per MONTH in Iraq. We get the f*ck out, and spend that money where it's needed.

[ThomWV]

17. I Already Am - This Is Not The First School Shooting Scare

Security, and the price thereof, has already been a matter put to the voters here and elsewhere. Generally such funding actions have met with success, though some mean districts remain close to their pennys no matter what.

At any rate I've been paying increased taxes with every school shooting since the 1980's and not one god damned thing has got any safer.

[Giant Robot]

18. I would be happy to pay more taxes:

1) AS long as I knew this would be an across the board increase, no loopholes for those in higher brackets

and 2) As long as the money was going to fix up this frigging country, i.e. affordable healthcare, a mental health system that is adequately funded, help available for the poorest among us, schools that are adequately funded, etc.

Yes I would be willing to pay a lot more for that.

[Horse with no Name]

19. Not until the adults are back in charge of the checkbook

At that point, I would pay the necessary money to fix our infrastructure and schools.
We are supposed to leave this world a better place for our kids and we are failing miserably under this current one-party rule.

[Red Right and BLUE]

22. Nope.

Solve the problem, not stick a bandaid on it.