Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Or, They Could Eliminate the Middlemen and Just Burn Hundred Dollar Bills Every Day in Times Square

How do supposedly sentient adults get themselves to believe the patently ridiculous? Even having to ignore the separation of powers inherent in a state constitution.

It's another verse of New York, New York:

ALBANY - The plaintiffs in a lawsuit over funding for New York City schools were negotiating a settlement with the Pataki administration yesterday in a last-minute effort to avoid having a solution imposed on state lawmakers by the courts.

One proposal from Governor Pataki would have increased the city schools budget by $5 billion, or about one-third, over the next five years....

The plaintiffs in the 11-year-old constitutional lawsuit, known as the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, and Mayor Bloomberg both rejected that proposal as inadequate....

[The proposal was] aimed at heading off a potentially costly court order by the judge supervising the case, Leland DeGrasse of the state Supreme Court at Manhattan. Today, Judge DeGrasse is due to receive the report of a panel he appointed to study the issue, which is expected to recommend increasing education funding by several billion dollars.

Once that figure becomes public and Mr. DeGrasse converts it into a court order binding on state lawmakers....

Yes, the judicial branch is ordering the legislative branch to not engage in their constitutional duty. Anyone remember that Constitutional requirement for states to have a republican form of government? How quaint.

Of course, no article about NYC public schools would be complete without:

Almost four years ago, Judge De-Grasse determined that the city schools were failing to provide the basic education mandated by the state constitution and blamed the problem on a shortage of funding. ....

New York already spends more than $35 billion on its public schools, or about $13,000 a student - more than any other state.

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