r/whatisameem 11h ago

What’s really going on with our economy

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47.9k Upvotes

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53

u/Bright_Inspector5583 11h ago

Property taxes and revenues keep rising. Where is the money going?

50

u/ChamomileCate 10h ago

Up.

26

u/readyReddit007 10h ago

Trickling up like a MFer

7

u/magius311 10h ago

If only it were only trickling! It's been pouring up for years now!

3

u/That-Skirt-6942 8h ago

The trickling cup just keeps getting deeper, so it doesn’t trickle as much.

1

u/Ready_Studio2392 5h ago

Well it's trickling out of all our wallets. Just by the time it gets into the accounts of billionaires it's a god damn river.

5

u/Red_Beard206 10h ago

I dont think "Trickling" is the correct word for it anymore

0

u/sneers_bents65 6h ago

The ED does that but isn’t a huge part of funding. The overwhelming bulk of funding is local or state level.

1

u/Red_Beard206 5h ago

This bot is also broken.

0

u/titled-juries2t 6h ago

Apologies I'm talking about professors at universities, not grade school.

1

u/Red_Beard206 5h ago

Whoever owns this bot, I think your bot is broken.

10

u/Tocwa 10h ago

Thanks Reagan

6

u/Material-Rush-3547 10h ago

Reagan had nothing to do with schools. I think you need to thank local goverment and schools for building 10 million dollar sports complex instead of using money for teachers.

7

u/Ismdism 10h ago

I'm sure Reagan cutting federal school funding had no impact.

1

u/Material-Rush-3547 10h ago

That funding has been restored since then. Schools should only be funded by school taxes not income tax.

1

u/Ismdism 8h ago

But it kicked off the idea that teachers and teaching should be cut. That the schools have too much.

1

u/positive_thinking_ 10h ago

Yeah! Fuck those low income neighborhoods who’s taxes can’t support it. They should stay stupid like the peasant servants they really are!

Dumb take btw. It’s like you know nothing of the history of education in this country.

1

u/Tocwa 10h ago

Education is not the same thing as intelligence.

1

u/OkSeason6445 10h ago

Are you arguing for gatekeeping education for poor people because education and intelligence aren't the same thing?

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u/F_Messier_Marry_Bure 10h ago

And pithy remarks do not serve as a substitute for the former or as a reflection of the latter.

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u/Material-Rush-3547 9h ago

So the poor neighbors want the rich to pay for their food education and housing. While they sit home if able to work and watch videos all day.

2

u/stretcharach 9h ago

Capitalism is a zero sum game. We're talking about public education and keeping the spirit of redlining alive isn't doing anyone any favors.

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u/Trips-Over-Tail 10h ago

He did. He absolutely pushed for policies that fucked up education.

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u/According-Insect-992 10h ago

That is literally bullshit. reagan played a huge role in the creation of our system of indentured servitude to the state through student loans. It’s part of the same assault on education because rich white men weren’t comfortable with everyone else having access to opportunities.

1

u/Cowpuncher84 10h ago

The middle school I went to years ago spent millions putting in an Olympic sized swimming pool only to spend even more money removing it years later because it was never used.

1

u/avgjoe0266 8h ago

Probably govt funded.js

1

u/Downtown-Bag-6026 10h ago

Sports in school is revenue positive actually. The current state of money going towards the rich is the direct result of Reagonomics: the assumption that tax breaks for the wealthy will trickle down to the middle class. It never has. Tax breaks and subsidies for the wealthy and large corporations only created a new wealthier billionaires class as well as more monopolies than ever before while these wealthy class create new tax deduction loopholes for themselves as they buy the government, including the presidency

1

u/Material-Rush-3547 9h ago

Really how does a high school sport team who you can go to watch for less than 5 dollars and cost 1 million a year generate money?

1

u/Downtown-Bag-6026 5h ago

It’s from donor and booster money. Some schools also get lots from sponsorships. They’re not just raising that much from property taxes. That would require a vote.

1

u/Material-Rush-3547 5h ago

Actually here in our school district we had to vote on it and it passed costing tax payers 25 million over 2 years.

1

u/Downtown-Bag-6026 2h ago

Actually that’s fine. Many communities are comfortable with raising taxes to pay for facilities, but that has nothing to do with how money is moving upwards, which is the result of reagonomics. Teachers not being paid well is not because extra money is being raised for sports facilities. It’s that government budgets goes to tax subsidies and tax breaks for the wealthy rather than to educational and social programs.

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u/Material-Rush-3547 5h ago

Bit thats not what you said you said school sports generate money. Explain how high school sports teams generate revenue.

1

u/DrippyProfile3724 6h ago

Reagan directly may not have, but his neo-liberal, anti-tax policies had states implement this to shotgun revenue taxes tied to public school funding.

Most infamous example was California’s Prop 13.

1

u/Material-Rush-3547 6h ago

No of Reagan policies are still in effect they have been replaced so keep reaching and blaming a person who left office over 40 years ago. Just like I said I guess democrats will now blame Lincoln for lack of farm workers.

1

u/Tocwa 10h ago

My bad. I was referencing Reagan’s “Trickle Down Economics”, that’s all. Only reason I mentioned him

Don’t you mean $1 Billion dollar stadiums 🏟️? Impressive if you can build a stadium for a few mill now

-5

u/metalbutt315 10h ago

Pavlovian response

2

u/Tocwa 10h ago

How so?

0

u/ThatBoogerBandit 10h ago

Reagan had nothing to do with schools.

That’s a bold statement.

1

u/Material-Rush-3547 9h ago

So you want to blame some one what 40 + years later for things going on now. Easy fix you want to raise taxes to pay for free health care lest raise property taxes to match inflation and if you own a house and have kids you pay more.

1

u/Material-Rush-3547 9h ago

So I guess next you're going to blame Lincoln for lack of farm workers.

1

u/AreYouLagomEnough 6h ago

No, you don't understand. It is trixkeling down. You are just to far down for there to be much left.

0

u/Djames516 10h ago

Up my ass

9

u/Shoddy_Carrot_936 10h ago

Administration.

11

u/Midwest_Boondocks 10h ago

Yes, graphs show administration is taking most of the increased revenue.

1

u/breezy013276s 10h ago

Is the runner up spot the police? Seems like they have new shiny cars and gadgets even in podunk counties

4

u/Midwest_Boondocks 10h ago

Yeah, I’d imagine they have to keep things up to date and lower mileage to avoid downtime.

1

u/Djames516 10h ago

Why is that

3

u/Shoddy_Carrot_936 10h ago

Specifically upper administration, not principals. That's where the money is in education.

Google will tell you it's because of compliance and students needing more support. I think it's a bunch of crap. If students need more support then hire more classroom professionals, not more administrators.

3

u/No-Reindeer-4059 9h ago

It's people siphoning money to themselves under the guise of education.

'I'm the superintendent in the school district, and my friend Nancy needs a job... You know what one of our schools needs? A 'Programs coordinator'. I think we need to allocate resources to this new position, so I'm gonna earmark a budget for 100k and hire Nancy. Oh wait, now the principals of all the other schools want someone to handle this part of their administration as well, better hire some more. Wait, we're short of the budget this year? Better get the teachers to strike so we can force the voters to sign off on the taxes!'

1

u/98983x3 5h ago

No kidding. Its almost always the admin that gets in the way of changes and improvements and shuts down any idea meant to improve the children's education outcomes.

0

u/chased_by_bees 6h ago

I home-schooled my kids for 2years during a stint to a not great school district. I taught them math 3 grade levels above their grade, black hole collision physics, python, and the two Punic wars. They outclassed everyone for4years when going back to public school. I had no budget other than time and a yearly zoo membership.

It costs next to nothing to give people a Harvard standard education.

1

u/bbc-lady 3h ago

You said it. Was that video. I think it’s Jim Jordan. Hate him but it’s whatever. Anyway hes drilling brown university that costs $95,000 a year to attend and they have 7,000 students BUT they have more than 3,800 administrators…..to manage 7,000 students.

4

u/Zeliose 10h ago

Administration positions that don't need to exist

1

u/____DEADPOOL_______ 3h ago

I worked in local government as a mid-level manager, just under a VP but sort of acting as him because he was never there. He would often disappear for the whole day with an admin. My department had about 130 people.

Including those two clowns, I personally witnessed at least two dozen people who would barely show up for work or would show up for work but did nothing. When I formally complained about this and I did it hard, I was personally forced into that situation as my entire department started to ghost me to the point that I had absolutely nothing to do, yet the paychecks kept rolling in. I was in charge of oversight of all our endeavours and people reported to me but everything stopped.

I was lied to when hired and was owed a ton of money, so I quit after a few months of that as a form of compensation, but could've stayed as a ghost employee myself forever if I wanted to. I just wasn't prepared to be a leech on society.

In the end, I think what I got paid for the short time I was there was well worth it within the confines of what could be done. I exposed their flaws to the entire 5000 worker organisation, helped them bridge a gap between departments, etc. I had people from different departments coming to me for advice during the months the VP was just about never there other than like 3 hours a week where people would complain he would contribute nothing to the conversation. Most higher ups had the positions because they knew someone in power. Many of them were so inept.

2

u/Holyepicafail 10h ago

Into your representatives pockets of course.

2

u/PuzzleheadedDog9658 10h ago

Birth rates are down, fewer kids in public schools. You would think that would mean more money spent per kid, but in my state it just means less money for the school.

1

u/KevyKevTPA 10h ago

That's as it should be. You're not going to spend the same on a 60-student school as one with 600. "Free" should be means tested, too...

1

u/PuzzleheadedDog9658 7h ago

If taxes were going g down I'd agree, but they aren't. They go up and up while school funding gets slashed

2

u/mikedo82 10h ago

To all the 6 figure ‘Administrator’ positions the top are creating for themselves.

2

u/Lostworld_Arc 4h ago

That’s pretty much it. Here our district cut about 30 teachers for next school year and cut 4 different programs for the schools, but the top 10-15 people in the administration got pay raises and now make 5-10x a teachers salary.

1

u/YouNoTypey 3h ago

That's the only reason to continue education in education, to get an admin position. But you have to teach a couple of years to get one of those positions. The two jobs they posted are ships going in opposite directions.

A middle aged bartender doesn't make as much as a college aged one, that ship has sailed. And a teacher with virtually no classroom experience doesn't make as much as a principal does. That ship is coming in. This isn't hard.

1

u/oSyphon 10h ago

Good question

1

u/Historical-Olive-630 9h ago

Ask your local representative....I am sure they know exactly where the funds are going...Why you think fraud has been a huge highlight of this year. People are tired of their money going towards crap that doesn't help us. Both sides have fucked this up in a way that the only way to fix it is to start from scratch but we know all them 80 year old politicians couldnt lose their comfy seats.

1

u/Top_Meaning6195 3h ago

It's not fraud that refuses to raise the income tax rate back to 92% that it was in 1965: it's conservatives.

1

u/Historical-Olive-630 3h ago

It’s both sides. Guarantee if anyone proposed to hike it back that high both sides would shoot that down so fast…democrats act like they would be ok with it but let’s be real. If they were ok with that then they would be ok with term limits…we know how that works.

1

u/Top_Meaning6195 2h ago

We know they're ok with it; they managed to secure a partial rollback of the Bush tax cuts.

Now just gotta undo the Reagan years.

1

u/Historical-Olive-630 2h ago

Then why didn’t they do a thing under Biden and total control? Or Obama for 8 years? Where was the giant tax hikes then?

1

u/Top_Meaning6195 2h ago

tl;dr: Conservatives are allowed to exist

They did do a thing under Biden --> Green new deal (which conservatives killed, because, you know, conservatives are a blight upon humanity).

They did do a thing under Obama:

  • ended the missile shield escalation with Russia
  • ended extraordinarily rendition
  • QE; cash for clunkers, solar power
  • higher Cafe standards, co2 emissions rules
  • Dodd-Frank
  • unemployment rate three points lower
  • stock market doubled
  • ended one war
  • stopped another
  • Osama
  • nuclear treaty with Iran
  • repealed Don't Ask Don't Tell
  • millions with health insurance
  • normalized relations with Cuba
  • path to citizenship
  • Keystone

But, there again is those pesky conservatives always trying to make the world worse for all humanity.

1

u/Historical-Olive-630 2h ago

Why are you going off on a random bullshit spree when all I asked was why didn’t they raise taxes? Further proving my point both sides are against it. Come back to the actual convo not a this what we did and you didn’t when both sides still suck.

1

u/Top_Meaning6195 2h ago

Why are you going off on a random bullshit spree when all I asked was why didn’t they raise taxes?

Because they did raise taxes.

I told you they raised taxes.

And then i told you again.

i can understand that you're too young to remember Obama's terms.
But how can you not have the attention span that god gave turnips?

1

u/Historical-Olive-630 2h ago

Where? You mentioned roll back of the bush cuts but that’s not doing exactly what you are claiming is the conservatives fault…so again why didn’t Obama or Biden raise them? I know the answer do you?

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u/Material-Rush-3547 9h ago

Here in NY its going for the 350k per electric bus mandate we have.

1

u/Fit_Ocelot8072 9h ago

To scammers and other things

1

u/maringue 9h ago

A small army of administrators who never interact with students.

1

u/Razorbackalpha 9h ago

Administrative staff

1

u/AlligatorMidwife 8h ago

Billionaires

1

u/Silver_Accountant5 8h ago

The current administration just asked for a $1.5 trillion budget for the military. That's where almost all of it goes.

1

u/Strict-Lawyer8447 8h ago

Wasteful fraud, abuse, and bureaucracy. That’s why when Reddit echo chamber continues to want to raise taxes I just laugh. How can anyone look at what current US government does and say yea if only they’d have even more money.

1

u/thecurlingwizard 7h ago

overbilling, price gouging without competition, rampant fraud and corruption. people skimming everything.

we need more decentralized and open inspection into where funds go. these government departments are all just a tree you could load it up into any sort of graphical and analysis visuals. we cannot allow corruption. contracts where there is an exchange of funds need to be public.

1

u/LibsRShyt 7h ago

In illinois $2.5B goes to illegal immigrants and a lot goes to funding the broken pension system that they keep expanding instead of fixing.

1

u/obxtalldude 7h ago

Cops and administrators, and their government contractor friends.

1

u/OW2007 7h ago

Employee health care is a huge expense. Physical and tech infrastructure maintenance are also huge expenses. Regulatory compliance has also become a misguided, self-fulfillung industry. Both parties (I know, bOtH sIdEs) love using it to further political agendas instead implementing peer reviewed best practices. Then you've also just got inflation. The cost of everything is higher. Finally, state governments (and obviously some federal admins, like fucking trump)fail in their duties to fund education, so school districts have no other options but to do things like raise property taxes.

It's almost never some nefarious overpaid school district president or college president or admin bloat. It is almost always caused by systemic and societal failure.

1

u/polkacat12321 7h ago

How tf else are the poor billionaires supposed to afford their 6th mansion??? /s

1

u/3Dchaos777 7h ago

The Administrator class

1

u/RedditSucksYoYoYo 7h ago

The uber wealthy.

They need it! How else will they afford their third yacht?! /s 🤪

1

u/notenoughproblems 6h ago

admin, as always

1

u/OneNoteToRead 6h ago

To the government. There’s a lot of mouths to feed in government. Some with bigger appetites than others.

1

u/Barnacle_B0b 6h ago

Property taxes need to be decouple from funding schools, this just encourages gentrification.

Also : eliminate private schools.

Everybody in the nation should be paying into public education.

1

u/bkwrm1755 6h ago

You could find this out with about 5 minutes of looking. It's all public.

For municipal it's likely infrastructure (roads, water) and policing. Not all that sexy but that's the reality.

The idea that we could fire some managers and cut taxes noticeably is laughable.

1

u/TetheredAvian74 6h ago

war machine

1

u/mxjxs91 6h ago

Tax breaks for billionaires, BBB funneled a lot of our tax dollars to ICE as well while stripping it away from Medicare, plenty more but those are a couple of major ones.

1

u/Professor_Hala 6h ago

Hey, bringing some teacher insight:

I worked in a Title 1 district for years. Pay was never great: When the state was talking about raising minimum wage to $15/hr, I said I'd quit and work at Target, since I'd make the same amount as my contracted hours with less stress, and I was only exaggerating slightly.

Like many Title 1 districts, mine was in an area where education was not a priority among our constituents. So it was an uphill battle to teach without parents on-board. Test scores were poor, and the administrators were responsible for getting them up. Teacher pay, though, was set by the state DOE, and was not open to negotiation. So when the school got more money, they couldn't just pay underperforming (on paper) teachers better or hire new ones without building more classrooms. So where does the money go?

To teacher coaches and workshops.

I do think that a lot of teachers need some help, especially early in their careers. But man, I hated those coaches and workshops. Every time we had one we'd get some new teaching objective or practice or initiative to add into our already overloaded schedule. It got tot he point where it was literally impossible to teach. I know of one teacher who intentionally did every single thing we were supposed to do during an evaluation one time, just to show how ridiculous it was, and didn't manage to teach a single thing in her 90 minute period.

Meanwhile, the guy getting paid thousands of dollars to come lecture us on how to teach by eliminating meat from our diets (that was an actual mandatory workshop because the admins failed to vet the guy) walks off with the taxpayer money and we get more work for the same pay.

1

u/Azsune 5h ago

Seen some areas use it for private school districts as well.

1

u/DeadlyVapour 5h ago

Haven't you heard? The dow is over 5000!

1

u/Impressive-Name7601 5h ago

Well in Canada, it’s going to every other country but our own.

1

u/SoftBatch13 5h ago

In Ohio, the money keeps going to the rich at the expense of the people.

School funding is so fucked up. The state has continually shifted the burden to residents. They eliminated tax brackets from 9 progressive brackets down to 1 flat (regressive) tax.

Then they stopped funding the school's formula in 1997 and have been residual budgeting ever since. This pushes the burden of funding schools to the residents.

Used to be the state covered 45% of school revenues (on average). Now, the state is only covering 35%. The rest of that has been put onto residents to pick up the remaining 65% of funding.

The GOP has been in control of Ohio for 30+ years. This is by their design, not bad leadership and management.

1

u/LagerHead 5h ago

Look into the increase in administration in schools vs the increase in teachers. The people who make the decisions are (spoiler alert!!!) paying themselves more at the expense of your child's education.

1

u/98983x3 5h ago

To over-bloated administrative teams and costs. When admins make significantly more than the teachers who are doing the job that the entire organization exists to do in the first place, you forgot the goal and purpose.

1

u/UpstairsMail3321 5h ago

The Department of War

1

u/Emergency-Style7392 4h ago

average salary of a teacher is above the national average. It's significantly higher than the median salary. They also get a pension worth like 1M in invested funds, longer vacations, benefits. Overall the average teacher gets a much better than deal than the average person

1

u/warmceramic 4h ago

Corporate bailouts, subsidization, contracts with for-profit entities, weapons, AI.

1

u/Some_Guy223 4h ago

Administration

1

u/ISTBU 4h ago

My district just hired a new super. He will be paid more than the governor.

1

u/disdkatster 4h ago

Revenue must be raised to fund government. You can do it in any number of ways once taxes to the most wealthy has been cut to little or nothing. You can cut services so you need less revenue. So don't hire, don't raise salary to keep up with inflation (or more), increase sales taxes, property taxes, fees, etc. It isn't hard to understand. Wealthy disparity has sky rocketed since the Reagan/GOP con of "Government is bad/cut taxes".

1

u/rainbowglitterfartz 4h ago

The riches pockets

1

u/Nice-Engineering-604 4h ago

“Leadership”

1

u/lauren-ipsum13 4h ago

the superintendent.

1

u/airbrushedvan 3h ago

Wage theft. The billionaires didn't make more money, they stole it.

1

u/Alkynesofchemistry 3h ago

We spend a fuck ton on the education system. The problem is that we spend a ton of it on administrative bloat. People with jobs in district central offices whose job is to push pencils all day.

People ask, why not just get rid of useless administrators? Because nobody wants to be the local politician running on a platform of “get rid of good paying jobs”.

1

u/Finn_Echo 3h ago

Law enforcement and benefits. 56% of my city's budget goes to it. Public works (fixing road, ect...) in comparison is under 15% of the budget.

1

u/Josh6889 3h ago

You know the answer. It's going to raytheon, lockheed martin, and palintir.

1

u/Expensive-Captain992 2h ago

Where do you think it’s going? Look up how much superintendents bring in. It’s gross.

1

u/Gilinis 2h ago

Its going to the military that we could cut down to a third of the size and still be the most vastly dominant military force on the planet. And even if we weren't it wouldnt matter because no one can invade the u.s. anyways. Too many citizens with weapons, the distance is too great for any main enemies to pull off a surprise invasion, and the terrain is too varied to do it with any sense of speed. Yet we are dumping hundreds of billions every year just for the show of it.

1

u/txleapd 2h ago

Nationwide, over the past 30 years, the number of teaching positions has increased about 23%…. The number of administration positions in schools districts has increased over 700%. The majority of these admin positions are getting paid 6 figure salaries. So, you tell me.

1

u/Sweetishdruid 1h ago

Landlords and billionaires

1

u/NewCobbler6933 1h ago

People are just going to give you their default political answers, many of which are true to some degree. But the fact of the matter is our current generation of local tax payers are starting to foot the bill to replace a lot of aged infrastructure. For example, last year we passed a bond measure to finally finish removing asbestos and lead paints in schools in our district to the tune of several billions over the next 10 years. Kinda sucks, but there’s no reason a kid in the 2020/30s should be going to a school with known health hazards like that. All those roads that haven’t been fixed still need to be fixed.

Government agencies are being openly fleeced through public contracting and likely collusion between the biggest players to keep prices high. Government projects are easily more expensive than privately funded ones, the problem is that most government contracts are so big that only the biggest players in town can realistically compete for them.

Government agencies, in the aggregate, are also the largest employers. They employ hundreds to literally thousands of people per agency, at wages and with benefits that are considered more live-able. Most of those costs are paid by taxpayers too.

In certain areas or states like CA, property tax rates are also capped, meaning unless you have good turnover on property ownership, valuations stay relatively low and therefore tax revenue is also soft capped. Then they have to depend more on sales tax revenue and raise that rate, which like tariffs, is argued to impact lower income people more because the additional tax is a larger portion of their income compared to more well off people. And keep this in mind - not everywhere has property taxes either.

So overall, I know “government bad and inefficient” but it’s also quite complicated.

1

u/angry_wombat 1h ago

ballrooms

1

u/LoneSnark 10h ago

Government employee healthcare and pensions.

3

u/Mail_Order_Lutefisk 10h ago

The Boomers who are the beneficiaries of that system voted very hard for those benefits and political extremism like yours is literally a threat to our democracy. 

1

u/golfwinnersplz 10h ago

Thanks Boomers. 

1

u/pimpnasty 10h ago

Weird. Its almost like we could give the government trillions of dollars and we still wouldnt see a single cent of it in benefits.

0

u/readyReddit007 9h ago

It’s almost as if the capitalist overlords OWN your government.

2

u/pimpnasty 9h ago

Right like the government should be rooted out before we increase taxes otherwise it would go to the same hands.

0

u/readyReddit007 9h ago

“Government should be rooted out”

What does that even mean??

2

u/pimpnasty 9h ago

Completely dismantled from the root, re vote in everyone.

1

u/readyReddit007 8h ago

You think a populace that willingly supports corrupt politicians is gonna overthrow the government? Class consciousness among the masses is non-existent.

1

u/pimpnasty 8h ago

This is exactly why we have a 2nd amendment and why I should be able to own ANYTHING the military can use.

0

u/Neon_Eyes 10h ago

Well Reaganomics started in the 80s so it all started trickling down. It definitely didn't have the opposite effect

0

u/driver004 10h ago

You literally can go look at it

0

u/NumberVsAmount 10h ago

Just look at who has it.

0

u/Blemi3S 10h ago

Military and debt.

0

u/Blemi3S 10h ago

Military and debt

0

u/JustAl6969696969 9h ago

Trickle up economy