Border funding steals from schools
We should no longer trust news that starts with, “”a new bill has cleared the Arizona state Legislature and is on its way to Republican Gov. Jan Brewer’s desk.”” It’s the sketchiest way to start, especially when you know that Arizona senators need to just retire already.
On Thursday, senators John McCain and Jon Kyl wrote yet another bill that would require the federal government to deploy no fewer than 6,000 National Guard troops to the U.S./Mexico border at a total cost of $6 million. Increased funding would also go to Operation Streamline, which requires a person caught crossing the border to spend six months in prison before deportation. That cost: $250 million over five years. Let’s not get carried away with all the other provisions of that bill that add up to over $400 million, according to the Daily Miner.
What the hell, Arizona? I’ll never understand your contradictory values. Here we have Gov. Brewer running around dressed like Rosie the Riveter, blaming the federal government for not doing anything. And at home, we have senators like McCain and Kyl who spend more than $500 million of the Arizona “”unspent”” budget on federal militarization?
Here’s a real issue we can all care about. According to AZ Central, “”Arizona’s per-student funding declined by $254 from fiscal 2010 to 2011 and is expected to drop next school year.”” But we have $335 million for 2012 to increase mobile surveillance systems along the border?
The secret to that is, according to the same article, “”Shutting down a school can save $500,000 to more than $1 million a year.””
As we have a governor who sits on the Arizona Department of Education and has yet to pursue any higher education of her own, is it possible to make an educated decision on education? We also have a senator who claims Planned Parenthood spends 90 percent of its funding on abortions and later claimed we weren’t meant to take his statement literally.
For the sake of Arizona’s education system: Make an educated vote in 2012. Because the ones we’re voting for aren’t educated. An educated youth demographic is the only hope we have to fill our universities with capable minds and fill the seats of the Legislature with individuals who will take real things into priority.
Quit trying to flatter the country with the National Guard and give the children an education. I know how you like your military, Arizona, but I’m definitely not impressed.
— Elisa Meza is a junior studying English.
