**Howard Rich shouldn’t be criminalized, certainly. But is he honest? Are his front groups, such as SCRG, honest? If so, why the bait-and-switch SCRG mailers that hammer candidates on everything BUT vouchers/tax credits? Why the tens of thousands of dollars in the “blackout” period before the primary, so that Rich’s money would go undetected?

Maybe none of this equals law-breaking. But it’s entirely understandable that people think it’s slippery, at the very least. And when you’ve got a guy clearly willing to spend millions for an extended period of time, using slippery tactics to impose his ideology on our state, it’s entirely understandable that there’s going to be a serious backlash.

**How “massive” are the funding increases to SC public schools? I’m not saying increases haven’t happened, but numbers have a way of getting weird in this debate — like the “study” claiming that less than 50% of money makes it to the classroom….

**Yes, we know there are schools and districts in SC that are struggling, including some that are poorly run. I’m not sure it’s honest or factually correct on Will’s part to claim that “The State” never calls for accountability of such schools and districts. But that’s beside the point….Many of these schools are part of communities that are struggling in all sorts of ways — their economies are busted, healthcare is weak, families are poor, infrastructure is iffy, even the private schools may be mediocre, on and on and on. Schools and children are part of this context. To enthusiastically single out the “educrats” as a general group is shallow, at best.

**Speaking of poor families and broken-down communities, Howard Rich and his folks haven’t yet identified a practical way to make “tuition tax credits” work for the neediest families in South Carolina. Oh, they continue pointing to Milwaukee and other cities. But what about transportation to and from school in rural communities? What about capacity in private schools in small towns? What about admission requirements — not to mention cost!! — at many of the top private schools, such as the one Gov. Mark Sanford’s children attend?

Oh, and there’s this: What about the fact that PPIC, as proposed by Gov. Sanford and promoted at the time by Will Folks, offered NO guarantees to the poor? Only the vague possibility of being granted a scholarship…..And if you’re not going to focus on “choice” for the poor, does anyone think this is seriously a plan to raise test scores and fix the dropout problem in SC?

I know….I know — these practical questions are ignored time and again, or the answer is something about how the free-market will simply take care of all difficult questions. I wouldn’t expect any change in the trend.

Our education system has problems. I won’t disagree with that, though to set aside the successes is a bad habit of the Howard Rich crowd (at least Will is upfront in announcing that his blog is “unfair”). More money certainly isn’t the only solution. But free-market fundamentalism — and, more specifically, the PPIC plan pushed by Gov. Sanford, Rich, Randy Page…. — are way off the mark, in my opinion.

And that’s based on practical issues, not ideology.

Semantics must be the word of the day in Columbia then. Legal contributions that exploit a clear-cut hole in our ability to donate to our elected officials – while legal, are certainly neither ethical nor really truly conservative in nature, now are they?

Go on – duck the issue and re-direct towards vouchers, thus stepping around the dead elephant in the middle of the room that is campaign contribution exploitation (and the State GOP if you like metaphors).

Of course, being from Columbia, SC and an ex-member of Governor Moonbeam’s staff, I wouldn’t expect you to see the real clear-cut issue here.

There is nothing quite like being bought and paid for by a bunch of Libertarians that can’t get elected on their own merits or campaign planks, now is there?

Cheers,

SSHM

PS – I’m not from Anderson . . .

Rich and Soros have the right to hold an opinion, do they not? And Rich and Soros have the right to spend their own money on legal contributions, do they not?

Our point is that attempting to criminalize a person for following the law regarding their First Amendment right to free expression is a shabby attempt to ignore the larger issue – the undeniable failure of massive funding increases to accomplish anything resembling academic advancement in South Carolina.

These guys don’t make money off their involvement, unlike the educrats who use our tax dollars to prop up the “other side” of this debate.

Of course, being from Anderson, S.C., we don’t expect you to get that.

-FITSNews

Howard Rich – and how he buys your state legislatures under the guise of “conservative values and ideals” is exposed . . .

Here
http://www.howierichexposed.com/

Here
http://stophowardrichsc.blogspot.com/

Note how much Governor Moonbeam and HIS pack of cronies took from multiple Howard Rich sources. You can also cross-check the flow of money at:

http://www.followthemoney.org/

- SSHM