Attention All Personnel, Attention All Personnel:
Yesterday I posted a piece about Missouri lawmakers looking to undo some of the provisions of a voter-approved gambling initiative in order to tap into its money for education.
My source of information was an Associated Press story published in the Springfield News-Leader. The link to that story is here.
Missouri lawmakers propose change on new gambling money
The Associated Press • March 12, 2009
Jefferson City — Missouri lawmakers are looking to undo some of the provisions of a voter-approved gambling initiative in order to tap into its money for education.
Voters last November passed a measure removing gamblers’ loss limits and increasing casino taxes. It was projected to generate $130 million annually for K-12 schools.
But because of the way the state distributes education funds, 115 of the state’s 524 school districts were projected to get no additional money next year from the ballot measure.
“We have to undo what the voters did in order to do what they intended to do,” Sen. Gary Nodler, R-Joplin, said Wednesday as lawmakers heard testimony on proposals to redirect the money from the ballot measure.
One plan, by Sen. Rob Mayer, R-Dexter, would remove a new fund created by the ballot measure and distribute the money to each district using the state’s normal funding formula. Mayer’s bill also would increase funding to schools based on the number of gifted students in a district.
Mayer’s bill calls for roughly $40 million in funding to the formula and $10 million based on the gifted student calculation. Missouri previously earmarked money for educating gifted students but stopped doing so under a 2005 revision to the school funding formula.
I thought that Senator Nodler's comment (highlighted above in bold) was a perfect example of Ben Tre Logic.
An anonymous commentator made the following comment on my post from yesterday:
There is one problem with the quote from Senator Nodler. You left off the question mark. The words you quoted were a question directed to the bill sponsor. It is interesting that your entire comment derives from not understanding that Nodler was asking a question.
3/13/2009 4:45 PM
Actually my entire comment derives from the AP story. It is interesting because it appears that if Anonymous had read the source document he would have realized that the AP reporter did not report that Senator Nodler was asking a question but was making a statement.
10 comments:
Interesting.
It'd be nice to hear from Nodler directly in this case, or have your anonymous commentator throw caution to the wind and tell why he or she believes the AP story to be misleading, if it truly differs from the facts, as he or she indicates.
I don't know about hearing from Nodler directly but here is the Post dispatch account; http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/2C2851A84730455F8625757800084AF5?OpenDocument
("So we have to undo what the voters did in order to do what they intended to do?" asked Sen. Gary Nodler, R-Joplin, at a committee hearing Wednesday, when told of the conflicts with the ballot measure.) This is the exact quote form the Roseann Moring POST-DISPATCH story that the preceding link goes to. It seems that your argument is with the press, not the politician!
Cool photo. A MARS ham station in Vietnam, right? Know anymore about it?
Ok, guy. There was a punctuation error, but whether it is a statement or a rhetorical question, what I want to know is what you all really think about the proposition? If the loss limit goes out the window and the casinos rake in more cash, doesn't that mean more money for education in the first place? I do believe that ALL school districts should be included in the distribution and that is an administrative detail, not part of the original referendum on earmarking a certain percentage for education. But what about increasing the percentage? Isn't that what the proposal is really about? I could be mistaken, but that's what I got out of it. Maybe not. None of you guys really talked about the proposal itself.
What'd Will Rogers say?
I only know what I read in the paper.
Even with a question mark, it still raises the question of what did Nodler mean?
He is asking "we have to undo what the voters did in order to do what they intended to do?" Why was he even asking?
Reminds me of campaign contributions limits and term limits.
Are you honestly holding the Associated Press to be an infallible primary source? They appear to be intentionally taking a comment out of context to make it sound a certain way.
According to another account, Senator Nodler did in fact cast it as a question. Unfortunately neither account gives us much information about who said what on the floor of the Missouri Senate, nor what people rose in favor or against the measure.
From your tone, it sounds like you're actually defending your statements about this quote because it was taken from a press article. This is quite disturbing. Your source, the Associated Press is clearly lacking in its coverage of this issue. Not only can they not even reproduce an entire sentence by one Senator, they don't appear to quote from any other people.
Interestingly enough, the St. Louis Today article gives the impression that the changes are in fact exactly as Senator Nodler asked. That article claims that the changes have the support of two out of two Teachers Unions, and bi-partisan support in the Senate.
Jeremy--
According to your source, Roseann Moring of the Post Dispatch, Senator Nodler's question, "So we have to undo what the voters did in order to do what they intended to do?", is a question about Senator Mayer's plan which "does away with the mechanism used in the ballot measure to distribute the casino money to schools."
The "mechanism used in the ballot measure" was approved by a majority of Missouri voters in last November's election.
I think the AP story I quoted and the Moring's story in the Post Dispatch both reinforce my position that Nodler's statement or question is an example of Ben Tre Logic.
"Ben Tre Logic" refers to a statement made forty years ago, in 1968, when an American major, after the battle of Ben Tre in Viet Nam, was quoted by Peter Arnett as having declared, "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it."
President Bush used "Ben Tre Logic" last December 16, 2008, when he said, in an interview,
"I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system."
I'm really not surprised that the language of Prop A doesn't work for getting funding to schools. The people that wrote it didn't actually care about education, they only cared about eliminating competition, and removing loss limits.
I was disturbed by this paragraph:
Actually my entire comment derives from the AP story. It is interesting because it appears that if Anonymous had read the source document he would have realized that the AP reporter did not report that Senator Nodler was asking a question but was making a statement.
Further, in your comment here you said:
According to your source, Roseann Moring of the Post Dispatch, Senator Nodler's question, "So we have to undo what the voters did in order to do what they intended to do?", is a question about Senator Mayer's plan which "does away with the mechanism used in the ballot measure to distribute the casino money to schools."
Your quote is only the first line of a paragraph that explains that the money isn't going to get to schools as it is written. I'm not arguing whether it sounds like Ben Tre Logic, I'm just arguing that it seems to be valid, and in fact logical, not a fallacy. The final statement could be, "Proposition A was written without taking the current education formula into account, so we must modify both to make them work together." I perceived you as using the term Ben Tre Logic as a derogatorry comment, and it doesn't seem deserved.
Now since I don't actually support any involvement by the Federal Government in Education, and very little to none by the State Government, I don't support much of anything being worked on here. However I do expect the reporting by the AP and other News organizations to cover more of the facts.
Lawmakers weigh tweaking Prop A
By Roseann Moring
POST-DISPATCH JEFFERSON CITY BUREAU
03/13/2009
JEFFERSON CITY — The Missouri Legislature is considering rewriting parts of a voter-approved ballot measure on casinos in order to more easily distribute money for public education.
The proposals are aimed at addressing what many view as a flaw in Proposition A. The ballot measure removed loss limits on casinos in order to raise millions of dollars in tax revenue for schools. Critics say the measure fails to mesh with the state's funding formula for schools.
As a result of those flaws, only a fraction of the new money could be successfully routed through that funding formula. And if no action is taken, dozens of the state's 524 school districts — including most from the St. Louis region — would receive none of the additional casino tax revenue next year.
"So we have to undo what the voters did in order to do what they intended to do?" asked Sen. Gary Nodler, R-Joplin, at a committee hearing Wednesday, when told of the conflicts with the ballot measure.
The leading plan in the Senate, by Sen. Rob Mayer, R-Dexter, calls for using the casino money to boost state per-pupil spending in the formula by $100 annually. The bill would also give districts more money for students who qualify for gifted education programs.
Just how much money is in play is unclear, since the amount of new casino taxes will depend on gambling losses. Last year, the proposition was expected to generate $130 million annually for K-12 schools. But lawmakers are now working with a ballpark figure of about $75 million. MORE METRO
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Mayer's plan does away with the mechanism used in the ballot measure to distribute the casino money to schools. Because of the details of the school funding formula, that mechanism is only able to distribute about a fifth of the new casino money to schools. Legislators would have to wrestle over how to divide the remaining money between school districts, which could lead to regional squabbling and inconsistent funding from year to year.
Mayer's plan requires not only changes to the voter-approved Proposition A, but also to the state's school funding formula.
Under his proposal, the state would lift a cap that has kept the state from increasing the formula's payments to school districts every other year. The cap was intended to prevent skyrocketing education costs, but it has effectively prevented any formula increase.
But even with the changes, the proposed $100 per-pupil increase in the state's school formula would offer little to nothing for many wealthier school districts in the St. Louis area. That's because those districts, such as Ladue and Clayton, are deemed to have sufficient local property tax revenue to support schools without significant state aid.
Others, like Mehlville, Affton and Bayless, which already receive significant state money through the formula, could benefit from the $100 jump in student aid.
David Glaser, chief financial officer of the Rockwood School District, said he has seen some projections estimating that his district could benefit from the casino funds. But because of the complexity of the issue, he is not yet counting on that new money.
Mayer's plan appears to have bipartisan support among Senate leadership. The state's two teachers unions also back Mayer's bill.
In the House, Majority Leader Steven Tilley, R-Perryville, has instead proposed that the new money go to increasing teacher salaries, including merit-based pay.
Nixon's budget director Linda Luebbering said the governor's office does not have a position on Proposition A money.
But his proposed budget has plans for the money, including an increase in school transportation spending and funds for an already scheduled increase in the school formula and special education programs.
Brent Ghan, a spokesman for the Missouri School Boards Association, said there is not necessarily a perfect solution for all Missouri schools, as each district would benefit differently from any plan.
He said all school boards are hoping Proposition A will lead to a funding increase.
Until then, Ghan said, Missouri schools will budget conservatively.
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