I recall a few years ago when I learned from Forbes’ columnist Erik Kain that Governor Snyder of Michigan was slashing school spending at the same time that he was cutting state corporate taxes.
This turns out to have been a popular tactic in many states. Governors and legislators have decided to get more jobs now by sacrificing the future of their state’s children.
An analysis of 155 large corporations found that they pay very low taxes.
“For 2011 and 2012, the 155 companies paid just 1.8 percent of their total income in state taxes, and 3.6 percent of their declared U.S. income. The average required rate for the 50 states is 6.56 percent.”
As the big corporations avoided taxes, schools paid the price.
What happens to a society that ignores its children and favors corporations?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In CT, Gov. Malloy has given breaks and money to the Bridgewater hedge fund firm (just how many jobs does a hedge fund firm create?) and to Bass Pro (like a WalMart for outdoors enthusiasts).
“What happens to a society that ignores its children and favors corporations?” The rich get richer, the poor get poorer…with the middle class not far behind.
If this trend continues, the US will go the way of all empires that fail to nurture the majority of its people while allowing the “elites” to siphon off the wealth of the land and economy: this empire will collapse. I’ve been reading A Peoples’ History of the World by Chris Harman and the lessons of history are very clear. Humans keep making the same stupid errors when they let greed and elitism rule the day.
Please read the following from the AZ Republic about how badly our state is doing for early child education. Read the comments. They are very telling of our red state. How sad that people are so prejudiced that they don’t care about all children. Poverty has been around for a very long time. People are still in denial about poverty. http://www.azcentral.com//news/politics/articles/20130621arizona-child-welfare-lags.html?source=nletter-
Read Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and the fall of every other empire through time. If we do not change we are doomed to repeat the same game again. Now with nuclear weapons we must change. It is not swords and bullets anymore.
What a perfect opportunity for the corporations taking the money from the kids to ride in like knights in shining armor with (tax-deductible) donations to save the starving schools.
“Business is business and business must grow
regardless of crummies in tummies, you know.”