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Protests Not Solving Problem
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Dear Editor,

While no one wants cuts in education, we must look at the situation realistically. Families have lost their jobs, businesses, and even homes — left in debt with nothing for all the years of hard work. Just driving by and seeing For Sale signs and empty storefronts is enough to realize how truly bad the financial crisis is in the private sector.

Can one sensibly expect the public sector to be immune from this catastrophe as if it were functioning outside the real world? Does it make sense to demand that “It’s time to stop the cuts…”? How do we stop cuts when the money has run out? Where do we go for additional revenues? There is only one place the public sector gets its money — the taxpaying private sector. The particular government source from which it comes is irrelevant. It’s all the same to the struggling taxpayers — they ARE the source of “revenues.” These are the very people who are hanging on by the skin of their teeth … they’ve taken major losses and keep making cuts of their own to keep paying bills. Where do they go to get more money in a market where their businesses and jobs are going under like they were passengers on the Titanic?

The problem isn’t the lack of understanding “Education is Priceless.” In the real world, education is not “priceless” — it costs money. The problem is that our economy is seriously hurting yet, a thriving business economy with plentiful jobs is what the public sector itself thrives on — it’s where the funding comes from. Without, it will hurt just like the private sector does. And that is exactly what has happened. You can’t get blood from a turnip no matter how loudly you protest it. It’s time to face reality.

Gloria Salcedo