City Council Prioritizes Big Business
Roanoke City Council gave away over $7 million in public funds & assets to Deschutes to open a brewery here, and over $2 million to the new Hampton Inn downtown in hopes it will trickle down. Now city council plans to take $810,000 away from our children by cutting our city schools’ budget despite them needing more not less funding. They also wanna cut our public libraries by $90,000, and cut funding for food for jail inmates by $21,000.
PACK CITY COUNCIL next Monday (4.27.17) @ 7pm and join us as we demand funding for schools not big business!
Universal Preschool & College
It benefits us if your kids are educated. It benefits you if we as adults are broadly educated or have a specialized expertise. Education is mutually beneficial for any community. As long as we have a wage system under capitalism, parents need preschool so they can work. We have universal elementary school (k-12) in Roanoke and the U.S. It’s long overdue we use our taxes to make preschool and/or college available to any who need it or want it!
Universal preschool in Roanoke would cost around $43.75 million (roughly 7,000 kids < 5yrs; there are already around 2,000 Head Start and RCPS spots; 5,000 new Head Start spots @ $8,750/yr)
Universal college in Roanoke would cost around $116.3 million (20,000 new Pell grants @ $5,815/yr)
We could pay for this easily if we tax the rich & fund schools not wars!
Where Do Our Taxes Currently Go?
$248 million of Roanoke city taxes went to war, federal prisons, corporate tax avoidance & I.C.E just in 2016. This could’ve provided universal preschool & college, solar electricity for every household, and more higher-paid teachers.
* War referring to:
Dept of Defense – $94.56 mil
Pentagon Slush Fund – $10.49 mil
Homeland Security – $10.37 mil
Predator & Reaper Drones – $278,497
Nuclear Weapons – $3.58 mil
* Federal Prisons: $1.34 mil
* Corporate Tax Avoidance (offshore profits) – $124.35 mil
* I.C.E. (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) – $3.47 mil
= $248.48 mil
* Universal preschool – $43.75 mil
(roughly 7,000 kids < 5yrs; already around 2,000 Head Start and RCPS spots; 5,000 new Head Start spots @ $8,750/yr)
* Universal college – $116.3 mil
(20,000 new Pell grants @ $5,815/yr)
* Solar electricity for every household – $77.29 mil
(42,239 houses @ $1,830/yr)
* More higher-paid K-12 teachers – $11.1 mil
(185 new teachers @ $60,000/yr)
= $248.44 mil
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