Schools want to astroturf more than just football fields

A shocking video from Wichita Liberty tonight highlights just how badly the education lobby and other taxpayer funded groups want a tax increase.

At the Wichita School Board meeting, Harold Schlechtweg, business representative of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 513, outlined the union’s efforts to pack a Sedgwick County legislative forum. The effort was so coordinated that Schlechtweg was able to list signs that were present at the forum and detail efforts of Wichita State University education students coming in to make calls to district employees. At one point, he even becomes somewhat confused and referred to the event as a “rally” rather than a legislative forum for the public.

Oh, oops, “I shouldn’t call it that!”

Do SEIU members have a right to be at these forums? Absolutely. Is it the union’s right to organize these people into a tax and spend frenzy? You bet. But isn’t this just the kind of actions that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called “astroturfing?”

In light of a new plan by Senate conservatives to replace the budget shortfall with revenue from the sale of state property, are schools and spending advocates really concerned about this budget or do they just want to hike taxes? According to those at the forum on Saturday, SEIU attendees shouted down legislators who were trying to save the budget with this plan. Is this not what spending advocates wanted: more spending?

With a plan on deck that would “save” the budget, shouldn’t SEIU members cheer their victory? Or maybe it’s not about the spending at all? With a plan that achieves their spending goals but not their tax desires, the SEIU supporters on Saturday showed themselves to be nothing more than tax happy bureaucrats who could care less about their neighbor who’s out of a job or taken a pay cut in this down economy.

The SEIU forum crashers care about one thing and one thing only: raising your taxes. Regardless of achieving their own spending desires, regardless of their out of work neighbors and certainly regardless of the payments future generations will be making for decades to come.