Guest Blogger: J. Gravelle
of the Daily Scoff
GERMANTOWN, WI [ STORY : JSOnline ] My favorite blogger has already written about this, but I promised to buy him dinner so he's letting me steal his original post on MATC's nefarious taxing authority and repost it here. You probably won't even realize that I'm just recycling an older post, unless you're really paying attention to this intro. So don't.
MATC = Mandatory Area Taxation Conspiracy
"Please sir, may I have some less?"
"Less? Less?!" screamed the curmudgeonly MATC schoolmaster, his pockets bursting at the seams with taxpayer money, as impoverished property owners broke into a pleading chorus of song, crying:
School, glorious school!
How much should we pay for?
Seems awfully cruel...
We want the Moraine more!
But, the state sez
the Technical Board prez
will tell Germantown to get bent
'Cuz school, glorious school
M-A-T-C neeeeeds
ev'ry laaast cennnnnt....
Imagine calling Time Warner® to cancel your cabal -- I'm sorry, I mean your "cable" service, and having the customer service rep tell you that the company would have to vote on whether or not they'll let you go before they could disconnect you. Me, I'd probably threaten to cut off their coax and shove the converter box up their public access channel.
Germantownians may also have to be that un-pacifistically proactive toward the Milwaukee Area Technical College system. Our school board has said we don't need MATC. The Moraine Park Technical College District will cost us 24% less if we switch over, and they offered us three months of free Cinemax and a set of steak knives.
But I guess we can't just cancel our MATC subscription with an irate phone call.
Apparently, there's some sort of pact. I know that the word "pact" brings to mind an unholy contractual ceremony involving the demonic sacrifice of chickens, sheep, and virgins. But this pact involves government, so obviously, it's much worse than that.
It is also then, unlikely to involve any virgins.
Thus, the fate of Germantown's taxpayers lies in the hands of the state technical college board, whose hands lie in the pockets of Germantown's taxpayers. The board's neutrality toward MATC is akin to Keith Olbermann's objectivity about Barack Obama, which is an apt analogy if you disregard the anchorman's sexual arousal.
Sorry, did I put a bad image in your head? Well give it a little time, and it will go away.
Too bad MATC won't...
Here's my follow-up on that story, lest you accuse me of completely mailing it in this morning:
George Will once opined that the greatest condemnation of any government program usually comes from the proponents OF that program, who argue that if it isn't mandated by law (ergo, at gunpoint), nobody will want to participate in it.
Greenfield is now expressing interest in jumping off the S.S. MATC if Germantown succeeds in seceding. There's too much at stake for Milwaukee to allow the money boat to take on any more water. If I were a betting man, and I am, my chips would be on this line:
The Wisconsin Technical College System Board (or their hired arbitrating proxy) will put on a good show to make it appear that both sides were given fair consideration, but this case has already been decided. Germantown's petition for secession will be declined. I could be wrong, but I'm not.
If you think otherwise, the gaming window is officially open...
- J. Gravelle
DailyScoff.com
Re-using an old blog posting is the closest Gravelle ever comes to recycling...
