The summer season is what beaches are all about and all know it. If the Massachusetts legislature's mental illness is megalomania, that of many Cape Cod school committees is paranoid schizophrenia. It is nearly August and the state has no Y2K budget. These guys mannate their tongues with Karo syrup. Today they boast aid to the Cape has increased more than 100 percent while theirs by only 20 percent.
Public education is simply too big a ticket for the property tax.
In 1915 the state income tax was enacted to collect more money to pay costs of education. In 1947 the sales tax was enacted to collect even more money for public education. In 1972 voters approved the Lottery to help municipalities pay the local share of public education. As long as big cities ask property tax payers to only come up with from 15 percent to 30 percent of the money to fund city budgets because the state funds their schools at 100 percent, voters will not support an increase the income tax rate. Big cities can even wait until next May for the state to come up with its budget because none of their property taxes will be spent on public education.