Rich People Stealing From The Rest of Us

Re Disabilities Fight Grows as Taxes Pay for Tuition by Diana Jean Schemo and Jennifer Medina in today's NY Times:

It's bad enough that filthy rich people get that way by playing our lopsided "tournament" capitalist system. And it is no secret that they use their money to buy political favors from their representatives, such as lower tax rates for them or their businesses.

But this new scheme takes the cake. They use their loot to pay for attorneys who sue local school districts (see below); guess who pays the attorneys hired by school boards? That would be us, the ever-squeezed property taxpayers.

Worse, these filthy rich bloodsuckers are forcing schools to pay exorbitant private-school tuitions for their offspring! Now, I am not referring to legitimate situations where the child is truly disabled and the school district cannot or will not give such a child a decent public school education. What I am referring to are the far more numerous situations where the parent chooses to live in a particular town or city but wants the child to get a better education at the expense of the "little people" who pay taxes.

Quote from the article:

New York City officials say the battle over private schooling is keenly felt here. The city willingly pays private tuition for 7,000 severely handicapped children.
But after administrative or court rulings, it also spent $57 million last year to educate 3,675 disabled students whose parents rejected the public schools. Such requests for reimbursement have more than doubled in the last five years, officials say, adding that autism is involved in only a small fraction of the cases. At the private Robert Louis Stevenson School on the Upper West Side, for example, about three-quarters of its 75 students get tuition reimbursement from the city.

“When people realize that they can get something for free at the government’s expense, you see more and more people take advantage,” said Michael Best, the chief lawyer for the city’s Education Department, predicting the number would rise.
City officials say most requests come from wealthy families who can front the money for private tuition and legal fees. “I have cases with very famous and very wealthy singers and actors, where it is patently obvious that they can send their child to private school,” Mr. Best said.

“These are people who never have any interest in going to public schools in the first place,” he added.

(End quote.)

OK, greed knows no bounds. But this is nothing less than grand larceny.