Toll roads and Sam Page's voucher response raises concern| Hour 2

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. Anyway, let's head over to the WBT guest line where Andrew Dunn is waiting patiently. Andrew is the publisher of long Leaf Politics. Longleafpol dot com is the website also does the podcast of the same name, and a contributing columnist over at The Charlotte Observer. Hey Andrew live from Lexington Barbecue. What's going down? What's the mood? Yeah, that's right. You know, I just want to you know you, you right now are the only thing standing between me and a plate of legs and Barbie. I just hope you appreciate the sacrifices I make for the Peat calendar show. I do, I do. I'm honored and humbled by your sacrifice. By the way, Eastern or Western? Do you prefer? You know, I'm kind of an equal opportunity barbecue eater. If the plate in front of me is the one I eat. Oh well that's fair. That's a very politician kind of answer. Campaigns have been ended for less. So all right, let's talk first about this new bond rating reporting that was released about the I seventy seven North toll road revenues. I was not aware of this, but you noted something in this bond rating report that the number of transactions fell. So I'm guessing that means fewer people using the road, and then the revenue rose by twenty two percent, so make sense of that. Yeah, So it was interesting saying I was driving, you know, from Charlotte up to Mount Airy to take my kids camping, and it was Friday afternoon, so it was pretty backed up. So I ended up kind of weaving back and forth between the toll lanes and the free lanes, and I just I noticed, you know, the signs only give you the price for the next little stretcher road, and it almost felt like a casino. It's like you're gonna plug your five dollars in and hope it hope you save a bunch of time on your trip. And so when I got back, I started digging into it and found some of these new financial reports. I wanted to try to figure out whether this was the pricing strategy, whether it kind of the roulette casino style strategy was what they were going for just kind of an incidental byproduct. And what I figured out from talking with the I seventy seven Mobility partners and reading through some of these reports is that, yeah, that's kind of the point. You know. They they're trying to maximize their revenue so that they can pay back all their they're borrowing that they had to build the roads, and so they want to keep it a nice, premium, high cost experience on the tolls so that when you go over there you feel real good about yourself. Well, and the casino analogy, I mean, I get it, but I mean there is some skill that you were employing versus just like hitting buttons on a electronic poker machine or something like that, right, because you could look over and see is the are the other two lanes jammed up? Right? So you can don't underestimate your skill in that situation. That's all I'm saying there. So the Google, the Google Maps was also telling me when I should think about getting over to the other lanes. So I was using that's a performance enhancement. That's right, it was so. But you made an interesting point that And I've talked about the toll lane projects. We've talked about it as well, and I've gotten a lot of phone calls and emails and stuff about it, because in general, I I support the concept of user fees rather than you know, just widening things or not or or just soaking people with more and more taxes and stuff. And so you have the option not to go into that lane. But they are also prioritizing that lane's speed, which makes sense, like the they don't want the lane to be jammed up because it's you know, two dollars, and then everybody uses it and now it's just as jammed up as the other two lanes. Right exactly. And they're actually contractually obligated to keep a steady speed, a pretty high speed. I think the federal government requires forty five miles an hour, but the contract with NCDOT is even higher than that. I want to say it's fifty or fifty two. So I mean that's that's pretty pretty fast, so they've got to keep they got to keep the lanes pretty open. So you make a point of this. Also, you are the occasional user of I seventy seven in North Toll Road, But what I usually get is response from people who have to drive it all the time and they are not happy at all with this system. And you, I mean you, you can understand that. Oh yeah, completely. I don't blame them at all. But here's what I've become convinced of. You know, you can spend a billion dollars to add another lane or two, you know, free lanes on I seventy seven, but it's not going to meaningfully impact traffic. It's just going to get filled up right away and you're right back where you started from, except minus a billion dollars. At least with the toll lane, you have the option of moving fast. Uh, you know, the toll part is annoying, but it's actually it's the only mechanism there is to keep that option open. So I mean it's kind of economic genius in a way. But I also totally understand why people get frustrated where they see these lanes that are almost empty and hear they're stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. Right yeah, and if they're you know, if they're doing that every single day, it becomes cost prohibitive because you know you're dropping forty fifty sixty dollars. Now you don't know what your cost was, you wrote in this piece, right, you haven't gotten the bill yet for this. I hadn't been I did, now I got it. It was it was thirty fucks. Okay, I did not have a transponder. I wouldn't rectifyed I now have. It should have been free for me because I had four kids in the truck with me, but you know I was able to do it too expense it, so it all worked out. Yeah, because they ding you also right for not having the transponder, right, yeah, so there's an additional cost that's associated. But if you get the transponder, you loaded up with some money and then it just takes it and it works like we've used that going up and down the East Coast. It works at all of the other places too. So yeah, all right, so let's move on. Now. I have the audio clip that you stuck into your post over at Long Leave Politics. This is Sam Paige. He is the Rockingham County sheriff. He's a Republican. He just beat Senator Phil Berger in a very very close state Senate race, and he attended the Raleigh rally by the teachers union that went on strike on Friday on Commy Day, and he gave an interview to the Hometown Holler podcast. Guy. So I'm just going to play a portion of this clip here. So right now you're. Running to be in the state Senate, which is you know, right behind us over there. As of now as we speak, I believe the number is over the next decade North Carolina, we're going to spend four point four billion dollars on school vouchers. And my question to you is, if you're elected, would you support reducing the amount of money spent to school vouchers and putting that money into public education to meet our education goals? Well, I think you need to set priority to Number one is public schools should be fully funded our education, our teachers should be paid competitively, and we also need to make sure that per student spending is also is a higher level. But also don't I don't oppose about just but there needs to be there needs to be some control and some accountability on that because you know, if if you're if you're a millionaire and stuff like this, uh independent, wealthy, you had the ability to uh send your kids to private schools. But the opportunity scholarships should be for what it says, for opportunities for kids for another choice that they might not otherwise being to participate. So so look at look at into that answer is is that is that a you would support reducing spending on vouchers to raise spending on public education. We definitely need to have the appropriate spending on public education. First all right, Andrew? Uh? First off, Yeah, and I think you nailed this. Like he's accepting in the hometown holler, guys, they are on the left, he's accepting the premise of their question. I think that's that's a problem. That's scary. Yes, I mean he's not only that, he's also using the language of the Democratic Party on this. You know fully you know, fully fund school, right, what does that mean? Like there's not a specific dollar amount that says, oh, this is fully funded. So that whole concept is kind of it's not accurate and it's not how you would want a Republican candidate to speak. But you know, we knew there was going to be a learning curve for Sam Page as he's moving from Rockingham County sheriff to now, you know, presumably the state senator replacing Phil Berger. But this was kind of a painful example of just how steep that learning curve is going to be for him. Yeah. So to answer your question about what fully funded means, it means more. That's the That's the answer to that question. Just means more. So always going to move. Right exactly for Yeah, for whatever the latest and greatest, you know, proposal is from the education establishment, the industry, I should say. So, do you think it was a good idea for him to even go to this rally? I do. I mean, I think it's I do give him credit for going. I give him credit for talking with teachers, and you know, I don't think that Republicans should be scared of engaging in those sorts of things, you. Know, I think. I think he had good intentions, And you know, I'm not gonna I'm not really here to defend him, and I won't sugarcoat it. I mean, it was embarrassing and there's already starting to see people on social media with a little bit of a buyer's remorse. So, you know, I think he's gonna he's going to have to learn how to how to navigate these things if he's going to be successful. Yeah, because it makes me wonder if I was a Conservative voting in his district, and I voted to oust Phil Berger for him, I would be concerned that he is going to be a vote to reduce the. Opportunity scholarship funding. Like, I don't know from that answer, I don't know if he's now going to be an opponent of school choice. Well, it certainly makes you think that, you know, just by listening to it. You know, I try not to read too much into it. You know, people talk about when you hear the US Supreme Court justices ask questions, you can try to read the tea leaves on what that says about their inner philosophy. I don't think you can do that with Sheriff Sam Page. I think he's just speaking off the cuff, trying to say things that people want to hear in his crowd and his interviewers. I don't think it reflects a fully formed philosophy on education spending. Which is kind of surprising that this issue would have never come up during the campaign, like did I guess nobody ever asked him what his views are on the school vouchers, which is a pretty big topic. I feel like if you're running for the state Senate and Phil Berger has been a leader for the for the school vouchers, so I'm kind of surprised that like that, Like, if he doesn't have a well formed opinion on this issue, how did he get through a primary without anybody ever asking him? I guess he does have a Democrat opponent in the general, I'm assuming, so he's probably gonna get asked this question more. Yeah, well, hopefully he can practice a better answer. That's right. All right, let me let you get back to your waiting barbecue plate there. I appreciate the time as always, Andrew. Yeah, I will pour out a little bit of sweet tea for you. Ah, very good. I appreciate that. That's Andrew Dunne. He is the host of the long Leaf Politics podcast also longleafpol dot com, and you can read his work at The Charlotte Observer as a contributing columnist. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and Mint Hill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories, all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are visit creative video dot com. Alrighty, so what else? Oh? The Rally Raleigh? Yes? So some audio clips from the Raleigh Rally on Comedy Day on Friday, where the Teachers Union in North Carolina organized a kids over Corporations rally. It was totally about the kids. It's all about the kids. On International Workers Day. This from Carolina Journals Andrew Pomerantz. Thousands of educators and public school advocates filled downtown Raleigh on May first, staging one of the largest teacher protests in recent years, despite most state lawmakers being away from the General Assembly. Yes, that is that is why I was saying last week before the Commie Day rally, I was saying, like, you're going there to yell at an empty. Building, and yell they did. For example, this clip posted by Nick Craig from the Carolina Journal News Hour right here on WBT yelling at buildings. Here we go. We need a democracy that makes it easy for all of us. Everything around us is increasing. Did you hear me aboutool? Did you hear me over now everything around af. I saw I have a family members that come to me every other week because they can afford childcare weekly. Also, I have had in the past parish who couldn't make their colpat from subsidy. And non't let me talk about subsidy because subsidy has not going up, has increased in years. I'm not even sure what she's talking about there either a subsidy or a subsidy subsidy. Either way, I'm not really sure what she's talking about there. Maybe she's talking about the supplementals that counties provide teachers. They do a supplemental fund in addition to the state pay skill, but I'm not sure. So, yes, she's talking about affordability. Everything is increasing and for us in the private sector, we have no idea what any of that sounds like or feels like. We are completely immune to all of the affordability problems that she's talking about. Yes, it's like there's no connection made to the cost of government driving the affordability issues, right as soon as you start regulating more things and you have government take them over. I just saw a chart and I retweeted it out on Twitter formerly known as x about the costs associated in this cost is in time the weight time. So yeah, here it is. Since Obamacare came into effect in twenty fourteen, the average weight time for a doctor's appointment went from eighteen and a half days to now thirty one days. So now you're waiting a month for a doctor's appointment. And this was actually a reversal of the downward trend that we had seen in the decade prior, from two thousand and four through twenty fourteen. Specialists like Obgi ns that weight time went from a twenty three and a half day weight period in two thousand and four it is now at forty two days, So from twenty three to forty two days. Right, So this is what we expected to happen when government, you know, bigfoots private industry in any kind of sector. This is what occurs. People like me. Were predicting this, you know what, fifteen years ago. But nobody listens. Nobody listens. I do have some messages regarding some of the audio that I just played from the NCAE strike rally up in Raleigh on Comy Day. Deborah says, does that woman really think parents want somebody that screams like that to teach their children? I believe probably yeah, she probably would think that. John from New Jersey says that screamer sounds very frustrated, and John says, the teacher protest was not for the General Assembly. It was for the media, and that is correct. It was not to change anybody's minds in Raleigh. It was to promote the union and get more people to support it and to show that they're fighting and taking action, and also to recruit probably to you know, the Socialist Party, like literally the Socialist Party. He's walking with a red They're all wearing the Red Shirts. This white dude leading a march of red Shirts, chanting strike, Strike, Strike, with a banner from the Party for Socialism and Liberation. We're out here on International Workers Day, marching alongside thousands of teachers and public school workers, bus drivers. Cafeteria workers, everyone that makes a buns the North Carolina pay fund our school what they need to make the education. Okay, stop the cuts to public education is what he said there at the end. Public education has not gotten cut. Okay, there are no cuts to public education. There haven't been cuts at the state level since Democrats ran the show. Okay, just for starters. Regarding the vouchers, John says, I'm not a math teacher, so maybe I'm wrong, but it would seem to me that the school vouchers are like seven thousand dollars, but the schools pay more than that per student and cost so for every student that's not in a public school, doesn't that actually save the school system money If it costs ninety five hundred dollars per student to the school system, but the state's only paying seventy five hundred for the voucher for the kid to go someplace else. Doesn't that save the school system? Two thousand. Also, just about every public school is overcrowded by diverting students to other private or charter schools. That prevents the local schools from having to build more schools, saving even more money. And the concept is correct, John, However, this is what they're mad about, is that it actually costs. I have the figure here someplace I wrote it down. It was like twelve thousand, one hund Yeah, it's like twelve one hundred and ninety three dollars, so like over twelve grand per pupil expenditures in North Carolina, okay, and the vouchers are about seven grands. So there's this delta of like five thousand dollars. But if that student is no longer in the public school, then the state does not pay that school. And that's there's the rub is that if you think about it like a voucher that you use to go to a private school or a charter school or religious school whatever. And if that's seven thousand dollars covers the cost of your kids education at that private school. Is that is that the actual cost. Then that you could educate all of the kids in the public system for In other words, are we spending too much per pupil? Now? The NCAAE, the union will say no, they are demanding that. One of their demands was to raise the per pupil expenditure to twenty thousand dollars. Twenty thousand dollars, and I pointed this out last week. The state of New York spends over thirty thousand dollars per pupil and they're worse than we are, right, So the money is not the answer. The money is not the reason why the kids can't read and the kids can't do math. There is so much money that is being used for non classroom expenditures, and so they want to focus on this per pupil number because they can't like yes, they talk about teacher pay obviously, but they don't want to talk and they say, we got to get rid of the vouchers, and you got to prioritize the public schools and pay us what we need and all of that, But the vouchers highlight the delta between public school cost and private school cost. Right, and so when you take the kid out of the public school system, that system no longer receives any money from the state because they're not educating the kid. Now there's other there's another component here, which is the capital cost which John mentioned in his email as well, which is the building of the schools. That in North Carolina, the model is that the state pays for the salaries the operations of the schools, and the counties are responsible for construction of the schools. I mean you don't want the state. I mean, look at NCDOT. I mean, do you really want like a state agency, you know, doing all of the land purchasing and the construction of the buildings and everything like that. Do you want the state in charge of that? I would say no, you want that at a local level. And so they get control. But it also means then that if they make bad decisions on you know, where to build a school. And Mecklenburg County has done that. Because we were under court ordered bussing for you know, decades, and so they built schools not where the kids were, but where they could easily bust different racial groups from like a halfway. Point you ended up with. Was there are two high schools I think in West Mecklenburg that are very close to each other for that very reason, and so you make these bad decisions and over time, yeah, now you're paying capital costs to upkeep, you know, to maintain these buildings. You need new buildings and all that. But here's the other thing. The student population has been declining in North Carolina. Our student population is down not just because you know, fewer kids are being birthed, but. Also fewer kids are going to the public schools. They're opting out, which was the whole point of the voucher system. When it comes down to, is a refusal to. Accept competition right for the captured client. Tell that the education industry has enjoyed. That's what this comes down to. It's about control, and there are many reasons for that. Different people have different reasons for it, but it really comes down to a desire not to have to compete with other models, with other pedagogies, you know, styles and modes of teaching. They do not want the competition. From the text line, Trent says, Pete, you have just hit a home run, probably a grand slam. That is the problem with public education. It's all the extra programs it provides that do nothing to provide enrichment in reading, writing, or arithmetic. We are very heavy at the top with the leadership and extraordinary salaries, and the money doesn't go directly to improve student learning. To that point, Trent, grow in administrative staff, principles, teachers, and students. And you put these different categories. So you got administrative staff, principles and assistant principles, and then teachers and students, okay, and you put them on a bargraph left to right, going back to the year two thousand, going all the way through. The last chart or the last year that this chart has the data available is twenty nineteen, and you do a comparison of the growth in these different these four different categories. Students percent of change has been a little bit like I want to say, seven percent increase. Teachers is about eight percent, so they're like basically tied number of teachers and number of students seven eight percent. Then you look at principles and assistant principles and that percentage of change is thirty seven percent. And then when you look at administrative staff that has grown eighty eight percent in twenty years. Why why are. There so many more people in the administration than like because they always make the argument about more teachers. We need more teachers, and teachers need more money and all of this, But the funding seems to be going to a lot of the administration, a lot of staff at the upper levels. You know why, Well, those are priorities. Those are the choices that the school leaders keep making. Here is Walt. Welcome to the program, Walt, How are you great? How are you Pete? Hey, I'm good. Hey. Look. I grew up in Florida and I was add pretty much. It didn't matter what your grades were. Our teachers just passed this ride along. And when I got to seventh grade, I felt like I was in some kind of an asylum. You know. We all we wanted to do was get out of school and go play, go fish, do whatever. But they really didn't care about it. My kids and my grandkids, they're going to school in North Carolina, and I think it's a much much better school system. You know, I felt like I was in some top of a socialist babysitting service. Now that I get older, Now that I get older, i'd look at you know, both sides of the coin. It's like, what in the world what were we doing in Flora. I just can't tell you that. Yeah, I don't know, and I cannot speak to the Florida schools and stuff, but I would point out that Florida was sort of the uh, they were the front runner on school vouchers. I remember like what fifteen twenty years ago when they started opening up with the voucher programs and such. Look, and I'm not one who says that there are no good teachers. There are. There are great teachers. I've had great teachers. There are good schools. There are bad schools, right, So that's not to indict every single person that's you know, that's in the classroom. Obviously. Now, I do have differences of opinion about the model that we continue to use. It's a factory model that. Was implemented based off of the Prussian model, and it was designed to create workers. So you're not that far. Off when you when you say it felt like a socialist kind of experiment. I mean because that that is what it was intended to do in Prussia. It was to crank out factory workers. So babysitting service, yeah, I mean a lot of it is, Yeah, a lot of it is. Yeah. I appreciate the call man. Thanks well, thank you, all right, thank you. From the text line, seven o four number says, I'm confused. Isn't their party name? This was a yes for the the Party for Socialism and Liberation Party for Socialism and Liberation that was marching with the North Carolina Teachers Union at the Raleigh rally. I'm confused, isn't their party name? Contradictory socialism is the opposite of liberation. That's not what they tell you. That's not the sales pitch. The sales pitch is that it is only through the revolution will you be liberated from everything and all your freedoms. Seven oh four number wants to know where the lottery money is going. Still, it goes to education. There was just an audit done by Dave Bollock a couple months ago that looked at this. I don't remember all of the findings, but essentially, yeah, I mean, it's like the fear was that if you do the lottery and you get this money, that it's going to supplant the education funding. And we were assured by Democrats who rammed it through in the dead of night that literally that that would not happen, and that kind of is what happened, right. So the money goes into education, but it kind of supplants what might otherwise go in and there's really no way to ever know what would education funding be, you know, without the lottery proceeds. But most of it does go to education. Mitch says, you are correct, Pete. Those who run public schools don't want any competition. But if Republicans think they can simply ignore public education and public school teachers, they are dead wrong. Seventy five percent of students still attend public schools. Leaving all those students to attend systems largely run by socialists isn't going to work out very good for our country. That said, there are great public school teachers. I agree with that. Mitch nick Fredis, I've talked about him before. He's former Virginia delegate in the state government, and he's got a podcast called Making the Argument, and he talks to conservatives and he advises them that you need to get your kids out of the public schools and you need to homeschool them. And then in a generation, basically conservative outnumber liberals. It'll just because of the birth rates. And that's why liberals need your kids in the public schools so they can teach them about their philosoph But if you're homeschooling, then you're teaching them yours and that's a problem. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.