the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Nov 12, 2012
Buckley School in Los Angeles got a 40-million-dollar, tax-free loan for a campus extension. Buckley is a private school that charges $30,000 for tuition per year. Among its alumni are Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian. And among its fans, this posh school for the rich and famous apparently counts all 15 members of the Los Angeles City council, who unanimously approved this “charity loan” last June!
Buckley got the loan from the California Municipal Finance Authority (CMFA), a non-profit organization, which has more than 150 cities as members. Private investors in the CMFA collect tax-free interest. And the CMFA gives tax-free loans to private companies.
In other words, the CMFA is nothing but a scheme, set up by public officials, specifically for the purpose of giving tax breaks to private interests–under the guise of “charitable work.” Besides Buckley, recipients of such tax-exempt loans include other private schools and colleges, colleges run by churches, and even some huge corporations like Chevron–which got 250 million dollars in bonds!
The California public officials who set up this scheme are the same ones who keep saying “there’s no money” in their treasuries. Then they use that as the excuse to cut services in working-class neighborhoods, lay off public workers, cut their wages and attack their pensions. So that the rich, whom these officials serve, can get even richer.