That seems a bit harsh but before you get offended, here’re the facts:

I recently attended one annual school board meeting where the school board presented the budget for the upcoming year. The budget was for $7+ million. It was voted in unanimously by 14 people, 13 of whom were teachers. Not a single question was asked of the superintendent. Not a single item was challenged. 

A month later I attended one that was even worse. The only people in the room were me and another reporter, the members of the school board and two teachers. That was a $10 million budget with a $7 million property tax levy.

Americans love the glamour of the big elections: Presidents, governors, sometimes Senators. In reality, it is generally people in their own neighborhood who are spending the majority of their tax dollars. Don’t think so? 

The State of Wisconsin taxes you, they then give it to the schools to spend. Your property taxes get collected and that goes to the schools. Local taxes go the Board of Trustees or Common Council or whatever. They also receive a large percentage of state taxes. 

All the while they are all passing budgets that you can look at, talk to them about and even argue with them about.

Everyone is worried about what Obama will do about the debt or what Paul Ryan has created that he says will get us out of debt. But think about this in terms of your own house… if you are experiencing financial tough times, do you only go look at the mortgage? No, you look at the cable bill and changing the type of bread you buy.