Your tax dollars at work

Seeing as how this is Tax Day, I thought you would get a kick out of this application that was one of a stack put in every teacher's mailbox the other day. Remember to click on it if you need to look at the smaller details:

If you read the fine print at the bottom, you will see that this program is funded by foundations and the state of California, and no federal funding is involved. At least there is that. Nevertheless, this does involve tax money collected by our state government, and it is going toward "free" health care. No, it's not free. When government pays for something, it is never free, because the government has no money of its own. Any money the government has was first taken from someone else - by force - and then handed to another person in an often wasteful and cavalier manner.

The biggest kicker of all is the disclaimer at the top of the application. Did you miss it? It says, Citizenship is not required for all programs. That would explain why this thing is also written in Spanish. How many illegal aliens are receiving free health care on the taxpayer's dime from this program?

It is very easy to demagogue this by emphasizing that it's "for the children." I'm getting a little sick of this exploitation of "the children" as a further justification for breaking the laws of this country. If you are here illegally, there is nothing stopping you from taking your child back with you to your home country. If the child is a U.S. citizen, then when he is old enough to live on his own, he can come back to this country if he so chooses.

I object to being made an accessory to all this by being expected to hand out these applications to my students.

Good Day to You, Sir