By Jeffrey Page
Rush Limbaugh and his clones would have you believe that the only Americans not outraged over public workers’ salaries and benefits are those very same public workers. Limbaugh spends three hours a day railing on and on and has nothing positive to say about the quality of the work these people do.

Of all people paid by taxpayers, Limbaugh focuses on the nation’s teachers and their unions. Teachers are pretty lousy at their jobs, he says with nauseating regularity. Of course, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but that’s never stopped him. Nonetheless, since there is a fringe of the nut-right that insists on seeing President Obama’s birth certificate, I demand to see Limbaugh’s report cards. Anyone as vicious as Limbaugh on the subject of teachers must have had a terrible first few years in school.

Show it or shut up, Limbaugh.

To listen to these radio observers you’d think that every school budget is an attack on middle class taxpayers and that every public sector worker is a schnorer (a Yiddish word, hard to translate, but basically an individual wishing something for nothing).

Do Limbaugh and the others ever actually venture out of the studio to do some basic reporting? Did any of them actually visit a classroom to observe what happens there? If they have, I haven’t heard about it. If they think they could last a day trying to teach a class of 20 fidgety first graders how to read, they’re mistaken because kids don’t respond to blowhards. You don’t order a kid to learn. You take your time and teach her.

Limbaugh, fulminating about public salaries is a joke. Cops, librarians, road crews and firefighters overpaid? Wasn’t it Rush Limbaugh who signed a contract for $400 million through 2008? Sure, he gets paid with private money, but spews his pollution five days a week on airwaves owned by the people.

As it turns out, he may not be speaking for all the people he thinks he represents.

I came across a most provocative headline in the Times Herald-Record a few days ago: “Chester district’s residents keen to save teachers, staff.”

The reporter noted that the message from residents to school board members was: Save our teachers, staff and principal. One woman in the audience wondered why an administrative position has to be cut. Though the Chester district is looking at the fangs of a $1.3 million reduction in state aid, the Record reported that many people at the meeting were willing to tough it out. After discussion of a 6 percent increase in the tax levy, one woman asked what would be lost with an increase of 8 percent.

The paper quoted a man who said an increase of 12 percent would cost taxpayers about $50 a month and indicated he could accept that. Of course an additional $600 a year is a steep hike for people on fixed incomes, but the startling thing about the meeting and the Record’s story was that, faced with cuts that will result in a lesser education for their children, some residents would be willing to pay the needed money.

A few weeks before that story, I was surprised to hear a report about a poll showing that most of the people of Wisconsin opposed the controversial new law (on hold by court order for now) that strips public sector workers of their right to bargain collectively. This, despite all the slanders heaped upon the state and local employees in Wisconsin. I suspect the meaning of this is not more complicated than an understanding that the people are smarter than the voices on the radio.

Have you had positive experiences with public workers? Care to share them with Zest readers? Send them along in the reply-box just below.

Note to Zest Readers: I wondered as I wrote this column if I had devoted entirely too much space to Rush Limbaugh. I checked and discovered I’ve only mentioned him in four pieces since April 2009, when Zest of Orange began. Still, Limbaugh is a never changing tune that I no longer wish to whistle. So, aside from the truly extraordinary, this is my last piece about him.

Jeff can be reached at jeffrey@zestoforange.com

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