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Will McVay vs. Ellis Parrott in Delaware's 32d District GOP Primary

I know that a lot of folks in Delaware are not in love with Will McVay.  He's a young smartass who refuses to play the game by the established rules, like the way he hops back and forth between the Libertarian and Republican party lines for tactical advantage.  Even some of my friends among national Libertarian Party leadership cadres don't like the fact that he is a Republican candidate endorsed by Libertarian Presidential nominee Gary Johnson.

So Will running for 32d District State Representative is driving what's left of the State GOP so nuts that they trotted out Ellis Parrott to try and hold him off with a primary.

You just gotta love Ellis--the candidate who's going to run for elected office based on no issues except for the ones where he either makes the numbers up, or says statistics don't matter.

Here, allow me to illustrate, with a little "Debate" between the Parrott and McVay positions on the issues from their campaign websites [McVay; Parrott]:



Hi, I'm Ellis Parrott, and yes, this is
the actual campaign photo I use on
my website when I am misstating
Delaware public education funding
by $6,756 per year.
First, Ellis Parrott on Education:
It isn't necessary for a village (school) to raise our children. It is up to concerned parents to take the initiative. But they need the schools to stop trying to force the liberal agenda on our young children whose minds are still being molded and teach what is important. Teach our children a well rounded education and let us teach our children the moral issues we feel are important. We spend $18,000 a year on each student and only 75% of our children are graduating from high school. These numbers are disgraceful. We need to give parents a choice where to send their children by means of letting parents set aside tax dollars that would allow their children to attend the best schools.
First off, yes, this is the whole comment--I didn't edit anything.  And, Ellis, if you are going to use numbers, try to get them right.  We spend $11,244 per pupil per year in Delaware, not $18,000, and our graduation rate is 78.1%.

Will McVay: yes, I know the
American flag is cheesy, but at
least I kept my head in human
proportion.
Now here's Will McVay on Education:

The Race To The Top has become the Race To The Bottom.  The federal government provides a miniscule amount of our state's education budget, yet they attach so many strings to that funding and require so much paperwork as to cost more than we get in compliance costs.  Imagine if asking for $5 required you to spend $10.  You're being robbed.
What we need to do is stand up for teachers in the classroom.  We need less administrators in charge of regulatory compliance and more teachers in charge of educational brilliance.  We need to give teachers the freedom to teach and the accountability to recognize their success.  We need to expand the network of charter schools as experiments in education to help develop techniques to better serve those our public education system is leaving behind.  We need to accept and recognize the value of homeschooling and private schools to further expand the educational array available to the people of Delaware.

Ellis here again:  who needs to
use statistics and specifics to
prove his point.  Just trust me,
like you trust Kowalko and Jaques.
Ellis on taxes:
It isn't necessary to quote a bunch of statistics; anyone who earns a middle to upper middle income knows how terrible the tax burden is by just looking at their paychecks. It's not even that we think we should pay no taxes; it's that the waste in local, state, and federal governments is going unchecked. Statewide it is going unchecked because the democrats hold a super majority in both the House and Senate that they can spend as they wish with no one to question spending. By ending the super majority, the democrats will at least have to compromise with us. That's a foundation we can build on.
How do you make the case, Ellis, that taxes are too high and that there is wasteful spending if you don't actually talk about numbers and programs?  This is sort of the equivalent on the GOP side of John Kowalko and Earl Jaques saying, "Trust us, we've got the numbers but we're just not going to tell you what they are."

Look, if you mention taxes to me
I will actually start talking you to
death because I've been researching
this for a long time.
Will on taxes is way too long to quote here in toto, because he is quite specific, but here's a representative sample:

Libertarians are most simplistically described as fiscally conservative, but socially liberal. This means that Libertarian politicians can appeal to both Republicans AND Democrats. We are against big government. We are against increased taxes. We are against heavy-handed regulations. We are ALSO anti-war, anti-discrimination, against corporate welfare, and against subsidizing the tyranny of the many foreign governments the US Government props up with your tax dollars. We have a genuine "bipartisan" appeal.
Here's the other big difference. We MEAN it. Republicans campaign on smaller government and lower taxes. Some taxes are reduced, many of which benefit the super-rich more than the average taxpayer. Government, however, is ALWAYS expanded. Even Ronald Reagan, the exemplar of conservative values, grew government and the federal deficit while he was president. A Republican president, George W. Bush, passed TARP and began the auto bailouts. A Republican congress passed Medicare Part D. Republicans say one thing...and do another.

I know there's a buncha crap out
there we could cut, and after you
elect me I'll get right to work on
figuring out what it is.
Here's Ellis again, this time on government regulations:
In the past decade the citizens of Delaware have been burdened with over 6,000 new state and county laws and regulations. Are all of them absolutely necessary? I doubt it! In Delaware, as across the nation, it's not the big businesses that produce job growth; it's the small businesses that are a source of 70% that produce the growth. We need to stream line the state and local government by taking a look at the laws and regulations to see how many of them are really necessary. We need to cut government agencies that are only there to provide more unnecessary regulations.
OK, Ellis, which agencies?  Can you give us a single example?

I bet you didn't know that the
Dover area is the only part of
the state where unemployment
is still climbing.  I bet Ellis doesn't
know, either.
Now Will:

Jobs.  Of course.  Unemployment is STILL a problem.  We have not gotten the jobs we were supposed to be getting from those elected in 2010 or in 2008.  We've gotten band-aids.  We've even gotten steps in the wrong direction.  The biggest tragedy of our current approach to creating jobs is that it presumes that government better knows what we need than we do.  Rather than leaving entrepreneurs, small businessmen, and young people to find a role for themselves, and a place for them to earn a living and contribute to our community, our government at both the federal and state levels has been taking our money away from us and using it to give loan guarantees, tax write offs, and outright subsidy checks to well connected businesses in politically popular industries.  It is Karma when these misadventures fail.  Politicians can never have perfect information.  No one can.  All too often their decision making is influenced by the interests surrounding them rather than the communities in need of real, economically productive work.
Not only do these interests dominate the spending decisions and economic development policies of our state, but they also influence the tax and regulatory policies affecting everyone who lives in Delaware as well as the businesses hiring them.  Legislation passed by incumbents from both parties created additional regulatory hurdles to young workers just starting out in a new career.  Legislation passed by incumbents from both parties has worked to create a tax environment where businesses spend so much time on red tape and tax preparation, they can't stay in business.  These are additional regulations being created every year.
I will work to repeal these onerous and arcane tax and regulatory policies.  I will level the playing field between the big companies with in house lawyers and accountants and small businesses without the overhead budget to fund these departments full time and comply with politically motivated regulatory nonsense.  We need real jobs that create real wealth for the people of Delaware, not make-work jobs circumventing red tape.  We need a regulatory environment that encourages hiring, not firing.  Most importantly, we need to STOP MAKING THINGS WORSE!

Truth in advertising?  I'd like some specifics on this issue from Will, too.

I'd like to give you Ellis Parrott's positions on health care, open government, increasing employment, or specific legislation he'd support or oppose like you find on Will's campaign site, but . . .

They aren't there.

Believe it or not, 32d District, Ellis Parrott wants your vote based on his wildly incorrect estimates of Delaware education spending, his refusal to cite statistical evidence of wasteful spending or to name the government agencies he'd try to do away with.

Will McVay wants to tell you exactly what he thinks about all these issues, and while you may not agree with him every time, you have to admit that it's pretty easy to tell which candidate has done his homework and which one simply believes (with an emphasis on the "simply" here) that by showing up the Republicans in the 32d will vote for him even when he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Besides, who would actually vote for a candidate who allowed himself to get Rick-rolled, but where you can watch a Parrott sing the SpongeBob Squarepants theme song:


Comments

Will McVay said…
Here are a few specifics from a post on my website:
http://www.willmcvay.com/2012/06/license-to-work.html
http://www.willmcvay.com/2012/06/hb392-update.html
http://www.willmcvay.com/2012/06/cronyism-in-bloom.html

Follow me on FB too. Great post, Steve. Thanks!
Andrew R Groff said…
Will is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stagnant state government pool. His openness and candor are a breath of fresh new air that we dearly need in this legislature right now. He is open, honest and very concerned for the vitality of the economy and the people of Delaware. He is not an old-timey apparatchik who has no sense of the present and pines for the good ole days. For those in district 32: pay close attention to who is really working hard for your vote and who is interested in new and workable solutions to our issues here in Delaware. Will is your man.
Will McVay said…
Also, the mention of "Karma" was a sarcastic reference to Fisker, but I guess I'm too subtle for my own good some times.
Anonymous said…
Steve,

Concerning the education dollar amounts, Bonini, Copeland and Bill Lee have told me it's $16,500 when you factor in Federal dollars.

That was about 3 years ago. It could be $18,000 today.
Anonymous said…
OK, I looked it up myself.

State says it spends 1.1 Billion
http://budget.delaware.gov/fy2012/budget2012.shtml

Feds kick in 375 million
http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/statetables/index.html#update

State says there are 130,610 students which comes to $11,368
Will McVay said…
I'm less concerned about the numbers and more concerned about the lack of anything resembling a solution. The point is that more money is being spent per student than tuition at most of Delaware's private schools, and the results aren't great. Even the students graduating are by and large unprepared for the job market.

We need to give teachers more independence to work with the students they have. We need flexibility enough in our curriculum to cater to the local and global job markets as they shift.

My opponent is not discussing any of the structural problems to our children getting a quality education. He is parroting partisan talking points and ultimately saying nothing about what really needs to be done in our schools.
Will McVay said…
Anonymous, there's also a local share that may kick in another couple grand. That will vary from district to district though, I'd suspect.
OK time for a little teaching

@Anon--citing Colin Bonini, Charlie Copeland, and Bill Lee is NOT citing a source. Further, they don't know what the crap they are talking about. I linked to the figure, which runs in the low to mid $11,000 range as an average. For Federal funding to bring that up to $16 or $18K would mean that the Feds paid for about 30-40% of public education in Delaware. They don't. They pay 6.6% over the long haul, and about 8.5% if you include the current take from RTTT.

@Anon again--c'mon, it is simpler than that and much more complicated. Once more: I linked you to the figure. Your method unfortunately mixes in Federal and state dollars that go to higher education and omits local funding.

@Will #1--if you are going to measure tuition at private schools versus per pupil cost at public schools please don't pretend it is a completely level playing field--public schools MUST take special needs students and generally keep disruptive students. Private schools do not have to do this. Apples to oranges on a straight cost comparison.

@Will#@--The local share is figured into the state per pupil average, and you can deduce the local share from the individual district shares. For example, both Christiana and Red Clay have a per pupil expenditure in the $10K range; Brandywine with a much stronger tax base spends $13.5K.

None of this is rocket science and the figures are all publicly and easily available.
Anonymous said…
Adding up all the money and dividing by total pupils come no where near the $$ that actually makes it to a classroom. When that math is done, the feds should be told to kiss off, literally.
Justice said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Justice, your comment falls into the very small area of comments that I will not allow on this blog. Be warned. You've placed it in multiple threads and you risk being banned.
Jack said…
Will McVay got a DWI in october...

how is this not worthy to be posted? It is about the candidate... Steve, as two "libertarians" I dont see where you get off on censorship.

feel free to email me with information about why you feel its appropriate to censor the truth.

jjustis88@yahoo.com
Jack

This is the first time you have confined your comment to information that is verifiably public record. Your other accusations at this point, without the verification I asked you to provide, are nothing more than libelous assertions such as you have been making all over social media.

As for "censorship," here's the deal: (1) I am not the government; this blog is my property to do whatever the hell I want to do with it. You have no inherent right to post comments here; nor does anybody else. (2) I pretty much have only two rules for blocking posts--threats and "outing" people based on either their preference for anonymity or by publishing unsubstantiated crap about them. Guess what? You fall into both categories.

I'm not sure why I got so lucky as to attract your attention with this little crusade of yours, or how it fits into your own longstanding personal animosity with McVay--and I don't really care.

You can either play here by my rules or get pissed and go elsewhere. Your choice.

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