The power to tax is the power to destroy. The truth of this old saying can readily be seen in the Butler Eagle's recent report of the salary increases given by the school board (which has the power to tax) of Butler school district to four school administrators and the business manager.

With these salary increases, these four administrators will cost you and me $3,034,039 over the next five years. The retirement funds that you and I must pay into the state teachers' retirement fund for these five people, at 5 percent of their salaries each year, will be $151,701 over the next five years. (The rate was 5 percent in 1985 when I retired; it probably is higher now.)

Health insurance, dental insurance and life insurance (Why must you and I pay for their life insurance?), travel expenses, reimbursement of tuition expenses for their higher degrees (Why must you and I pay for their education beyond their bachelor degrees?), memberships in organizations, and other perks, for these employees will cost you and me a minimum of $300,000 over the next five years.

The total cost of these increased salaries for just five employees of the Butler Area school district will be well over three and one-half million dollars over the next five years. Most of this money will come from property taxes paid by you and me.

And don't count on property tax reform from Harrisburg. I have lived in Butler County for 51 years, and for 51 years property taxes have gone up and up and up. Now that I am retired and living on a pension (which does not go up), my school property taxes still go up. And they will rise again this year, for sure.

When the budget for the coming school year is revealed it will be for many millions of dollars. We will spend for more sports, more for bands and more for electronic signs.

But we will spend so little on the minds of the students, the "products" of our mammoth school system that reveal so much to us when we meet them in our super markets, restaurants and on our streets.

For all the money we spend to educate them, they should do better. They — and their teachers who are protected by a trade union — seem to know more and more about less and less.

Why is it that 24 states in America have laws forbidding teacher strikes (and another 17 states have no collective bargaining for teachers), but Pennsylvania has no such law?

Surely, school salary increases are beyond the rate of inflation. These salaries are comparable to those of corporate chief executive officers who are paid high salaries because they take risks and can lose their jobs from one day to the next. They don't have have guaranteed five-year contracts like these school officials.

Should we not expect better test results from the students in our schools and from the leaders of our schools? Should we not, also, expect more than "Yes. Yes." from the members of our school board?