Happy Pi Day, Massachusetts (3/14). According to the Boston Globe, “Pi Day is a big deal for Raytheon.”   Raytheon is distributing apple pies to math and science teachers within a 3.14 mile radius on 3/14  to express their appreciation of excellence in the teaching of math and science and celebrate the irrational number pi (which is approximately equal to 3.14).

“Our employees – so many of whom are engineers – are extremely grateful to teachers who spend each day encouraging and inspiring today’s students to become tomorrow’s innovators,” said Pam Wickham, vice president of Corporate Affairs and Communications for Raytheon Company. “We hope this small gesture of gratitude will encourage others to show their appreciation for these educators, while helping to drive awareness and interest in STEM beyond the classroom walls.”

http://www.boston.com/business…

Heady stuff, but as way of supporting teachers, it’s a bit half-baked. The pies might cost $314/year, maybe even $3141.59 a year, but the tax exemption Raytheon brought about in 1995 now costs our schools almost $314 MILLION/year.

The MA legislature’s conference committee just made another $300 million in cuts to state health care, education grants, elder home-care services, child care for working parents, human services, and other areas of the state budget for FY2011, conveniently putting the blame on our newest senator, Scott Brown.

Not mentioned in the press releases is the fact  that our legislature  gave away $300 million they would otherwise have this FY2010 in “single sales factor (SSF)” tax expenditures to Fidelity/Raytheon/related manufacturing corporations for “job creation,”  even though many of those corporations  are actually cutting jobs. According to the Boston Globe, “Fidelity’s Massachusetts workforce now stands at  a more than 9,000 workers, down from 13,000 four years ago.”

As Jill Stein often puts it, these tax expenditures are literally  “payoffs for layoffs.”  In my opinion, they are also the legalized theft of public funds.

Why not use the tax dollars we’re throwing away on tax expenditures like these  to really create jobs by rehiring laid-off teachers, firefighters, librarians, and health care workers? Why not collect the taxes we would otherwise be due instead of raising the sales tax?

Want to know  how the “single sales formula” or “tax apportionment” scam works? Read on.