Letter: Teachers have paid too much already

I was pleasantly surprised by the sympathetic tone in your recent articles about the thousands of teachers joining the ranks of the unemployed ["Hard times for LI teachers," News, June 27], given that it is the consequence of the budget cuts that your paper has long been advocating. Maybe you didn't really want teachers to actually lose their jobs, just wanted other teachers to pay for it.

For the record, William Floyd teachers have given up pay increases twice to save teaching positions. For my fellow taxpayers who don't know how that works, that means a teacher pays school taxes in the district where he or she resides, and then suffers further economic consequences in the district where he or she works.

But don't fret, my unemployed colleagues. I'm told that by shifting tax breaks to millionaires from teachers, we will create far more jobs than we've lost. Should be any day now. Just make sure to hone your yacht-building skills.

Patrick Flynn, Wading River