- People against making alcohol legal again predicted the end of humanity.
- People against drug decriminalization predicted Portugal would go into disarray and everyone and their kids would be on smack.
- People believed when abortion was legalized that there would be no more babies.
- People claim tax reform will cause everyone to cheat on their taxes and it won't be progressive anymore, and it'll cause the nation to have budget crosses, and... oh wait.
The last one I mention because the insane tax code is just like our public education system. It's broken, and sticking with status quo - or worse, just throwing more money and slight changes at it - won't fix the massive problem.
Then tax refunds are welfare.cheapbasslovin wrote:Isn't a voucher for a private school kind of like welfare for the private sector?
The voucher system does a few things with which I agree with:
- it refunds a portion of taxes to those who have already paid into the public school system so that they may use it on the school of their choice
- it actually increases competition, in that parents may choose where to send their children. Top performing schools will be in more demand.
- it doesn't take away the money completely from those schools in the worst need. That's why it's a voucher and not a refund.
Say, as a property owner, you pay $4000 per year in school taxes. You'd be given a voucher of $3000 to pay to the school of your choice, but $1000 still goes to the school that is districted for your property. In other words, public schools still get to keep 25% of the tax revenue even if that student is not attending the school. This is a very basic overview of how the current voucher proposals are designed.
Maybe. Georgia Tech is a better school, overall, but more kids want to go to Georgia. The girls and the parties and the football program might have something to do with this, but my guess is parents. Their love for UGA is just behind God, probably above their dog.So making the school a better place to learn, a better place to simply 'be' wont encourage this?
Honestly, I'm all for making schools a better place to learn. We just don't agree on the approach.
Would rather things stay like they are than go more towards a Prussian system. You're essentially promoting leveling off the achievers so that the slackers can benefit. I will never agree with a socialized system in any regard.Providing funds isn't about padding the things that are going great, it's about bringing the things that are crappy to a respectable level so that almost everything is good. If I thought that the whole of the nation would be made better by letting those people rot I'd be all for it. I don't think that. I think that letting those people rot drags all but a handful of people down toward them if not down with them.
You're a glass half full person. I think those high achievers pull more towards the top. You see your friend, who is no smarter than you, getting closer to valedictorian, then you'll bust your butt to compete with her.
It's being done. It's been done. The opportunities are already there. They've been there since the beginning of this great country.It's not about dragging down the rich (although really, how bad do people raking in 5 mil or more a year have it that they can't pay taxes. Oh, no, what will I do with a mere 3 mil.), it's about bringing the poorest among us up so we all live in a rewarding society. Bringing the poorest up means reducing the unemployment rate through education, jobs programs, infrastructure building- as well as providing for the well being of the youth. Bringing the poorest up does NOT mean giving them money to sit on their asses and drive Cadillacs (which doesn't really happen unless the Cadillac is an '89 or a Catera).
Just throwing more money at the problems in our country only creates more problems. Government shouldn't be fixing what government screwed up in the first place.
This is going to sound really, really mean, but there's a small part of me that's glad there are underachievers out there. I'm not necessarily glad that they're poor, but that there are simply jobs that aren't worth $7 per hour, and yet are paid as much. We need people to do those jobs. If everyone was worth $25, $50, $100 per hour (today's money), then there is no opportunity to succeed in this country.
Not everyone can be a leader.
