We all work, live in houses, buy goods and services, go places, eat, etc. And government manages to find ways to make us pay for the "privilege." My tax bill for the month of February was at least $2,771.31.
I wrote about it for The News Tribune (Tacoma) here.
Marshsa, I liked your article on taxes as it had some substance to it.
If it makes you feel better, my tax bill was considerably higher than that.
However, there were a couple of errors in it that drew away from your points.
First, the government does actually make some of its own money through renting property, imposing tariffs and the like.
Second, I don't think you can include user fees from the government as your general tax. If these matters were privatized, they would still cost you something. You are paying for the specific service that the government provides.
Finally, claiming that a car seller's B&O tax is your tax is inaccurate. They already claim it as theirs. If I have an employee and they pay income tax, I can't claim that I pay the tax.
If it makes you feel better, Washington is one of the few states without an income tax that can take 9 percent off of the top. Thus, if you make more than about 40k a year, you get a big break.
But overall, good article, and yes, taxes are high and so is the deficit.
Posted by: Erik on March 6, 2005 02:35 PMFor instance, should the government have paid the tobacco farmers billions to "bail them out." No one likes to attack sacred cows.
Posted by: Erik on March 6, 2005 02:37 PMSecondly, it appears that you dismiss high taxes because of the high deficit. I'd suggest that the government behave like you do...live within its means. Cut spending. I'll be happy to slaughter the sacred cows.
Posted by: dkpcowboy on March 6, 2005 02:45 PMBill Profit to 35 Pct Profit
Level make 30% Tax Margin
Cost Cost plus Profit Total Cost
1 $1.00 $0.30 $1.30 $0.11 $1.41
2 $1.41 $0.42 $1.83 $0.15 $1.97
3 $1.97 $0.59 $2.57 $0.21 $2.77
4 $2.77 $0.83 $3.61 $0.29 $3.90
5 $3.90 $1.17 $5.07 $0.41 $5.47
6 $5.47 $1.64 $7.12 $0.57 $7.69
Bill Profit to 35 Pct Profit
Level make 30% Tax Margin
Cost Cost plus Profit Total Cost
1 $1.00 $0.30 $1.30 $0.00 $1.30
2 $1.30 $0.39 $1.69 $0.00 $1.69
3 $1.69 $0.51 $2.20 $0.00 $2.20
4 $2.20 $0.66 $2.86 $0.00 $2.86
5 $2.86 $0.86 $3.71 $0.00 $3.71
6 $3.71 $1.11 $4.83 $0.00 $4.83
Difference between a 6 level bill of material item
7.69 / 4.83 = 159.21 % more expensive
You get the idea, and what is interesting is that I remember reading that in the 18th century some court ruled that a slavemaster did not own 100% of a slave's labor, that a slave had the right to about half of his labor to feed himself and his family and to provide shelter to himself and his family, that in essence a slave only owed his slavemaster half of what he earned. Well, that makes us slaves and only different from slaves in that we can decide who is our slavemaster for half of our time, while the slaves could not.
Posted by: Roleigh Martin on March 6, 2005 03:05 PM
Bill Profit to 35 Pct Profit
Level make 30% Tax Margin
Cost Cost plus Profit Total Cost
1 $1.00 $0.30 $1.30 $0.11 $1.41
2 $1.41 $0.42 $1.83 $0.15 $1.97
3 $1.97 $0.59 $2.57 $0.21 $2.77
4 $2.77 $0.83 $3.61 $0.29 $3.90
5 $3.90 $1.17 $5.07 $0.41 $5.47
6 $5.47 $1.64 $7.12 $0.57 $7.69
Bill Profit to 35 Pct Profit
Level make 30% Tax Margin
Cost Cost plus Profit Total Cost
1 $1.00 $0.30 $1.30 $0.00 $1.30
2 $1.30 $0.39 $1.69 $0.00 $1.69
3 $1.69 $0.51 $2.20 $0.00 $2.20
4 $2.20 $0.66 $2.86 $0.00 $2.86
5 $2.86 $0.86 $3.71 $0.00 $3.71
6 $3.71 $1.11 $4.83 $0.00 $4.83
Difference between a 6 level bill of material item
7.69 / 4.83 = 159.21 % more expensive
Bill of Material level
Cost
Profit to Make 30 percent margin
Cost plus Profit
35 percent corporate profit tax margin
Total Cost
They will spend (your taxes) 2-3x the inflation increase and still not be satisfied.
I asked my Reps/Sen (27th district) what programs they have cut or eliminated - no response.
Posted by: Norm on March 6, 2005 03:44 PMBut, other than that, what exactly are you griping about?
And why do you consider this "one" bill? It isn't. A portion of your gas tax goes specifically to roads. Your FICA goes to SS, Medicare, etc. It isn't one bill, and it's absurd to pretend it is.
What portion of these do you think is too high? The gas tax? Your taxes on your phone bill? Do you even know what those taxes cover? Did you look it up? Do you care?
Or do you just want to have an empty, shallow, bitch fest?
You suggest we can change this. Change what? I want better roads and better schools. I think health care is too expensive, and hence medicaid/medicare is too expensive. Is anyone fixing that? Other than vote for people who cut taxes without any realistic plan for cutting spending, what exactly should we do?
You don't want to do anything constructive; you just want to whine - and you're not even effective at that modest task.
Posted by: Christine G on March 6, 2005 06:02 PMNo. Actually, spending is worse than Marsha portrays it. Yep. Although I did think a few points needed to be clarified.
Marsha is right about many of the taxing components, but the budget consists of taxes collected plus the deficit incurred each year. ikes. Thus we only see a portion of the spending.
The worst place to be tax wise is someone who is a sole business owner at about $90,000 who makes his or her wages from working. Then, you have to pay a pretty high federal imcome tax plus both sides of the social security tax. Its the worst of both worlds as the SS tax adds another 15 percent to the federal income tax.
If you make money from dividends or capital gains, your tax rate is much lower.
So a sole proprieter can pay 28 percent plus 15 percent SS tax which alone equals 43 percent. Then plop on state B&O tax (city and state) which adds another 2 percent of gross or 3 percent of gross, thats 46 percent.
If one lived in Oregon, the income tax rate can be 9 percent which would place one over 50 percent right there.
Oh. Then there's the little issues of land taxes and sales tax.
Cut spending. I'll be happy to slaughter the sacred cows.
Good. Let's start with the farm subsidies. How the government ever got into the business of sending 100s of billions of dollars to large farming corporations is beyond me.
Yet, both parties have been unable to confront this one.
Posted by: Erik on March 6, 2005 06:20 PMA typical liberal response. Why do you assume that to get better roads, schools, health care you have to spend more money? This is the left's answer to everything. SPEND MORE MONEY.
Do you want better schools for less money? Give every parent a school credit in the amount of 75% of per pupil spending which the parent can use to go to any school of their CHOICE. Competition for these credits will produce an abundance of great schools that treat parents/students as valuable clients instead of just a meaningless number.
You want better healthcare for less money? Make Health Savings Accounts available to ALL CITIZENS through tax law changes. People will become true consumers, driving down prices. They will also have incentives to stay healthy for their Health Savings Account is money they keep if they don't spend it.
Your belief that more money means better is the reason schools, roads, healthcare, higher education have every dwindling performance at ever increasing costs.
Posted by: dmeyers on March 6, 2005 06:28 PM1. Tax funded education. http://honested.com shows why nearly 26,000 educated citizens think so, but mine is that the military has done literacy testing since the 1800s and the literacy rate of enlistees now is lower than it was before public schools. Look at how literate leaders in America were around 1790 versus today, eg, George Bush and Clinton v. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, need I say more?
2. Tax funded welfare. Not only do charities do an immensely better job at about 1/5th the cost, the message they send is one of communal love and concern, while the message welfare sends is that of victimhood and entitlement and perpetual dependence.
Furthermore, if only one state got rid of Welfare, you can be 100% guaranteed that the murder rate in that state would probably drop by 35 percent in the next two years as many of those who do not want to stand on their own two feet would leave the state. A politican who votes for welfare is one who supports the murdering of 35 percent of his fellow citizens, you can numerically argue, although for sure, nobody thinks about this. How many people still know that 2 and 2 equals 4?
Posted by: Roleigh Martin on March 6, 2005 06:42 PMI'll respond more later, but really, private charity cannot take the place of welfare, for a variety of reasons.
Most people, though full of good intentions, do not give the amount they would ultimately feel is right to charity. That is why, instead of the threat of the taxman, many people support charities through their church, often under the threat of hellfire.
Private charities need to market to be effective. Having worked for a variety of nonprofits, I realize that the money does not go to the greatest need. Example: two nonprofits I have raised funds for are the Seattle Chinese Garden Society and the West Seattle Psychiatric Hospital. It's easy to raise money for the garden - it's pretty, and you can offer people nice bricks with their names. It is hard to market as psych hospital - the people there will largely never have full lives, and you are really marketing public safety.
It's human nature. People will give to what are in the end frivolous charities, like Make a Wish much more willingly than they will to fund a nonprofit drug rehab program. Making cute unfortunate kids happy for one day takes precedence over making a lifetime of difference in people's lives.
And, never did I say we needed to spend MORE money on education or that the answer is always more money. You hear what you want to. This little girl who wrote the article has nothing productive to say, just whines endlessly.
Posted by: Christine G on March 6, 2005 06:55 PMOk. Here's mine:
1) Farm subsudies. Here's $100 billion. Where's the libertarians when you need them? Hiding I suppose.
2) Coporate welfare. Let the market knock out companies. This could save tens of billions. Where's the free market believers when you need them?
3) Pet pork project by congress that go to each district but have little use buy make work. Billions here too.
4) Balance the budget and pay off the trillion dollar deficit. This would save around 20 percent of the overall budget alone in yearly interest payments.
Posted by: Erik on March 6, 2005 06:58 PMNo, privatizing schools will not save money, and health savings accounts are a joke.
If you want a back to basics education, I'm with you. If you want standards in schools, I'm with you.
If you want to cut art programs, sure. Have a more rigorous standard for spending transportation dollars - some sort of cost benefit analysis based on amount of commerical/recreational traffic - great. If you want to have performance audits, great.
Don't tell me that I just want to spend more money, just because I'm sick of shallow whining self-pitying articles like the one at issue here, or I don't buy into full-on privatization schemes for essential public services.
As for the welfare argument, there is a starter book, The Tragedy of American Compassion by professor Marvin Olasky -
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/089526725X/qid=1110164746/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-0111017-7691841?v=glance&s=books
Plus, one could introduce the concept of a double-value or triple-value tax deduction if it went to either welfare-replacement charities or education-replacement charities for poor kids to ensure that the poor get (much better) help and education than what the tax-funded system provides them now. I don't like the idea of tax credits as it is too easy to be abused and invites too much governmental oversight, while tax deductions might not generate enough money, but in between the two extremes, there could be a double-value tax deduction where for every $1 donated to a 501.c3 charity, $2 is able to be deducted from one's taxes, again if the charity deals with welfare or education for the poor.
But there is a vested interest in keeping education as inefficient and rotton as it is, it guarantees enough dumbed-down graduates who will look to the government for answers and who are foolish enough to swallow the argument that pumping in more money will make it better.
Posted by: Roleigh Martin on March 6, 2005 07:11 PMSure it will. Any student that wishes to have post secondary education can attend University of Puget Sound or Pacific Lutheran University. The tuition cost is only $25,000 a year plus room and board.
Look, not everyone is cut out to get a college degree. Dmeyers is right. What good will it do to have a large percentage of the population getting a four year degree in English when they are going to end up at Starbucks anyways.
So, instead of taking the money in tax dollars to put the money where the government decides it should go, we set up tax deductions that ensure the money goes where it wants it to go, right?
Then, of course, after we set up this system, and there is (theoretically) an explosion in private charity, we will have a problem with fraudulent and inefficient charities, which need to be policed by the government.
I don't see where we gain.
Add to this the fact that, when the economy is bad and charity is needed more, charitible contributions will decline.
Welfare is a tiny sum in the budget anyway, of course. Hardly worth talking about if you're complaining about taxes.
Posted by: Christine G on March 6, 2005 07:36 PMPlease point out where in my post I said "privatize the schools". Allowing for school choice does not mean "privatize schools". I live in Arizona and Arizona leads the nation in implementing different forms of school choice. We lead the nation in the creation of "public charter schools", schools that receive public school money per pupil and must accept all students. Arizona also has created School Tuition Organizations which are set up by individuals/groups that can accept tax credit money from individuals provided they spend 95% or so of their money on school tuition scholarships. Expanding the school choice system to include transferrable vouchers would be another method of bringing more competition to the school system. I see in Arizona public charter schools, private schools and parachial schools provide quality education for much less money than the public schools receive. They also build their schools for much less money.
Nice comment on Health Savings Accounts, "they are a joke". Talk about ridiculous. Please explain what about Health Savings Accounts that are a joke? Or do you even know what they are? Health Savings Accounts give the consumer the ability to break the death grip health insurance companies have over individuals and gives the consumer real incentives for staying healthy. It will also bring much needed price shopping to the medical field. To me competition is not an evil word but a word that is desparately lacking in most of the medical field.
A perfect example of how costs stay under control and quality improves in the medical field are vision care and cosmetic surgery. These two areas are not typically covered by insurance but are two areas where costs are under control will service has increased. Lasik eye surgery is a great example. Great advancements have been made in this area while costs have not risen. The reason for this is people are true consumers when it comes to Lasik. Insurance does not cover it so the providers no have to compete in the marketplace, which has kept prices down and quality high. Same thing for elective cosmetic surgery. I would bet that the cost of a boob job in inflation adjusted dollars has decreased over the past decade. This just doesn't happen in the health insurance arena. As we all know medical costs have skyrocketed.
So Christine, saying Health Savings Accounts are a joke demonstrates how ignorant you are about them and about capitalistic market based solutions to the medical field.
Posted by: dmeyers on March 6, 2005 07:48 PMBut I'm not naive, the parasites and the dumbed down outnumber those of us who can add 2 and 2. But at least they won't get my intellectual endorsement. The answer is 4 in my book, and always will be.
I did vote againse performance audits as there is absolutly Nothing...and I mean Nothing that can be cut out of the State Budget. Take my word for it.
ERRRR... taxes must be increased as the ...........bla,bla,bla.
Signed,
Your Democrate Senator.
Rosie, (Kill the baby and take communion McAuliff).
(another suburban dem elected time after time on a campign of pro business,conservative values.
What a joke..and we keep buying it!
As opposed to fraudulent and inefficient government agencies?
Roleigh Martin - I disagree with your regarding tax credits. As I mentioned in an earlier post, in Arizona we have set up entities called School Tuition Organizations. These are legal entities that can be set up by any group, for example the Catholic Church, Veterans groups, Groups promoting the Arts, etc. These groups can accept donations of up to $500 per individual. The individual receives a tax credit of equal amount on their state tax return, meaning they receive a dollar for dollar reduction in their tax liability. These organizations then use this money to fund K-12 scholarships for individuals to attend private schools. The law stipulates the % that must go to the scholarships (I believe it is 95%).
The beauty of this system is that any group can set up these organizations and accept donations from individual. For example, the Catholic Church has set one up and I donate $500 per year to it. By doing so I receive a $500 credit on my state taxes. In Arizona there are many many organizations providing scholarships. Many are focused on low income people so these have given these parents alternatives to the failing public schools.
Tax credits in the form of dollar for dollar reductions of your tax burden for contributions to these organizations are very efficient and completely keeps the government's hands off the money.
Posted by: dmeyers on March 6, 2005 08:02 PMYou are correct when the tax credits are so meager. $500 is not enough to educate a child for one year. We have the same deal in Minnesota (I use to live in Spokane but not anymore, I miss it there). When the credit gets so big that it handles the full amount, then governmental oversight gets big. The norm is to never let the credit handle the full situation. Tax deductions are less abused because between 80-to-90 percent is still voluntarily a donation by the giver, while with a tax credit, there really is not a individual sacrifice, as that money would be dollar-for-dollar spent on taxes otherwise.
As dreamful as I am about a future without tax-funded public schools, I'd never dream of politicians allowing that with full tax credits to take care of the full amount. I could imagine them doing something like $500 or $1000 a year and if that was the extent, then maybe government would keep their hands off, but I'm a cynic, I know from experience that tax credits almost always have much more institutional thought and oversight involved. Maybe not at first, but over decades they would.
Posted by: Roleigh Martin on March 6, 2005 08:09 PMThanks!
Roleigh
Posted by: Roleigh Martin on March 6, 2005 09:18 PMYour little rant on the murder rate is kooky.
Face it, if you want to dismantle the public schools, you are a radical - leaving aside the question of whether you are right or wrong.
Accept that you guys are far right radicals. Those who seek to preserve the basic institutions we have lived with for centuries may be misguided, but aren't far left, or radicals.
Posted by: Christine G on March 6, 2005 09:52 PMAs for the naysayers to Marsha's post:
She is only saying what many of us feel. Good for you Marsha Richards! It is a great starting point for a civil healthy debate.
You are wrong, it has not been centuries for tax-funded public schools. The earliest public school was around 1830. It is a century plus. For it to be centuries, it would have had to be before 1805.
I like your comment "leaving aside the question of whether you are right or wrong." I guess for the left, being right or wrong is irrelevant, it is what feels good or what keeps one in power.
I understand your take, it's the non-analytic, feel-good response.
As for radical, I laugh at that. I'm a strict constutionalist myself. I don't want radical change from what has truly worked for centuries (not a century plus disaster). Mankind achieved amazing leaps in literacy and education as demonstrated by our founding fathers non of whom had any opportunity to be dumbed down by tax-funded public schools.
Education is food for the mind. Just as we would laugh at socialist grocery stores like in Russia, why do we persist in socialist education stores as used in Russia? You do know that public schools got their start in Prussia before they came to America around the 1830s, starting with Massachusetts I believe.
From a truly long term historical perspective, tax funded public schools is the radical break from what has worked for tens of thousands of years (market-based, church-based, charity-based and scholarship-based education). So far, this radical experiment has been a horrible, dismal failure.
Have your relatives check out www.azdor.gov (dept of revenue) and search for School Tuition Tax Credit.
If they do not know of any groups who run these school tuition organizations they can contact any local church and I am sure that they will have them. It is a fine way to redirect $625 of your state tax burden to go towards private school "vouchers"
Posted by: dmeyers on March 7, 2005 05:24 AMIf you want to dismantle a century old institution, you are a radical.
I find it funny how you guys are so eager to proclaim everything a "dismal failure." Something has worked for a century, and it simply doesn't count, because you are unhappy with it today and you call yourself a traditionalist.
You persist in launching personal jibes, and apply the word socialist where it does not apply. Perhaps our schools have failed us.
Posted by: Christine G on March 7, 2005 09:23 AMGreat Job! I wish the Olympian would run your article too!
When we file our taxes this year, we get to claim our "Washington State Sales Taxes." I haven't received all of my forms to file yet, but I did do a prelim on Turbo Tax and the credit for sales tax by the internal computer charts was less than 300 bucks for me. The charts are based on income. I haven't felt inspired to get a job yet and I am still getting by on my Army retirement and my VA disability, so my income is low. Yesterday I spent over 15.00 dollars in sales tax. So it does add up quickly and it is quite a lot more than our state leaders would like us citizens to believe.
Washingtonians will wake up sooner or later. Collecting all of the state taxes from the sales tax, property and B & O taxes isn't providing enough dollars for the out of control programs.
Medicaid spending this year will be in the double digits and the federal budget is allegedly 2% lower than last year. The state office here that is responsible for the program refused to cooperate fully with auditors. We paid for 3 poor mentally deficient souls to reclaim their true identities by providing them with sex change operations. And that's just one example of waste.
A lot of experts say that our state's method of taxation is regressive, and that it puts a unfair burden of taxes on the poor and the middle class. While we pay up to 50% of our income in taxes, the millionaires in Seattle pay less than 1% of their personal yearly income in taxes. Kinda puts new meaning into Bill Gates' complaints that schools aren't funded properly. Of course, he can complain, he and his millionaire friends are getting the hell over on us. If any of them lived in Silicon Valley, they would be paying millions in taxes!
The only way to stop this is for people like the 14 bloggers here on Sound Politics to expose the crap for what it is. We need accountability and responsibilty from all public officials, and that includes the schools.
It is commonly called WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE!
Posted by: sgmmac on March 7, 2005 09:33 AMI grant you, from a perspective of historical time limited to only 175 years, yes you can call my idea radical, but from a perspective of the history of mankind, my idea is the long-term norm. But I get your point.
By socialism, I perhaps should have used a different, less offensive word, I only meant governmental funded and governmental managed, which is what a socialist institution (as opposed to a socialist country) means. Accept my apology that I did not mean to give offense.
Let me ask you a personal question, is Christine G your real name or is it name made to have fun with on this board inasmuch as the governor's name is same. I presume you are not the governor.
I wish I had saved the original study that documented the reduced literacy rate of Americans today in contrast to the higher literacy rate of Americans in 1830 (at least as military recruits go). However, for the sake of discussion, assume it is true. Doesn't that concern any supporter of public schools? What about the fact that the family has disintegrated so massively with nearly a 50 percent divorce rate compared to virtually a non-existent divorce rate back in the days when schools taught not only the 3 Rs but also the 4th R (Right v. Wrong).
Posted by: Roleigh Martin on March 7, 2005 11:03 AMLet's look at welfare. It's supposed to help the poor, right? Then why were they still poor after a lifetime of welfare? I suspect it wasn't intended to help the poor, but to enslave them on a "vote plantation". Compare with the motives above and you'll see why welfare recipients are disproportianately minorities - democrats hate them more.
Let's look at the war on terror. Democrats oppose every method to eliminate terror and the states that harbor them once and for all. They oppose the democratization of the Middle East. They stand against our troops and pray for their demise. Why is this? It is because they hate our country and want to see our citizens killed by terrorists, and they hate the military more than all because they defend the defenseless.
Now let's turn to taxes. JFK, Reagan, and now Bush have proven beyond any doubt that lowering taxes increases economic growth, creating jobs, and actually increasing government revenue. However, democrats oppose that and want even more money. Their purpose is clear: They want to bankrupt our government and destroy our livelihood. They want us living in chaos without the food to feed ourselves.
Folks, this is all plain as day and I don't see how anyone can deny it.
Posted by: Jonathan Gardner on March 7, 2005 11:21 AMChristine is my real name, last initial isn't g.
I appreciate the efforts at civility.
----I only meant governmental funded and governmental managed,
This is actually, I think, a big question I have talking with conservatives. Like most Democrats, I think that private industry does some things well, and certain things should be done by the government. The conservative mindset seems to be - often - that EVERYTHING must be done by the government, except national defense (and even that gets contracted out in large measure).
My view is that this wholesale distrust of anything undertaken by the government is irrational, and prevents sensible discussion about solving problems.
There is also a problem of false assertions that seem to be rife on talk radio. See, for example, Johathan's post.
I don't care much about affirmative action. However, his post states that minority enrollment is up at UW. The actual stats seem to be here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/4556517p-4267782c.html - asians, who are not underrepresented to begin with, appear to have pushed up the numbers. He then goes on to talk about how tax cuts increase government revenues. They don't. The Laffer curve showed the theoretical relationship between tax rates and government revenues, and theorized there was an optimal point, which can't be calculated. Somehow, this has been translated to the idea that cutting taxes can actually increase revenues - rather than the accurate representation that a targeted tax cut can pay for itself if the tax at issue fall at the right point on the curve.
But Johathan thinks he is an educated, sophisticated voter, who understands Democrats. He thinks that Democrats pray for the demise of the troops. This is offensive.
I realize this is a rant. But, really, I don't have a philosophical agenda. I find that many conservatives believe that Democrats have a philosophical agenda because they do, and whatever their philosophy is, Democrats MUST believe the opposite. And, it is ultimately a waste of time to argue with someone who does have a philosophical agenda when you don't, because you will discuss and analyze the problem, whereas your opponent will just cherry pick facts to support his or her prejudice.
Posted by: Christine G on March 7, 2005 12:00 PMhttp://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/rc_027601_ieducationto.htm
"According to the census, the literacy rate among the white adult population was about 90 percent in 1860, a rate higher than that of Scotland, Germany, England, France, Ireland, or Italy."
Check the census questions for 1860:
http://www.ipums.umn.edu/usa/voliii/86items.html
13. Persons over 20 years of age who can not read and write.
Currently, I believe a person is considered illiterate if he or she reads below a fifth grade level - not the question asked on the census. See: http://nces.ed.gov/naal/historicaldata/illiteracy.asp
Please do not mischaracterize this post as an endorsement of current rates of functional illiteracy.
And, to answer your question, it would be interesting and instructive to know if functional literacy were higher one hundred years ago - but the evidence I see (admittedly a quick web search) indicates to me that we are comparing two measures which are not comparable.
Of course you nor I should generalize about what the conservative mindset is. Here is how I see it. I believe in competition because I believe competition brings out the best in everyone. I don't say we should privatize public education what I do say is there should be no barrier erected to prevent competition in K-12 education.
I think our government policy should be that every child shall receive a quaility K-12 education available free of charge. I really do not care if every child receives this quality education from a private, parochial, charter, magnet or public school, as long as the education is good. Why is it bad if 100% of the people receive a good education via private schools? As a conservative what I advocate is that parents should HAVE THE CHOICE on the education their child receives. Poor, rich, any color, should not matter. Every parent should be able to choose the school that their child gets educated from.
What I see from the Left is no desire to let others compete with public schools. There should be no restriction that prevents parents from sending their child to the school of their choice. Let the public schools compete for students and let them fail if their product is bad. The market place will reward quality schools and let poor one's fail.
Posted by: dmeyers` on March 7, 2005 06:04 PMI was always surprised how ignorant most high union officials were about taxes. My unions would be incensed about wage freezes or pay cuts but would endorse politicians who took much more away from ourmembers in tax hikes.
Posted by: Mike on March 7, 2005 06:13 PMCompetition brings out the best and the worst in people - it produces both Lance Armstrongs and Tanya Hardings.
As to education, competition can be a fine thing - especially when considering students of above average capabilities.
For getting the basic work of making kids literate and functional in the job market, I'm not sure that competition is an effective means.
If kids don't have the support at home, there's little the school can do. I'm not sure that a competition can be rigged to help teach kids of marginal ability. You can insist on objective test standards, but then you have issues of teaching to the test and depriving more talented kids of the education they deserve...and ultimately if the raw material isn't there, there may be nothing to do other than work with the kids as long as possible then cut them loose. Competition can lead to cutting them loose too soon.
If all schools were private, that would be fine - except that the schools would probably stratify between rich and poor.
Competition is well and good, but life isn't a game.
Posted by: Christine G on March 7, 2005 07:33 PMThanks!