Why should people without kids pay taxes for public education?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

Why should people without cars pay taxes that go to fixing roads? Why should people without business pay taxes that go to grants to help fledgling entrepreneurs? Why should I pay for public defenders if I don't get into trouble? Why should people that only use Federal Express for all their mailing needs pay tax money to go towards the Postal Service? Why should people who are afraid to fly pay taxes that go to subsidies for the airlines? Why should I pay taxes for police officers if I can protect myself?

Or, better question, why should I pay an enormous tax just to pay the salary of someone keep track of who uses or doesn't use any of the aforementioned services? Or better yet, why pay the person who will have to review the applications of people who want to use a service they hadn't previously used?

[mcscajun]

1. I see you read the article on the Homepage, too.

I had pretty much the same gut reaction. The libertarian right wouldn't like it much if we didn't pay our taxes that support illegal immoral wars that we don't want to wage.

"Taxes are the prices we pay for a civilized society." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes

I wouldn't want to live in the society the libertarian right would construct for us.

[paineinthearse]

5. touche.......nt

[paineinthearse]

12. Link to Partridge piece (on home page)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/crisis/05/005_ep.html

[BlackVelvetElvis]

13. I get it.

Thanks for the link.

[omega minimo]

17. Good point

"...if we didn't pay our taxes that support illegal immoral wars that we don't want to wage."

What if we refuse to "support illegal immoral wars that we don't want to wage" with our purchase power--

What if Americans (or Dems or DUers en masse) Choose the Blue and reject outsourced products and give up cheap flashy crap we don't need (as much as possible) and send a message to the gazillionaires riggin the economy, plowing under the middle class and disappearing the social safety net?

Boston Tea Party?
Made In China boycott?
Promote economic and environmental sustainability?

[Clark2008]

27. But you're forgeting that some of us live in areas where there *is*

no blue choice.

I don't have a Costco.
I don't have a non-red grocery store.
I'm laid off and can't find work - where the hell am I going to go, other than the closest place possible as to not waste gas that I can't afford, to get groceries?
Oh, and there's no bus route to speak of, either (there is, but it's so sporadic, I'd never get anything done).

[omega minimo]

37. It doesn't have to be either/or

There's a range of choices between extremes (and based on availability, as you point out). I would like to see more people think in terms of small steps that ARE doable in their lives, rather than an All-or-Nothing approach based on abstract theories.

Make choices that empower you.

Good luck!

[Lindacooks]

42. "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society."

My dad used to tell me a variation of that:

"Taxes are the price we pay for living in a free society."

[BlueEyedSon]

2. Are you serious?

Roads are easy. Your food got to wherever you buy it on a freaking truck, etc.

Don't tell me you don't eat either....

[Name removed]

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[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

47. Thanks Fire.

Amazing people don't understand rhetoric.

[BlueEyedSon]

50. We have a sarcsm smiley, please use it.

:sarcasm:

BTW, I don't like funding the DOD. How do I "opt out"?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

51. It wasn't sarcasm though.

It was a series of rhetorical questions. The point is that if everyone opts out of things, no one has any of the things we need because there's no money for it. Just because some of us don't use some things, that doesn't mean you're not benefitting from it, nor does it mean that someone else isn't paying for services that you use but they don't. It all evens out in the end.

It wasn't sarcasm - it was rhetoric. There's a big difference.

[BlueEyedSon]

53. Hey mods, we need :strawman:

:evilgrin:

[physioex]

3. Sorry this does not sound Liberal...

We are for a vibrant public education system. It is cheaper to educate someone and have them get jobs for a ever changing information society than have them on welfare or go through the prison system. This arguement is simply not valid......

[Name removed]

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[physioex]

38. I have...

The last paragraph is jibber jabber. Why not come out and say what he means rather than twist things?

[Fire]

43. Humor Value n/t

n/t

[BlackVelvetElvis]

4. Were you educated in the public school system?

If so, please refund the $, your state can probably use it.

[Name removed]

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[roguevalley]

6. because someone without kids paid for YOUR education. I

don't have kids and I pay and don't mind. Its a civic duty to the future.

[satya]

11. You mean those adorable babies in those pix aren't your kids?

Don't tell them!;-)

[alfredo]

7. Gives us some peace and quiet nine months out of

the year. I find it money well spent.

I'd rather pay for schools than for prisons.

[ebayfool]

44. ROTFLMAO - I have kids & grandkids, I'm w/you!

Priceless!

[randr]

8. Do you really want to live in a neighborhood with a bunch of

uneducated children roaming around?
Did you attend a public school and did you benefit from it?

[Name removed]

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[Ready4Change]

9. I want to live in an educated nation?

Sure there are Gov programs I don't like. But there are programs I do like which I know others don't. I've got no numbers but I like to THINK it evens out.

[Mountainman]

10. From someone with out kids. It is my duty to support public education

It is not about having kids or not. It is about the right of everyone to have an education. In order to have that right we have to support the schools. It just so happens that I didn't have kids in the schools but if I did then they would have had the opportunity because all of us have the right and duty to support public education.

When I built my house here in the country I had to pay $3,500 in school fees because of the impact my family would have on the school. Well my wife and I had no impact on the school but I was OK with paying the fee to support the local school that teaches the local kids, my neighbor's kids.

[eallen]

14. Out of that list, I support subsidy only for public education and police.

The roads should be paid for entirely from fees attached to vehicles and driving. Alas, the sprawl subsidy enjoys broad bipartisan support. Same for airlines. (I don't know that there actually is much subsidy there.)

I think it is important to distinguish services whose end customers are easily identified, and able to make the economic decision to pay for the service or choose alternatives, from public goods. Children are not yet adult participants in society, neither as citizens nor as economic agents. We mandate and subsidize their education, for the simple reason that an educated populace is a prerequisite to democratic society. Similarly, we remove the administration of justice from private hands because the ensuing vigilantism undermines civic society. We provide police not chiefly to solve crimes after they happen -- the ability to do that is only so-so -- but because we want crime pursued in a transparent and regulated fashion.

I think it is a large mistake to think that any service with broad benefit potentially deserves public subsidy. There are good arguments for subsidizing education and police, quite distinct from other kinds of services. Let drivers pay their own way.

[Clark2008]

28. I would add most EMS to your prospect and I think we have Eutopia

I think we need firefighters and ambulance, too.

But, yeah... you go eallen!

(As someone who FINALLY has a child in the public school system. ;) )

[eallen]

45. Fire fighters, yes. Ambulance, maybe.

The reason for subsidizing fire fighting is that your house on fire is a threat to his house and my house. It's not so clear that ambulance service really is a public good, and that it needs to be subsidized. In the normal case, I would expect the person benefitting to pay the bill. Of course, we don't want emergency responders to check people's credit ratings before responding. But that doesn't mean it should be free.

Several comments. (1) My list wasn't meant to be inclusive. I was subsetting what the original post listed. (2) Yes, I realize every item is arguable. There are many shades of grey in the world. (3) All that said, I think it is important to distinguish between public goods, in the economic sense, and things that are just good for the public to have. Airplanes and automobile travel fall in the latter category, and there's no reason at all to subsidize them. Schools and police in the former. These are qualitatively different. That was my main point.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

48. How do police get anywhere without roads?

[eallen]

58. Or without cars? The lack of subsidy won't cause roads to disappear!

We don't subsidize Ford or Honda, yet millions of cars are made every year. Insisting that drivers pay the full cost of the roads won't make them disappear, but it will reduce sprawl and relieve city budgets. Police departments either would either pay their share to the regional road utility, just as they pay the electric utility, or some special cut out would be made for them. It makes little difference in either case, since the general taxpayer then picks up the police's share of the roads, just as the taxpayer picks up the cost of police uniforms and the electricity burned at police headquarters.

[Massacure]

15. This is easy to answer.

If everyone doesn't contribute, you may as well just pay for everything that happens yourself. If you pay for everything yourself, then what is the role of government? It doesn't have one.

[Name removed]

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[Jim Sagle]

16. It's called community. Check into it.

[mcscajun]

18. I think Vash forgot the "sarcasm" smiley.

and didn't expect the bashing.

I'd hoped to head it off with my post...ah, well.

[BrklynLiberal]

19. Because good schools will raise their property values, educate the

children in their neighborhoods so they will be able to get better jobs so they will not have to go on welfare or rob banks. Therefore these childless people will not have to pay higher taxes to support the higher welfare bills, cost of police or crime prevention..or face the risk of being the victim of a crime themselves.
Also,if the population around them gets better jobs, and higher pay, those people will contribute to the tax base and therefore the childless people will not have to have their taxes raised.
The bottom line is that if you live in a society, you are part of a contract. You can't pay only for those particular services that you use. If you never have a fire in your house does that mean that you are not obligated to support your local fire department?
Having a well educated population is a benefit to everyone in a society. Is would seem that it should be something that everyone would want to support willingly.

[omega minimo]

20. Well Duh!

I'm like all, ya know

[PeaceProgProsp]

21. Because somebody has to pay for your social security check.

We can't live life like we're going to be the last people on earth. We have an obligation to help society keep moving forward even if we won't be around to enjoy the future. The people who came before you made that sacrifice and you'd be a total fucking ass not to do the same for the next generation even if you don't have kids.

The same logic applies to the rest. Why pay for the roads if you don't use them? Because mobility keeps America from being a third world country and unless you live in a cabin in the woods and do nothing and consume nothing and don't read, or buy food or send mail, then you benefit from the roads and the fact that other people can use them.

[TreasonousBastard]

22. If I don't have a car...

those whom I depend upon have cars, and I would suffer without the roads.

The same with educated children. Although I have no kids of my own, I will need educated and trained doctors, lawyers, engineers, police, firefighters, clerks...

The children I help to educate will be the adults who make this society work. I will not be able to live without them, and so I not only don't begrudge paying for them, i feel I am required to help pay for them.

(I just wish it were perhaps a little less that I pay)

[Name removed]

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[TreasonousBastard]

39. I did...

but some of us might think an actual answer to a snarky bit of light satire is occasionally called for.

Satire is, after all, intended to promote discussion, not merely to be admired by all and feed the ego of the satirist.

[otohara]

57. Snarky Indeed

Reminds me of a certain Smirk in the White House

[welshTerrier2]

23. schools should NOT be funded with property taxes

my property taxes are around $7,000 a year and I'm out of work ... most of the money goes to the school system ... i have no kids ...

i support public education and i think it's a value we all realize ... HOWEVER, property taxes are the wrong funding mechanism ... it should be based on ability to pay ...

consider this ... my neighbor lives in a smaller house than i do and has 3 kids in the public school system ... he and his wife do very well on their jobs ... but because his house is smaller than mine, his taxes are just over half of what i pay ... something just doesn't seem right with this system ...

schools should be funded from the income tax, not the property tax ...

[U4ikLefty]

40. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You for saying that.

I've been saying the same thing for freakin years. It befuddles me as to why a politician hasn't taken this cause up yet. It is such unfair taxation.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

49. Okay, so where do local governments get money for schools?

What other taxing mechanism do they have?

[welshTerrier2]

56. that's an excellent question ...

one could extend your question to ask where the States get many of their revenues from ... the answer is the Federal government ...

the issue you highlight is an important one and defining the correct methods (i.e. fair methods that meet local needs) is critically important ...

of course, the obvious problem with the current mechanism is that children in wealthy communities with a high property tax base get much better schools, and school budgets, than kids in poorer communities ... the issue you raised is a very serious problem with the current system ...

i'm no expert on redistribution mechanisms but the goal of financing public education through state, and perhaps federal, income taxes would be to create a more level playing field for local school systems and a fairer tax system based on ability to pay rather than the value of property ... many towns have trouble passing necessary tax increases because those with expensive homes and no kids (especially those on fixed incomes like retirees) often vote down needed funding ... the current system pits neighbor against neighbor ...

changing the taxing mechanism would also have other indirect effects that would need to be studied in greater detail ... for example, if I no longer received a tax deduction for my property taxes and had to pay a higher income tax instead, there might be a greater incentive for me to build or buy a more expensive house because a more expensive house would no longer result in higher property taxes ... perhaps this would stimulate the house building industry and all related industries thus creating more jobs ...

anyway, the bottom line is that property taxes are regressive in that they do not reflect the taxpayer's ability to pay ... living on a fixed income in a house that has greatly appreciated in value does not mean you can afford the high tax assessments many experience ... property taxes are an inherently flawed system ... the graduated rates built into the income tax system would be a much fairer method of taxation and a well-thought-out mechanism to redistribute these funds would provide a much fairer level of funding to all school systems ...

property taxes should be eliminated as a source of funding for public schools ...

[FrenchieCat]

24. The same reason that

Parents who send their kids to private school still pay taxes for the public school system.

I pay twice, and don't mind at all. I want all children to get as good as an education as possible. Otherwise, we will all be living in those "gated" communities, where you suddently come to the realization that maybe the prisoner behind the gate is yourself.

[Bridget Burke]

25. So the public's vocabulary can be improved....

Apparently too few know the meaning of "sarcasm" & "satire."

I got it.

[realisticphish]

26. as did I nt

[Skittles]

29. because we all have an interest in an educated society

THAT'S WHY. Yup, your point is WELL taken.

[Fire]

30. While I can tolerate LOLbertarians just fine

its stuff like this that reminds me why I am a liberal on economic issues.

God you guys have broken sarcasm detectors. Most of you didn't bother to R->C->P

[leftofthedial]

41. to keep my kids from stealing your shit when you're gone

Amazing how neocons and "libertarians" (I call them "propertarians") apparently don't want to live in a society at all.

[leesa]

46. Ostensibly, it's for future generations, but when I look at the ignorance

and laziness of the kids around me, it makes me want to request a refund!

[ElsewheresDaughter]

52. you're joking right?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

54. Is rhetoric lost on you?

[formernaderite]

55. Paying for education is cheaper than....

paying for incarceration. It's the "common good" answer.

[jayctravis]

59. Because if kids aren't in school...

they're going to be roaming the neighborhood looking for stuff to break.

[LittleClarkie]

60. My step-grandfather was like that

I always figured that if he wanted somebody who was dumb as a box of rocks looking after him in his later years, that was his problem. People forget that investing in education means investing in our future.