Gas Bandit's Political Thread III

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GasBandit

Staff member
You night shifters are killing me with your voucher debates when I'm not here >_< I'd have loved to jump in that pool... but the opportunity has come and gone. Ah well, c'est la vie. I'm sure it'll come up again.

Ok, on to today's notes:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell did the math .. "In just 50 days, Congress has voted to spend about $1.2 trillion between the Stimulus and the Omnibus ... To put that in perspective, that's about $24 billion a day, or about $1 billion an hour."

Wal-Mart has decided to enter into the world of digitized healthcare data by unveiling its own version of high-tech medical records. Only get this ... Wal-Mart can do it cheaper and faster than the government can! A Wal-Mart spokesperson says the company is partnering with Dell and software maker eClinicalWorks to launch a bundled electronic health records package for doctors. The package will include installation and maintenance and it will be offered through the company's Sam's Club discount-warehouse division, which caters to small businesses. And guess what .. it will be launched by this spring. Just how fast do you think the government could get this done? Lesson? In virtually every field, every endeavor ... the private sector can get it done faster and more efficiently than government.

One last bit about this "wanting the president to fail" bit... turns out James Carville, who is currently wielding the lash to whip the media into a frenzy about Limbaugh "wanting Obama to fail," wanted Bush to fail in 2001, squelching it when the Trade Center was destroyed.

Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri is looking for a change to the Rhode Island tax code. He put together a panel of 20 experts who took six months to study the tax code and make recommendations on how to better serve Rhode Island. And guess what solution they came up with ......... tax cuts! And not just any tax cuts. Tax cuts for the filthy rich and evil corporations. Carcieri officially proposed a series of tax cuts in his latest budget, including the elimination of corporate income taxes by 2014 and the reduction of the top personal income tax rate from 9.9% to 5.5%. The idea here is simple: in a down economy, make Rhode Island more competitive in order to attract and retain businesses that create jobs. And with those businesses come wealthy residents who turn around and invest in the state.

What do economists think of Barack Obama and Timothy Geithner so far? A majority are dissatisfied.

The U.N. Secretary-General says that the United States is a "deadbeat" donor. That's fine. Then stop taking our money. See how you get along then.

The British government says that it is "unbelievably hard" to deal with the Barack Obama administration. But at least you get free DVDs.

Only 27% of Americans say that they support a second stimulus package.

More than one out of every five dollars of the $126 million Massachusetts is receiving in earmarks from a $410 billion omnibus bill is going to help preserve the legacy of the Kennedys.

Apparently New York Governor David Patterson has scrapped numerous tax hikes on consumer goods from the proposed state budget.

50% of Americans are just two paychecks away from having big financial problems.
 
Too...many strawman arguments.

As a product of partial private schooling, I"ll give some answers.

Krisken said:
1. Since most of the schools in the program are religious, government funding violates the 1st Amendment separation of church and state. The fact is that over 95 percent of all school vouchers go to religious schools. The Establishment clause of the 1st Amendment was put in specifically by the framers to avoid the abuses that inevitably come about in state-sponsored religious education. Centuries of religious wars in Europe plus the Middle Eastern wahabism serve as painful examples of religious dogma in schools. Religious ideas are invariably based on opinion & centuries-old teaching rather than scientific proof. Thus, they don't belong in the classroom, but in the home. Once government starts funding religious schools, it might start funding other religious institutions. Eventually, we have a religion-dominated society which can lead to discrimination (against gays, women, etc.) and take away individual freedoms (such as pornography, alcohol, etc.).
This, imo is the grand argument against the vouchers. It sounds too much like churches warning against declining moral standards and how they must make a stand. In fact, just change a few words and it sounds like a normal Sunday sermon in the average church.

Note, "opinion & centuries-old teaching rather than scientific proof". Science & social studies are just two subjects. There's still math, language, history, geography, accounting, economics. How in the world does religion fit into learning about the American civil war?

And about the argument about creating a religion dominated society just from sponsoring students who may enrol in religious schools?



The democratic system means that the majority gets to vote. And the sum of students in private schools, let alone religious ones is definitely less than the sum of students in public schools.

Yes, the student's beliefs is affected by his environment and peers. But the beliefs are the student's alone. A kid brought up in a religious school with religious parents may end up agnostic in his later years. Similarly, a kid brought up in a secular school with atheist parents may end up religious.

Frankly speaking, students just do better in private schools. Religious parents may enrol their kids in a religious school. But student performance matters at the end of the day. They'd withdraw their kids if the school is a lousy one, regardless of religious affiliation.

Krisken said:
2. Vouchers take funds away from already underfunded public schools. One of the biggest reasons public schools are failing is that they can't keep up with the ever increasing cost of books, teachers, computers, security, etc. If we start subsidizing private schools, much-needed funds will be diverted from the public schools. This will only make bad schools worse.
Public schools are overloaded. Its not the question of funding. According to the concept of diminishing returns, producing one more unit of output costs more and more in variable inputs. Books, teachers and computers are variable inputs. More students= more books, teachers, computers. So, the costs would be reduced as well.

If anything, reduced students mean that they can get better attention from teachers, and there is less waiting time for sharing computers in the computer rooms.

Krisken said:
3. Private schools aren't subject to as rigorous of oversight; thus, they may not act responsibly. Public schools are subject to government oversight and more rules & regulation. Thus, tighter control is placed on the teaching methods and system of education. With little or no oversight, we don't know how well private schools will perform.
Implement standardised tests like the SAT in private schools as a regulatory requirement. Regardless of teaching methods, standardised test scores don't lie. Especially when a computer or a teacher in another school marks them.

Krisken said:
4. Public schools must accept everyone regardless of disabilities, test scores, religion, or other characteristics; private schools can show favoritism or discrimination in selecting students. Private schools can establish any criteria they want for selecting or rejecting students. Thus, they can discriminate or make eligibility standards much more difficult for poorer students. Public schools on the other hand must accommodate all types of students regardless of what challenges they present. Government funds should be kept with the public schools that take on these challenges rather than private schools that may discriminate.
Private schools showing favouritism? This argument only works under the assumption that the schools are already packed and they can't accept any more students without compromising their education quality. The American universities in the THES top 10 are all private schools. They can choose their students because there is a higher supply of applicants than seats available. Harvard chooses its students. Yale chooses its students. MIT chooses its students.

If the private school has more empty seats than applicants, there is no good reason to turn the applicant down, unless the kid is known to be a real troublemaker.


Conclusion

Private schools can't suck in the entire student population in a neighbourhood, let alone a state or nation. Public schools are already overloaded and the private schools are easing the burden if anything. And people are complaining about private schools stealing students?
 
Lol, I love how you guys are attributing that to me, even though I gave a link that is attempting to show multiple sides to an arguement. I never chose a side here.

Something FutureKing said that points out the only opinion I really have on the subject was:

Frankly speaking, students just do better in private schools. Religious parents may enrol their kids in a religious school. But student performance matters at the end of the day. They'd withdraw their kids if the school is a lousy one, regardless of religious affiliation.
Parent involvement. Kids put in private schools have greater parent involvement than public schools. Period. Correlation does not equal causation, people. Those same kids, put in public school, would perform the same simply because parent involvement would be the same.

Oh, and FutureKing- You know I can't argue with your analysis because it is based purely on opinion. There is no evidence to back up your argument listed within your points. Calling those "a bunch of strawman arguments" doesn't make it so.
 
I properly attributed my quote. I just hate the lack of understanding of the first amendment and separation of church and state that the very first item in the counter-point argument takes.
 
Krisken said:
Lol, I love how you guys are attributing that to me, even though I gave a link that is attempting to show multiple sides to an arguement. I never chose a side here.

Something FutureKing said that points out the only opinion I really have on the subject was:

Frankly speaking, students just do better in private schools. Religious parents may enrol their kids in a religious school. But student performance matters at the end of the day. They'd withdraw their kids if the school is a lousy one, regardless of religious affiliation.
Parent involvement. Kids put in private schools have greater parent involvement than public schools. Period. Correlation does not equal causation, people. Those same kids, put in public school, would perform the same simply because parent involvement would be the same.
Yes, parents being interested in your education helps. But its not the only factor. There's smaller classes. Less stuff like teacher attention and computer time to fight over.

But you can't deny that private school students do better.

Frankly, my only opinions on the private school voucher issue are

"Public schools too crowded. Must offload some to private schools"

"Students in private schools just do better in general."

"Parents want their kids to succeed in school."
Even teh Obama, the bossman of the Democrats sends his kids to Sidwell Friends, which is a private school. Any parent would want the kid to do well in school, and will do their best to create the best possible environment to achieve that goal.
 
Futureking said:
Even teh Obama, the bossman of the Democrats sends his kids to Sidwell Friends, which is a private school. Any parent would want the kid to do well in school, and will do their best to create the best possible environment to achieve that goal.
Again, I would argue other factors should be looked at as to why as well. Safety comes to mind. I just think we are oversimplifying a very complex issue and I hate when one sides argument is marginalized.

Its one of the reasons I feel no real interest in posting in this thread anymore.
 
Krisken said:
Futureking said:
Even teh Obama, the bossman of the Democrats sends his kids to Sidwell Friends, which is a private school. Any parent would want the kid to do well in school, and will do their best to create the best possible environment to achieve that goal.
Again, I would argue other factors should be looked at as to why as well. Safety comes to mind. I just think we are oversimplifying a very complex issue and I hate when one sides argument is marginalized.

Its one of the reasons I feel no real interest in posting in this thread anymore.
Explaining said factors. Let's see

1) Safety
2) Smaller class sizes
3) More parental involvement
4) Better overall student performance

What am I missing?

I'm not all for private schools replacing public schools. Too much privatised schooling and you get chaos with different schools having different educational policies. Too much public schooling and you get a bloated system. Private schools are meant for complementing public schools, not for replacing them.

Its bloated, as of current. And it would be better if public schools are working efficiently. If anything is working well above its capacity, the output will be of lower quality.

Let's do math. Let's assume that there are 4000 students and a school can only take in 3000 of them. What happens to the other 1000 students? We allocate them to a private school which has space to accomodate them.

However, what if the 1000 students can't afford private schooling? The public school has to take them in and go beyond its capacity. It would be overworked.

Its the allocation of resources and students in schools that's the main problem, imo.
 
Futureking said:
This is why we need the school voucher program. It helps the private schools to take up more students and ease the burden on public schools. Otherwise, the students would be enrolled at public schools. Its not the entire solution. But it's a start.

I mean. The government spends $20k per student in public schools. Why not just give the student $7500 and let parents pay the rest for private schooling?

Its a savings of $12500 per student.
Shit a $7500 voucher is more than tuition at one of the big private Catholic high schools here. Its a little over $4k for parish members and almost $6k for non-parish members, because with the tithe given by parish members the parishes fund about $800,000 per year for the school.
 
C

Cuyval Dar

Being a regular church attendee, the one thing that pisses me off is private schools started by churches. I want to know precisely where the chunk of change that I give them every week is going. When they refused to give any information about how the school is financially connected to the church, I got the fuck out of there.
 
Cuyval Dar said:
Being a regular church attendee, the one thing that pisses me off is private schools started by churches. I want to know precisely where the chunk of change that I give them every week is going. When they refused to give any information about how the school is financially connected to the church, I got the fuck out of there.
Why do private schools started by churches piss you off? Shit some of the best Universities in the country are private religious colleges. I can understand how not disclosing their budget could piss you off when you are paying it but how does a church running a school do anything bad? Honestly if I can afford it I am going to send my kids to a private Catholic school because those private schools offer a way better education, at least in my area. They learn well and they are instilled with good values and morals. They learn the same biology that you learn in a public school, Darwin and all. About the only difference is that yeah they will probably have abstinence only sex ed but from my experience most of the kids that go to those private schools don't need any sex ed if you know what I mean ;)
 
A

Anubinomicon

they might learn MOST of the scientific things but not all the basic things one would learn in a public school. they also don't learn ANYTHING about history that you should know about. My wife went to catholic school so maybe it's catholic schools specifically, but i know for a fact what she did and didn't learn. i think it all comes down to the school they go to really.
 
I

Iaculus

HoboNinja said:
Cuyval Dar said:
Being a regular church attendee, the one thing that * me off is private schools started by churches. I want to know precisely where the chunk of change that I give them every week is going. When they refused to give any information about how the school is financially connected to the church, I got the smurf out of there.
Why do private schools started by churches * you off? * some of the best Universities in the country are private religious colleges. I can understand how not disclosing their budget could * you off when you are paying it but how does a church running a school do anything bad? Honestly if I can afford it I am going to send my kids to a private Catholic school because those private schools offer a way better education, at least in my area. They learn well and they are instilled with good values and morals. They learn the same biology that you learn in a public school, Darwin and all. About the only difference is that yeah they will probably have abstinence only sex ed but from my experience most of the kids that go to those private schools don't need any sex ed if you know what I mean ;)
I think it's the shady concealed cash-transfers that got him twitchy, Hobo. Those aren't usually a sign that you're dealing with the good kind of church-sponsored school.
 
Anubinomicon said:
they might learn MOST of the scientific things but not all the basic things one would learn in a public school. they also don't learn ANYTHING about history that you should know about. My wife went to catholic school so maybe it's catholic schools specifically, but i know for a fact what she did and didn't learn. i think it all comes down to the school they go to really.
It must depend on the school because Assumption High School here in town is seriously one of the best schools academically and sports wise in the area. My friend Allie had the same Western Civ class in college as me and did fine so I am guessing she had an ok understanding of history but I am not gonna lie I haven't really asked her about the history class at her school but I do know for a fact that their science program is pretty much exactly the same as our public high schools.
 
Cuyval Dar said:
Being a regular church attendee, the one thing that * me off is private schools started by churches. I want to know precisely where the chunk of change that I give them every week is going. When they refused to give any information about how the school is financially connected to the church, I got the smurf out of there.
Disclosure of transactions requires you to jump through plenty of hoops. At the end of the day, the giant mind crushing tome called the GAAP(or some other accounting standard) is so complicated you're going to have to hire a CPA or two to do all that stuff for you. Its a school. Meaning lots and lots of transactions.

And then they'll need to audit it with an external auditor, just to prove that they're not lying. It's not required, but you'll need some professional guy to say that the accounts weren't just made up. Otherwise, rumours will abound. The audit process is expensive, by the way. 10-20k a pop.

It's pretty much optional. The secular society has very little trust in churches. So, they could
a) spend lots of money to appease them
b) say nothing and let rumours fly. They don't attend churches anyway. And general snarkiness does not reduce just because your financial reports are audited by any of the Big 4 accounting firms.

Now, imagine them having to do this, year after year. Since they've started disclosing their information, it's going to leave a bad impression when they stop doing it just because "it's too expensive"

Its just not worth doing it for some random guy who wants you to disclose your financial information.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Barack Obama says that the wants to discuss the idea of lowering corporate tax rates "over time" in exchange for "closing a lot of the loopholes that make the tax system so complex." How much "time" are we talking about here, and what constitutes a loophole? Suspicious libertarian is suspicious. If he really wants to simplify the tax code, there's always the Fair Tax...

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has been saying for a while that he would turn down any stimulus money that comes his way via this economic stimulus bill. And as of yesterday, he made it official ... turning down about a quarter of his state's $2.8 billion share. He says, "Fundamentally, if you boil down what the stimulus means for South Carolina, it means we would go through the process of spending a bunch of money we don't have." Then, Sanford likened the approach of the Obama administration to that of Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe. He says, "What you're doing is buying into the notion that if we just print some more money that we don't have and send it to different states, we'll create jobs ... If that's the case, why isn't Zimbabwe a rich place? ... 'Cause they're printing money they don't have and sending it around to their different-- I don't know the towns in Zimbabwe but that same logic is being applied there with little effect." Now enter James Clyburn, South Carolina Senator and carrier of a huge racial chip on his shoulder. Clyburn thinks that Sanford's comparison of Obama's stimulus package to Zimbabwe's economic policies is "beyond the pale." And according to The Politico, Clyburn suggested that the comment might carry a racial subtext. Clyburn says, "For him to compare the president of this country to Mugabe. ... It's just beyond the pale." For Congressional race whore Clyburn, everything is "beyond the pale." This guy has never seen an issue that didn't have some racial component.

Holy textwall. Let's get some one liners.

The CEO of Blackstone says that 45% of the world's wealth has been destroyed by this financial crisis.

How President Obama's policies are going to turn silicon valley into a ghost town.

Some politicians, including Republicans, are actually starting to feel sorry for Timothy Geithner. Awwwwwww.

Obama's third pick for Deputy Treasury Secretary has officially withdrawn his name from the candidate pool. That's his third pick in just one week, by the way.

Freddie Mac is going to tap into another $30.8 billion in taxpayer dollars.

Some governors, like Rick Perry of Texas, rejected some of the federal stimulus money for unemployment because it would require a change in the state's definition of unemployment.

Obama is going to be the first president since Grover Cleveland to miss the annual Gridiron Dinner. Not much of a jock sniffer, I guess.

Utah's solution to budget woes .. put a tax on caffeine. The mormons are in charge there, after all, so I guess it is to be expected.

With all that is happening in the world today, the House of Representatives took a moment yesterday to recognize pi. Pi is pleased.

I'm perplexed as to why nobody ran with the story about the Maine white supremacist trust-fund millionaire who was going to build a dirty bomb because Obama was elected. He was murdered by his wife.

Atlas Shrugged updated. :bush:
 
A

Anubinomicon

HoboNinja said:
Anubinomicon said:
they might learn MOST of the scientific things but not all the basic things one would learn in a public school. they also don't learn ANYTHING about history that you should know about. My wife went to catholic school so maybe it's catholic schools specifically, but i know for a fact what she did and didn't learn. i think it all comes down to the school they go to really.
It must depend on the school because Assumption High School here in town is seriously one of the best schools academically and sports wise in the area. My friend Allie had the same Western Civ class in college as me and did fine so I am guessing she had an ok understanding of history but I am not gonna lie I haven't really asked her about the history class at her school but I do know for a fact that their science program is pretty much exactly the same as our public high schools.
There's a difference though between being given course materials in college and excelling with them and knowing general things people were taught as children. She told me how alot of the things she learned about in western civ were new to her and that the basic history behind those events were not know to her previous the class.
 
Anubinomicon said:
they might learn MOST of the scientific things but not all the basic things one would learn in a public school. they also don't learn ANYTHING about history that you should know about. My wife went to catholic school so maybe it's catholic schools specifically, but i know for a fact what she did and didn't learn. i think it all comes down to the school they go to really.
I went to 3 different private schools growing up, all religious (not catholic) and one public school. My grades and knowledge of ALL subjects, particularly math and history destroyed everyone in my classes at the public school. I was on Algebra 2 and they weren't even starting Algebra in 7th grade. History wise we used almost the same textbooks but due to our smaller class sizes we got though things faster and we got to dig deeper.
Maybe your wife just went to a shitty school. Like the public school was like in my town. However, I'm not going to say that all public schools are full of kids learning 3 grades below the normal level just because I saw it. I choose to believe since it was one instance at one school that maybe it was just a statistical anomaly.
It did reinforce my view for wanting to sent my kids to private school though. Much better education.
 
A

Anubinomicon

Espy said:
Anubinomicon said:
they might learn MOST of the scientific things but not all the basic things one would learn in a public school. they also don't learn ANYTHING about history that you should know about. My wife went to catholic school so maybe it's catholic schools specifically, but i know for a fact what she did and didn't learn. i think it all comes down to the school they go to really.
I went to 3 different private schools growing up, all religious (not catholic) and one public school. My grades and knowledge of ALL subjects, particularly math and history destroyed everyone in my classes at the public school. I was on Algebra 2 and they weren't even starting Algebra in 7th grade. History wise we used almost the same textbooks but due to our smaller class sizes we got though things faster and we got to dig deeper.
Maybe your wife just went to a shitty school. Like the public school was like in my town. However, I'm not going to say that all public schools are full of kids learning 3 grades below the normal level just because I saw it. I choose to believe since it was one instance at one school that maybe it was just a statistical anomaly.
It did reinforce my view for wanting to sent my kids to private school though. Much better education.
Oh i completely agree with what your saying. My other friend went to a catholic school as well and we've had long discussions about the things he wasn't taught that we were taught in public school. i'm guessing it's a catholic school thing for the most part. either way a shitty school is a shitty school.
 
I

Iaculus

GasBandit said:
I'm perplexed as to why nobody ran with the story about the Maine white supremacist trust-fund millionaire who was going to build a dirty bomb because Obama was elected. He was murdered by his wife.
Jesus fuck. There any corroboration on this? That story's got everything.

Oh, and comparing Obama's policies to Zimbabwe was a really dumb strawman, regardless of motive. Come back when he's evicting competent farmers because of their race and replacinmg them with incompetent cronies, or when he's bulldozing masive sections of cities for his own vanity projects. Claiming that something like the stimulus is the primary reason Zimbabwe is the way it is displays shocking ignorance. Believe me, I know printing money is a long-term destabiliser, but it takes a lot more than that to turn yourself from one of the most generally prosperous countries on the continent (discounting the oil belt) to something that barely qualifies as a country any more.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I went to private school through second grade. It was a Montessori school, but when we moved and I couldn't go there any more, I got put in public school. The difference was night and day. I had learned how to learn on my own just from those first two years, and the teachers were flabbergasted with how quickly I progressed. Fortunately, they had a very enthusiastic "gifted and talented" program which allowed for advanced placement and by the time I was in 5th grade I was finishing up 7th grade math.

Then we moved to El Paso, and EPISD had no system in place to handle a 6th grader on the 8th grade level. They put me back in my own grade. I quickly became bored and coasted my way through school after that without ever cracking a book or doing any homework but still getting As on all the tests. It drove my teachers nuts and they constantly badgered my parents about it, which in turn they busted my balls about. But school was boring, and they didn't have the money any more to send me to private school. So from 6th grade through 12th grade I never cracked a book again, frequently knew more than the teachers about the subjects being taught, and developed a reputation for being all at once, smart, lazy, and having a terrible attitude.

And then I went to college. Suddenly I didn't know everything any more... and I'd had 6 years of idleness in which to forget how to study. My freshman and sophomore years were absolute torture. I had to take Calculus 3 times.

Thank god by the time my little brother hit jr. high, they could afford to send him to private school.

Now the mask has slipped and you see my personal reasons for being a voucher advocate. Even without vouchers, if I end up spawning a Banditling, I will see him or her in private school even if I have to sell off internal organs while working 3 jobs to make it so. American Public School is socialism of the intellect... instead of the smarter kids getting ahead, it pretty much just aims to get everybody to come out equally moronic.
 
I

Iaculus

Bear in mind that sane proponents of public schools do not see them as a replacement for privte ones, but rather the educational equivalent of a minimum wage, [providing a basic standard of education that private schools can diverge from according to the market. It'ss the same with all other publc services - you get enough to go by for free, but if you want better than subsistence, you pay. It just sets a floor to the market, is all. This is why I'm not a big fan of complaints that left-leaning politicians sometimes fail to make use of public in favour of private - would you ask them to operate on the minimum wage as well? Though it can be taken too far, the justificationj for politicians having a higher-than-average standard of living is quite logical - it makes them more difficult to bribe, seeing as they also have a higher-than-average level of power and responsibility.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Iaculus said:
Bear in mind that sane proponents of public schools do not see them as a replacement for privte ones, but rather the educational equivalent of a minimum wage, [providing a basic standard of education that private schools can diverge from according to the market. It'ss the same with all other publc services - you get enough to go by for free, but if you want better than subsistence, you pay. It just sets a floor to the market, is all. This is why I'm not a big fan of complaints that left-leaning politicians sometimes fail to make use of public in favour of private - would you ask them to operate on the minimum wage as well? Though it can be taken too far, the justificationj for politicians having a higher-than-average standard of living is quite logical - it makes them more difficult to bribe, seeing as they also have a higher-than-average level of power and responsibility.
Actually, I think if we forced all elected federal positions to be paid no more than minimum wage, we'd solve a lot of our problems here.

I also disagree that the current state of public schooling is acceptable even as a minimum. They've gotten this abysmal by lack of competition, a flood of bureaucracy and a dearth of liability for outcome. The way to fix it is to privatize, letting students (or their parents, rather) pick the best education for their children and have the money follow the student. Ironically, this is how it works in many much more socialized european nations, and their kids run circles around ours. It trims bureaucratic fat, makes sure good teachers get raises and bad teachers have to find other work, all the while improving the product delivered to the end user... just like the private sector does everywhere else.
 
GasBandit said:
Barack Obama says that the wants to discuss the idea of lowering corporate tax rates "over time" in exchange for "closing a lot of the loopholes that make the tax system so complex." How much "time" are we talking about here, and what constitutes a loophole? Suspicious libertarian is suspicious. If he really wants to simplify the tax code, there's always the Fair Tax...
Well, considering the Fair Tax has NOTHING to do with corporate tax rates, I suppose you just brought that up for other reasons :p

I guess I'll throw in my two cents on the whole school debate here. I went to public school, and I am more than happy about that. Now, I went to a rich suburban high school, so I don't want to say my experience is the same as everyone who went to public high schools. But my school was just as good as any private high school. In fact, I went to a pretty damn exclusive college where half the people came from private high schools, and I was just as well prepared for college as they were. So if we're talking public versus private, well, I think the individual schools matter a WHOLE lot.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
You're right in that it was a fairly un-smooth transition from "simplifying tax code" into yet another plug for the fair tax :p

As for individual public schools, well, of course there are some good ones, particularly in rich areas. But there are many, many more which are just holding pens to keep kids off the street until they turn 18, and even having mixed results doing that.
 
Public and Private schools vary by school. There is no "yeah but" here. In some places (like here in Milwaukee) public schools outperformed the private schools (and Milwaukee public schools are some of the worst schools in the state).

Which is impressive considering the greater number of students percentage wise in the public classes versus the private classes.

Just sayin.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Krisken said:
Public and Private schools vary by school. There is no "yeah but" here. In some places (like here in Milwaukee) public schools outperformed the private schools (and Milwaukee public schools are some of the worst schools in the state).

Which is impressive considering the greater number of students percentage wise in the public classes versus the private classes.

Just sayin.
If we accept that all schools vary in quality no matter their orientation, isn't the logical answer still vouchers to let the good schools prosper and grow, and the bad ones get weeded out?
 
GasBandit said:
Krisken said:
Public and Private schools vary by school. There is no "yeah but" here. In some places (like here in Milwaukee) public schools outperformed the private schools (and Milwaukee public schools are some of the worst schools in the state).

Which is impressive considering the greater number of students percentage wise in the public classes versus the private classes.

Just sayin.
If we accept that all schools vary in quality no matter their orientation, isn't the logical answer still vouchers to let the good schools prosper and grow, and the bad ones get weeded out?
No, because at least the public schools have regulations.

Good, bad. Fun, subjective terms.

I should clarify- I feel the public school system keeps the private school system honest. I think they are both essential in their own way, but neither is better than the other. They both have good points and bad points.
 
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