3 ms·

I just don't see a reason to pick a fight if the status quo is "everybody wins". Billionaires get to send their kids to good schools and everyone else at the s

I just don't see a reason to pick a fight if the status quo is "everybody wins". Billionaires get to send their kids to good schools and everyone else at the school gets their education subsidized by those billionaires voluntarily. The only difference I can see with using taxes is that the billionaires' kids don't get to pick their school, and the government now has to waste time and effort collecting and auditing those tax dollars. I don't see a gain that's worth the effort. They can still donate money to the school or its employees if they want to influence the school's policy, or maybe just make some phone calls to accomplish the same. I'm sympathetic to the idea that billionaires have a lot of advantages that we should try to even out, but this feels like picking a fight for the sake of it. There are better things to try to fix in the world.

saghm 3y ago
> I just don't see a reason to pick a fight if the status quo is "everybody wins". > Billionaires get to send their kids to good schools and everyone else at the school gets their education subsidized by those billionaires voluntarily. That's not "everybody though"; most people _don't_ attend elite institutions like that, and every spot that goes to a billionaires' kid means one less spot for a kid without wealthy parents able to work the system like that. The argument being made is that having taxes instead and using them for public goods that are accessible to a much wider swath of the population would be worth doing instead; I tend to think that the answer to this question is yes, it's worth the effort, but even I'm skeptical that "it's all going to suck anyways" or "anyone who doesn't go to an elite school is irrelevant to the question of how individual wealth can improve society as a whole" are the best counter-arguments to my point of view.

saghm 3y ago

> I just don't see a reason to pick a fight if the status quo is "everybody wins". > Billionaires get to send their kids to good schools and everyone else at the school gets their education subsidized by those billionaires voluntarily. That's not "everybody though"; most people _don't_ attend elite institutions like that, and every spot that goes to a billionaires' kid means one less spot for a kid without wealthy parents able to work the system like that. The argument being made is that having taxes instead and using them for public goods that are accessible to a much wider swath of the population would be worth doing instead; I tend to think that the answer to this question is yes, it's worth the effort, but even I'm skeptical that "it's all going to suck anyways" or "anyone who doesn't go to an elite school is irrelevant to the question of how individual wealth can improve society as a whole" are the best counter-arguments to my point of view.