3 ms·

Items at a church bake sale are usually marked up to extreme levels. Purchasing these overpriced goods is not fiscally responsible. Anytime our tax money is was

Items at a church bake sale are usually marked up to extreme levels. Purchasing these overpriced goods is not fiscally responsible. Anytime our tax money is wasted we should be offended. You bring up a good point; maybe allowing people to use tax rebates for parochial schools is illegal. I can't say for sure as I don't understand the law enough.

grandalf 18y ago
It's a slippery slope... should government employees (whose salaries are paid by taxpapers) be allowed to buy goods at church bake sales? Should people be allowed to buy goods at church bake sales with the proceeds from US Government Savings Bonds? Should recipients of Federally subsidized student loans be allowed to use some of that loan money to buy church bake sale goods? These are all (in my opinion) equally absurd examples, yet they are perfectly analogous to your objection to vouchers being spent at parochial schools.
- briansmith 18y ago
  In all your examples, the person receiving the cash either earned it (bonds, government employees) or will pay for it (student loans). A voucher is a gift from the government (taxpayers) to an individual. That's the key difference. Usually, people earn their cash. When they earn it, we don't get to control what they do with it. In fact, we don't even get to know what they spend it on. That is the beautiful thing about cash. To restrict people from spending their money on their religion illegally restricts their expression of their religion. When feasible, the government shouldn't be giving cash to people who didn't earn it. That is a core principle of welfare and that is why we have WIC, food stamps, government-subsidized housing, and school vouchers. It isn't feasible to have coupons for everything so we have to give people cash for some things.

3 ms·

Items at a church bake sale are usually marked up to extreme levels. Purchasing these overpriced goods is not fiscally responsible. Anytime our tax money is was

by briansmith 18y ago

grandalf 18y ago
It's a slippery slope... should government employees (whose salaries are paid by taxpapers) be allowed to buy goods at church bake sales? Should people be allowed to buy goods at church bake sales with the proceeds from US Government Savings Bonds? Should recipients of Federally subsidized student loans be allowed to use some of that loan money to buy church bake sale goods? These are all (in my opinion) equally absurd examples, yet they are perfectly analogous to your objection to vouchers being spent at parochial schools.
- briansmith 18y ago
  In all your examples, the person receiving the cash either earned it (bonds, government employees) or will pay for it (student loans). A voucher is a gift from the government (taxpayers) to an individual. That's the key difference. Usually, people earn their cash. When they earn it, we don't get to control what they do with it. In fact, we don't even get to know what they spend it on. That is the beautiful thing about cash. To restrict people from spending their money on their religion illegally restricts their expression of their religion. When feasible, the government shouldn't be giving cash to people who didn't earn it. That is a core principle of welfare and that is why we have WIC, food stamps, government-subsidized housing, and school vouchers. It isn't feasible to have coupons for everything so we have to give people cash for some things.