3 ms·

I'm not following the cause and effect of your logic. Are you missing a point or two? Perhaps "The ones who are paying for it are paying less than they need to"

I'm not following the cause and effect of your logic. Are you missing a point or two? Perhaps "The ones who are paying for it are paying less than they need to"? or maybe "The ones who apportion those taxes have no financial incentive to apportion them wisely"? Even in those cases, there should be enough distance between those paying the tax (in whatever portions) and those spending the tax to ensure that the government runs without interference and can provide the best service at that price point. If the service isn't good enough, then increase the price point. If you don't want to increase the price point, then reduce the quality of your service. Either way, I think the argument falls into the category of "Wealth redistribution is a broken concept", and that's a whole 'nother ball game that any discussion on schools just isn't big enough for.

ddebernardy 12y ago
As I understand what the parent post's author wrote, the ones who pay for the US school system aren't the ones who use it: their kids go to private schools. Perhaps this point was missing or too implicit: contrary to what occurs in Europe, there is no "How is my money being spent?" effect as a result of this.
- jeremysmyth 12y ago
  I'm still not getting it. Are you saying that some taxes should be ringfenced and only used for the specific purpose of education (and by extension other taxes to other things), and that taxpayers get to see precisely how their proportion of taxes are being spent on that particular thing? In any representative democracy that I know of, the budget (including tax income and government outgoings such as education) is handled by elected representatives of the people. There is no direct connection between a specific tax dollar and a specific public service. Rather, these things are budgeted for in aggregate. The elected representatives are accountable to their electorate for these budgets, not to individual taxpayers. The concept of "How is my money being spent?" is a feature of this aggregated budgeting rather than any specific tracking from specific taxpayer to specific service. Going back to the parent posting, which implied an accountability of legislation (or at least educational administration) to its funders, I don't see how this works in representative democracies such as the US, because the funders are not stockholders in the traditional sense: Their extra tax dollars do not give them extra voting rights. The only way I can imagine that they would have more voting rights is through lobbying and other such methods that bypass traditional electoral accountability. In short, an argument in the form of "Higher net tax payers are not net consumers of government spending, therefore government spending that does not help them does not efficiently help others" assumes either that citizens have an electoral power relative to the tax they pay (which is undemocratic) or that wealth redistribution is broken (in this case or in general).
  - cies 12y ago
    I think school are better to be public. But I'm a bit of a socialist when it comes to schools (and healthcare, and justice). When all (or nearly all) schools are public, then everyone pays for what they get.
  - ddebernardy 12y ago
    > I'm still not getting it. In Europe, the main group of tax payers are eating their own dog food by sending their kids to public schools. When the public schools their kids go to sucks, they know first hand and lobby to get it fixed. In contrast, the main group of tax payers in the US are sending their kids to private schools. When the local public schools sucks, it doesn't have the slightest immediate impact on their kids and they therefor will not care much.
    - jeremysmyth 12y ago
      I still fail to see the influential connection between the taxpayer's opinion and the service his tax pays for. A rich guy who pays tax and doesn't avail of the state's education is in a minority, regardless of how much tax he pays. As far as I can see, the only way the argument works is if money is what's doing the electing, rather than individual voters (as in, we don't have "one man one vote" but rather we have "mo' money mo' votes" like in private companies). If that's the case, then that's a way bigger story than "rich guy doesn't care that his tax dollars make good public education".

ddebernardy 12y ago

As I understand what the parent post's author wrote, the ones who pay for the US school system aren't the ones who use it: their kids go to private schools. Perhaps this point was missing or too implicit: contrary to what occurs in Europe, there is no "How is my money being spent?" effect as a result of this.

jeremysmyth 12y ago
I'm still not getting it. Are you saying that some taxes should be ringfenced and only used for the specific purpose of education (and by extension other taxes to other things), and that taxpayers get to see precisely how their proportion of taxes are being spent on that particular thing? In any representative democracy that I know of, the budget (including tax income and government outgoings such as education) is handled by elected representatives of the people. There is no direct connection between a specific tax dollar and a specific public service. Rather, these things are budgeted for in aggregate. The elected representatives are accountable to their electorate for these budgets, not to individual taxpayers. The concept of "How is my money being spent?" is a feature of this aggregated budgeting rather than any specific tracking from specific taxpayer to specific service. Going back to the parent posting, which implied an accountability of legislation (or at least educational administration) to its funders, I don't see how this works in representative democracies such as the US, because the funders are not stockholders in the traditional sense: Their extra tax dollars do not give them extra voting rights. The only way I can imagine that they would have more voting rights is through lobbying and other such methods that bypass traditional electoral accountability. In short, an argument in the form of "Higher net tax payers are not net consumers of government spending, therefore government spending that does not help them does not efficiently help others" assumes either that citizens have an electoral power relative to the tax they pay (which is undemocratic) or that wealth redistribution is broken (in this case or in general).
- cies 12y ago
  I think school are better to be public. But I'm a bit of a socialist when it comes to schools (and healthcare, and justice). When all (or nearly all) schools are public, then everyone pays for what they get.
- ddebernardy 12y ago
  > I'm still not getting it. In Europe, the main group of tax payers are eating their own dog food by sending their kids to public schools. When the public schools their kids go to sucks, they know first hand and lobby to get it fixed. In contrast, the main group of tax payers in the US are sending their kids to private schools. When the local public schools sucks, it doesn't have the slightest immediate impact on their kids and they therefor will not care much.
  - jeremysmyth 12y ago
    I still fail to see the influential connection between the taxpayer's opinion and the service his tax pays for. A rich guy who pays tax and doesn't avail of the state's education is in a minority, regardless of how much tax he pays. As far as I can see, the only way the argument works is if money is what's doing the electing, rather than individual voters (as in, we don't have "one man one vote" but rather we have "mo' money mo' votes" like in private companies). If that's the case, then that's a way bigger story than "rich guy doesn't care that his tax dollars make good public education".