Education Economics
I do read your messages and emails! I got a Facebook message from Jennifer, who read my Blog "When Does the Future Begin?" In the last sentence, I asked the question "When are we going to start asking people to pay their fair share for educational programs?" She asked the question: what is a fair share?
Interestingly, a few things were going on concurrently that kind of informed this question. One: I'm reading the biography of distant cousin Noah Webster and two: Melisa Harris-Perry spent part of the morning defending her statements in the MSNBC "Lean Forward" promos that we have to invest in "our" kids.
Okay, I'm not a huge Melissa Harris-Perry fan, but I am a regular MSNBC watcher. And I agree. Oh, and three: I just finished Robert Reich's book After Shock.
First, there is no such thing as a "self made" millionaire. Many successful people are successful because there is an opportunity put before them, and they take it. Noah Webster did eventually become wealthy, but his success was in part due to America's hunger for a national identity, which he helped meet with first an American speller/language text book and an American dictionary, which standardized American spelling and pronunciation. He fought in the battle of New York (as did one of my ancestors, his cousin Deacon Benjamin Webster) but he didn't single handedly create the revolution. Still, he took advantage of those historic events, which was good, since the revolution and the change of legal systems also created a lack of need for his services as a lawyer (go figure.)
Noah also rode the American belief that education was a universal value in the new country to wealth.
Unlike our European forebears, we believed that each community should have a school for its children, and they should read. They were community schools, not church schools (as in England or Ireland) and Cousin Noah often included patriotic stories and poems, which is pretty amazing when you figure our country was less than 10 years old at the time.
He also hung with the founding fathers (he knew Washington and even worked jointly on some projects with Benjamin Franklin.) They were Federalists, and believed the best way to grow the country is to create one big market for American products and American ideas, rather than the "democratic" (think Jeffersonian) notion that we should all trade eggs for products and services. They saw good government as a way to grow the economy (take that Tea Party Poopers!)
Robert Reich has been drawing our attention to the widening gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" in his book Aftershock. The divide has been growing since the Reagan administration . There is no question that the tax code was getting onerous (I was paying taxes then.) Since then, not only the tax system but compensation has favored the wealthy. Who benefits the most from government? The wealthy.
Look at the Oscar Pistorius case in South Africa: one reason shooting into a toilet is considered reasonable in South Africa is because the police are ineffective in protecting private citizens. Rich people have a lot more to protect than I do, trust me. Still, I have always lived with confidence that our well paid police officers will protect me and my rights. Rich people have more to protect.
And what about the value of what you and I produce? We add value to raw materials and services through our labor. Investors, business owners, corporations and the government take some of that value. How about teachers? We create citizens. As much as politicians complain about the quality of our work, people from all over the world clamor to bring their children to the United States. Why? Because of universal education. Yes, the quality of education varies depending on the kind of community you can afford. Students in inner city Philadelphia still have access to better education than children in Malawi or Nigeria. Some states, like Minnesota and Massachusetts, that make significant investments in public education, have higher standards of living than states like Nevada and Alabama.
How do we get people to pay their "fair share?" First, we don't expect people to support schools simply on the taxable value of their homes. Residents of New Jersey can tell you how that works. Rich people who benefit from the well educated work force pay a smaller part of their income in property taxes and sales taxes. If they are realizing most of their income as investment income such as dividends and capital gains, they are paying a lower marginal rate than the doctor who pays taxes on the income from his or her practice (as well as creating wealth for nursing, technical and clerical staffs.) We also don't want to reward them for shipping good paying jobs overseas to cheaper labor.
The quality of education, services, infrastructure and quality of life, all dependent in part on good government that is bought by taxes, adds value. Compare the price of a strip mall in Las Vegas to a strip mall of the same size in Minnesota or Maryland. Yes, the property in Minnesota and Maryland is more valuable. So, if we ask rich people to pay more, it's because they benefit more.
So, by all means, simplify the tax code. By all means, eliminate tax breaks, especially tax breaks that benefit the rich the most. But let's start investing in public education, public universities (and not for profit online schools that rip us all off through unpaid federally guaranteed ( that you and me) student loans. Let's not balance the national and state budgets by taxing working folks (sales tax) more, but by taxing all income as income. Period. Then we need to make choices about how we spend those resources. I'm for books, not bombs. I don't know about you.
Interestingly, a few things were going on concurrently that kind of informed this question. One: I'm reading the biography of distant cousin Noah Webster and two: Melisa Harris-Perry spent part of the morning defending her statements in the MSNBC "Lean Forward" promos that we have to invest in "our" kids.
Okay, I'm not a huge Melissa Harris-Perry fan, but I am a regular MSNBC watcher. And I agree. Oh, and three: I just finished Robert Reich's book After Shock.
First, there is no such thing as a "self made" millionaire. Many successful people are successful because there is an opportunity put before them, and they take it. Noah Webster did eventually become wealthy, but his success was in part due to America's hunger for a national identity, which he helped meet with first an American speller/language text book and an American dictionary, which standardized American spelling and pronunciation. He fought in the battle of New York (as did one of my ancestors, his cousin Deacon Benjamin Webster) but he didn't single handedly create the revolution. Still, he took advantage of those historic events, which was good, since the revolution and the change of legal systems also created a lack of need for his services as a lawyer (go figure.)
Noah also rode the American belief that education was a universal value in the new country to wealth.
Unlike our European forebears, we believed that each community should have a school for its children, and they should read. They were community schools, not church schools (as in England or Ireland) and Cousin Noah often included patriotic stories and poems, which is pretty amazing when you figure our country was less than 10 years old at the time.
He also hung with the founding fathers (he knew Washington and even worked jointly on some projects with Benjamin Franklin.) They were Federalists, and believed the best way to grow the country is to create one big market for American products and American ideas, rather than the "democratic" (think Jeffersonian) notion that we should all trade eggs for products and services. They saw good government as a way to grow the economy (take that Tea Party Poopers!)
Robert Reich has been drawing our attention to the widening gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" in his book Aftershock. The divide has been growing since the Reagan administration . There is no question that the tax code was getting onerous (I was paying taxes then.) Since then, not only the tax system but compensation has favored the wealthy. Who benefits the most from government? The wealthy.
Look at the Oscar Pistorius case in South Africa: one reason shooting into a toilet is considered reasonable in South Africa is because the police are ineffective in protecting private citizens. Rich people have a lot more to protect than I do, trust me. Still, I have always lived with confidence that our well paid police officers will protect me and my rights. Rich people have more to protect.
And what about the value of what you and I produce? We add value to raw materials and services through our labor. Investors, business owners, corporations and the government take some of that value. How about teachers? We create citizens. As much as politicians complain about the quality of our work, people from all over the world clamor to bring their children to the United States. Why? Because of universal education. Yes, the quality of education varies depending on the kind of community you can afford. Students in inner city Philadelphia still have access to better education than children in Malawi or Nigeria. Some states, like Minnesota and Massachusetts, that make significant investments in public education, have higher standards of living than states like Nevada and Alabama.
How do we get people to pay their "fair share?" First, we don't expect people to support schools simply on the taxable value of their homes. Residents of New Jersey can tell you how that works. Rich people who benefit from the well educated work force pay a smaller part of their income in property taxes and sales taxes. If they are realizing most of their income as investment income such as dividends and capital gains, they are paying a lower marginal rate than the doctor who pays taxes on the income from his or her practice (as well as creating wealth for nursing, technical and clerical staffs.) We also don't want to reward them for shipping good paying jobs overseas to cheaper labor.
The quality of education, services, infrastructure and quality of life, all dependent in part on good government that is bought by taxes, adds value. Compare the price of a strip mall in Las Vegas to a strip mall of the same size in Minnesota or Maryland. Yes, the property in Minnesota and Maryland is more valuable. So, if we ask rich people to pay more, it's because they benefit more.
So, by all means, simplify the tax code. By all means, eliminate tax breaks, especially tax breaks that benefit the rich the most. But let's start investing in public education, public universities (and not for profit online schools that rip us all off through unpaid federally guaranteed ( that you and me) student loans. Let's not balance the national and state budgets by taxing working folks (sales tax) more, but by taxing all income as income. Period. Then we need to make choices about how we spend those resources. I'm for books, not bombs. I don't know about you.
