Quote:
Who doesn't? The problem with school district funding, at least around here, is the heavy skew to property taxes for funding. This results in the "wealthy" or "rich" subsidising the less wealthy or less rich.
No ..not really. What is does is mask the health of the environment with the blind application of taxes upon real property. All of those homes may have been purchased/built in a healthier economic era ..where gainful employment was abundant. Now with retirement, downsizing, demanufacturing, service economy, ..etc..etc. ..the economic health of the community may be lower ..yet the school district gets an assured pathway into every wallet ..regardless of the ability to afford the tax. This is why reverse mortgages and some retired people, with paid for homes, are forced to sell them. Because the cost of education isn't tied to their ability to pay for them ..and is arbitrarily assessed against their tangible worth. Your school taxes will go up whether your property value climbs or retreats.
This is why the total income of the community is a MUCH FAIRER system. It protects your retired and lower income families. It INCLUDES RENTERS. It also, to those who are most effected (higher income earners) makes them VERY interested in controlling costs. It also indexes the available revenue to the school's ability to "spend". Most of the economically viable demand that teacher contracts are settled due to the most idiotic things. Vacations, graduations, college entrance. They're effectively leveraged out of convenience. School boards cave in to pressure ..and you pay another $200-$600/year to keep the train moving. With income as the source, there will be a few more people applying pressure to CONTAIN the costs and not "just get it over with" (aka- throw money at it - it will go away - an attitude that we can no longer afford).
You would have very little weight in any argument that a teacher's contract should advance beyond the growth (or recession) of the community's wealth or poverty. There would be no reason to give your administrator a raise when the community got poorer. There would be no reason to NOT contour the costs with the available revenues and EVERYONE would be in the same vested boat to make sure that it worked.
Right now you have a captive audience for continuing escalation with a Pontius Pilate attitude
Quote:
It would be far more fair to make the people who actually have kids in public schools, pay the cost of public schools, would it not? They're the ones draining the environment.
Okay ..can we figure out how many who support this notion already put their kids through school on the public dole? Can we calculate how much they took out of the system at a discount, offset for their contributions ...add interest ..with inflation factors ..and hand them a one time bill to put into the system for a lifetime exemption??
Anyone who used the public school system ..and is NOW without children in the system, is merely trying to prevent others from "getting away" with what they did. I got mine ..but I don't want you to get yours". I used society as a crutch when I needed it ..but now that I don't need it ...I don't want to be the crutch for anyone else.
Did you offer seniors, or others that were without children in your school district, exemptions from paying school taxes when you had kids in school?
This is nothing more than an attempted "escape".
Quote:
The parents might even become concerned about the actual performance of the public schools if they actually paid anything close to their cost of it.
Well, I assure you, if income was the basis for the public education system ..EVERYONE will be concerned about controlling the COSTS of public education.
Quote:
because it's more fun to tax the "rich" or "wealth" guy that owns a luxury car, or boat, or airplane.
I won't roll my eyes, but very little real revenue is generated by luxury taxes. It's more a PR thing. I really find it hard to believe that anyone spending 300k on a decent boat refused to buy it due to some luxury tax.
Now on the topic of road taxes, we see the same sorta "not my problem" shuffle. Those who don't use mass transit don't want to subsidize it ..yet every urban center pays billions in road use taxes in just the truck traffic that enters them ..daily. Urban citizens don't use highways much ..yet provide tons of revenue for them.
I don't have much trouble with highway taxes. Now controlling what they cost to maintain with the available revenue? That's another story. If we're "poorer" ..why does it cost me more to pave a mile of road aside from the higher costs of the concrete or asphalt? Does the laborer deserve "more" ..the project manager? The engineer? Did they get to elevate themselves in the hierarchy of the society ..with the society in decline? Put more space between where they were ..and the guy under them? Why?
Quote:
The cold hard truth is that somebody else does pay for darn near all of it. And a lot of these people have not even been born yet, because as skewed as we are to taxing rich folks, we still spend way too much - we don't have enough rich folks.
Funny. We never had a lot of rich folks. What we had was a solid middle class that carried all the weight. Now that we've allowed that to be gutted ...there's less money to pay the bills. But the bills are still coming for military, infrastructure, education, etc. Do you expect poorer people to pay more?
If you feel that taxation is corrupt ..income based taxes are the most assured way to reach into every corrupt individual's wallet. As they lie and manipulate ..play their games ..help their pals, they have to cut themselves in the bleeding process.
That's why you'll never see a fair tax system. A flat tax on income for all costs. It eliminates the manipulations and advantages that you can leverage to favor one over another.
Quote:
A consumption tax would be the best tax, but food, some level of housing, etc., should not be taxed.
Sales taxes would work ..with or without exemptions for food and clothing ..but you've probably seen the spin doctors ripping that to shreds. One rebuttal editorial managed to wiggle it up to a 90% tax to pay the bills ..when the cost of government was an almost even 21% of the GDP. Basically the guy was just an eloquent liar and con artist. Those in power and influence like the way it is. Why is that? They just give some people enough incentive to support them in the furthering of the unfair tax system.
Hey, I'm no Robin Hood ..but unless you can somehow detach yourself from being an American ...you (all of us) NOT paying the bills makes whatever the result is .. the default condition.
