Question: why should everybody "pool" to pay for the education of children that are not theirs? Half of my property taxes go to fund schools I nor my tenants have children in.
It's a good question. I first came across it when I was working in a roadside restaurant when I was 16, and someone working there, one of the full timers, asked me this.
The answer hasn't changed much in all those years either.
An educated work force is beneficial for the country. The more educated the workforce, the more money the country is going to produce. If you have someone who can fix a car, they might earn, what, $20,000 a year, someone who can fix a plane might earn $100,000 a year. (Made up salaries, I don't know, I just know they earn more).
Businessmen and women make a lot of money employing people who have the skills they need. Where did they get such skills? More than likely 99% of their workforce came from the mass education system. They make money out of the mass education system, why shouldn't they put back into the mass education system?
Because of a mass education system EVERYONE'S salaries go up. You go to a poor country and things are cheap because the people working in shops earn $2 a day. That means they don't need to slap huge profits on every item. Go to a western country and the price will be double, with half of that going to pay wages and rental fees or other such costs which are high because everyone ends up getting a slice of the pie.
That's why.
I agree we need an educated population, but that still doesn't tell me why your neighbor should pay for it.
If you have children, you should pay for their food, you should pay for their clothing, you should pay for their medical care, and yes, you should pay for their education too.
In our state, local schools are funded by property taxes. It's based on the value of your property instead of how many children you have. For instance, I may have to pay $4,000 a year because of the size of my property, but I have no children in school. The person down the street may have to only pay $1,500 per year because he or she has a smaller property, but they have four kids in the school system. And if you decide to send your children to private school, you get the double F'n. You have to pay for your kids education, and the education of your neighbors kids.
BUT WE NEED TO FUND OUR SCHOOLS! Okay, but why are people with no children in the schools paying more than those with children in the schools? And if we have to fund the schools, fine, but why do we have to fund swimming pools, football stadiums, school busses, gymnasiums?
So you ship your kids to school on a taxpayer funded school bus, from there they go to class in a taxpayer funded building, with taxpayer funded teachers. Then they go to lunch and eat on the taxpayers dime. Some schools even have breakfast and dinner as well. They get to play in the taxpayer funded gymnasium, and then back home on the taxpayer funded busses.
If I'm being forced to pay for your kids education, is it asking too much that you at least feed them and provide their transportation to the school?????
Your neighbor should pay for it because they benefit from it.
You should pay for clothes, food and so on. Education to a lesser degree. The govt FORCES parents to educate their children. While you could say it also forces them to feed their children, and to clothe their children, you'd have to say that a parent who doesn't feed their kids is getting close to murder, a parent who doesn't clothe their kids will probably get arrest on child abuse, but a parent who doesn't educate their kids is what? Education isn't essential. A person can live life without being educated. Some people do, like some mentally disabled people who simply can't learn what is needed (but which is really neither here nor there), in the past kids didn't go to school, but they needed food and clothing.
We want our kids to reach certain levels of education. Therefore it's mandatory to send them to school. If you vote for politicians, and these politicians make it mandatory to vote, why shouldn't you pay for this?
If the government made it mandatory to drive a Ferrari, would you not be a little miffed if they didn't buy you a Ferrari?
In many places education is funded by property taxes. And what this does is it means kids who are from wealthy families are advantaged, kids from middle class families are okay, and kids in poorer areas are screwed. Look at the US, look at the problems with inner city areas and compare this to other first world countries. There's such a big difference. The US is producing criminals to stick in prisons when they hit 18 years old or, as if often the case, earlier.
Do you really want this in your society? I don't.
And the solution to this is to have education funding that is equal for all kids. All kids receive the same money for going to school (in the sense that the school receives the money for that pupil).
If you choose private school, it's your choice. If you have no kids, it's your choice. At the end of the day people should be paying for an educated work force because it benefits MOST PEOPLE in society.
Without kids, a person still probably went through the education system, they still benefit from higher wages because of the educated society, they still benefit from the infrastructure, the armed forces and all of those things that are at the level they're at because of the educated society.
Compare societies where education isn't great. Most of them are poor countries. Okay, it's a cycle, they're parents are poor and the govt is poor, neither can afford to send them to school.
Schools and Education in Zambia
Take Zambia, it has a GDP of $4,000, it provides free education up till 7th grade, and many rural students don't actually have teachers. There is a link between the two things. It works from both sides. Because GDP is low and taxes are low, education is difficult to fund, and students are poorly educated and can't do good jobs which pay more taxes and allow for better education.
However in the west it was the same way back when, the more money came, the more educated people got, the better the economy did. The US with an 18th century educated workforce would simply not be very rich in the world.
Ah, funding other stuff. I don't think these things should be funded. This is a problem in the US that politicians aren't working to improve things for the people, they're representing themselves and big money. The US needs a massive change in what the govt is about.
You have people like Trump (and now Kayne West and Will Smith want to get in on it) who are just using politics for themselves, which politicians are really interested in just making things better for the people?
In Europe, politicians are more likely, especially in Germanic countries and Scandinavian countries. These countries make sure things are in place that people want and need, they make a society. (They're not perfect by any means, but better than the US)
The US is like Africa. Politicians get in and then try and make themselves rich and possibly their friends.
