05-15-2008, 12:40 PM
Quote:The underlying point that I believe Kandrathe and I share is that the funding for the education system is a little... off. Things like FD, roads, trash collection, water supply are all related to owning property within a municipality, and thus should be paid with property taxes. Nobody is suggesting that those be privatized - at least not in this thread. Education is the one thing in that list "not like the others": it is not related to owning property at all.
There is a very large monetary incentive to solve the resistance of viruses to drugs. Pharmaceuticals is a very large-dollar industry, routinely attracting very bright minds.
Well, because you might see education as an investment in a person so that this person can make money the rest of his life. This is only one part of it however. An educated population will be richer than an uneducated one because with the same means a lot higher level of prosperity can be obtained. So spending public money on schooling seems a good thing to me.
Just substracting the tax you pay for education per person and adding the amount you would have to pay for your child when there would be only privatized schools is for this reason not correct.
Your assumption in your first paragraph that salaries would in the long term be larger than they would be seems also a bit strange. If the distribution of wealth would remain the same as it is now there would not be enough people able to pay for education. Some of them would have more than enough, but most of them wouldn't and would choose to not give their child education.
Back to the costs we pay for teh fire department......would we pay them if they would solely rely on private gifts? I think nobody assumes that his house will burn down....and if it would, why not just take out an insurance?