01-31-2005, 04:51 AM
Minionman,Jan 31 2005, 04:20 AM Wrote:For legalizing drugs
For more money into public schools
Legalizing Drugs: Personally I'm against it. Decriminalisation of drugs (i.e. illegal, but not a criminal offense, so in the league with parking tickets etc.): Personally I'm against it. I understand the argument for it, but the problem I have is with those that will not be responsible. Can you imagine the number of household swith kids in them growing up in a pot-smoke filled house? Very recent news showed that in an Australian initiative police found 1 in 100 people were driving under the influence of drugs, which is higher than the rate for alcohol. Protection needs to be afforded to those that cannot protect themselves.
Classical finance states that the decision of where to source funds from is separate to the decision on what to uses those funds for. Saying that drug money goes back to drug schemes (or petrol tax goes into public transportation etc.) usually doesn't happen.
Public/Private schools: A private school is one you pay to get into, a public school is one you pay for even if you don't.
Funding is an opportunity cost question. Increasing spending on schools means you either increase income (i.e. taxes), or you take away money from somewhere else.
So you think schools should get more funding? What programs do you think deserve less funding? (Or alternatively, do you want to stifle (is stifle too emotive?) growth by increasing tax?)
We had a classic example of the Opportunity cost decision here in NZ last year. An overstayer, who was on trial for wife-beating, was on dialysis in NZ costing the country $1million a year. His home country had no dialysis treatment, so convicting him would have meant deportation and an effective death sentence. For this reason alone he was not convicted.
The result: His wife has left him claiming further abuse, and roughly eight non-criminal NZers miss out each year on life saving heart-bypass operations, just to support this guys dialysis costs. But the public thinks that not deporting him and condemning him to death is more important than the lives of other New Zealanders. Go figure <_<