So be it. Just because some rich people benefit doesn't strike it off as a bad idea. If it was in effect when they were accruing said wealth, 20% would have been paid on it too. We have to get away from the class warfare in this country. Your statement is straight out of the class warfare handbook
You use the term "class warfare" as a way of insinuating that falling under that distinction is inherently bad, but I don't hear what is actually wrong with it.
I don't mean that we should just have people fight with one another just because they fall into different classes, but I also know that there are some deep-seated problems in our society that are tied to the way that wealth works. Those who have wealth and power have continued to make it easier and easier to stay wealthy and in power while making it harder for others to gain the same.
I personally believe that anyone who gets nice things in life should be actually doing something to deserve it. I also think that there's a limit to how much more we can consider one person to be worth than everyone else.
However, we've instead built a system that makes it easier and easier to become rich as you gain wealth while making it harder and harder to break out of poverty, based on how poor you are.
*People should be rewarded for how productive they are to society, not based on how many rewards they have already acquired.*
On top of all this, rich people will cost you more money than any poor person on welfare ever will.
Consider that there were
$1.15 trillion in tax break entitlements for the top 1% in 2016. That dwarfs the entire
$740 billion spent on the poor.
The rich are a much bigger tax burden on the average U.S. citizen, so it's no wonder they spend so much to pump up conservative media that hyper-focuses on stereotyping poor people as lazy and greedy.
Funny, my parents graduated from the local public high school just about the time that the Department of education was formed. It was a really good school back then, 39 years and 8 billion dollars per year (total, not just that school obviously) not so much. If you can name two good things the department did for modern schools (aside from just injecting money) I will gladly concede this point.
I'm not a major advocate for the department, but I do believe there are at least two benefits:
1)
Collection of data.
By collecting data at the federal level, we have a much better understanding of how schools across the U.S. perform as well as what works in various areas and what doesn't. Good policies only come when we have good data to understand problems.
2)
Enforcement of Civil Rights.
This department ensures that the civil rights upheld by our government and constitution are upheld within schools and that students are not discriminated upon based on protected identities.
But I get that a very large part of this organization is based around federal grants and loans that often go to students who don't graduate, change major a million times, or that graduate with a major that doesn't get that student a decent job. There's certainly a lot that needs to be addressed here. My better half has worked as an academic advisor in the past, so I'm well familiar with the clusterfuck that surrounds financial aid.
I have first hand knowledge of this ones. Both of my daughters got accepted into the local charter school 3 years ago. It was the happiest day when I went withdraw them from the crappy public school (next door) and they started in the charter school. We had been trying to get them in for 4 years and finally succeeded. The curriculum is twice as challenging, yet one daughter went from a C to an A average with the other going from failing to a B student. The attention to individual students is outstanding with communication between teachers and parents being an expectation. That jackass of a principal had only one thing to say when I told him I was withdrawing my oldest daughter, "Man, you taking my test scores away and standardized testing is next week." What an asshole! Even though she was a C student, she excelled in standardized testing. I refuse to believe that this is not the norm, in my area at least, as I heard similar stories from other parents there about other schools in the district.
I'll concede that point. I don't think this necessarily proves charter schools to be a scale-able solution for all students, but I don't have any kids and don't have any better solution either.
Great, but all children do not need to go to college. I'll do you one better. Student loans available only to students that maintain a minimum 3.2 average. You want an education that you cant afford? work for the grades. I just don't see how students with a 2.0 average think that they will repay 30-80 thousand in loans. They need to learn that if they want something, work for it. I don't see what is wrong with that, but I do see a problem with an establishment loaning money to a student with mediocre grades, no matter what the major.
As mentioned, I do think that there should be better management of student loans and such, but I don't think this would be any different from just saying that you fail a class for getting low grades unless your daddy is rich enough to pay for your full ride through college. The poor students in college already have to work harder than the rich kids just to make the same grades since they're more likely to be working a job on the side or have to help support a family at home.
Students should get ahead based on their effort, not the size of their parent's bank account.
Baloney! I am not in any way shape or form endorsing birth rate restrictions. And free birth control is already offered to them. Any college infirmary or health clinic gives them out to anyone without question. Again, sometimes you have to just say, no. I will not finance your bad decisions. finance them on your own. I should not be forced to pay for people who rely on government assistance to reproduce at will. Please give me one example, just one, where I should have to pay for someones second of third child when I am already bankrolling their first
When we share the world with others, we will always end up paying to some extent to make up for mistakes and failures of others. I don't see why a poor person having too many babies is a bigger deal than all the other areas where tax dollars and other indirect costs take away from our personal gain.
Quite to the contrary. The Property and Environment Research Center, PERC, has long shown that property rights empower us to conserve natural resources by making the environment an asset by giving owners an incentive for stewardship.
I'd be interested to see the source on this.
If they are productive members of society, other states should court them. They do it by giving multimillion dollar corporations millions in tax cuts, why not for individuals? What more incentive do you need to save money and not squander it while becoming a productive member of society? If you sit on your ass all day waiting for a check, then so what? I'm supposed to care about that, why?
That sounds a lot like how states compete over giving major tax breaks to companies in order to court them to their states. It doesn't give any more jobs to the U.S. than we would get otherwise. It just increases the profit margin for the people running the companies and simply moves jobs from one state to another.
I am very well versed in Louisiana history and I still think that Democrats did awful things to black folks while Republicans were trying to lift them up. I want them to take the citizenship test that exists right now, with no changes made. Have you taken it? They made us in civics class, except our passing grade had to be 100%. I do now and always will insist that voters must understand how the government works in order to vote for a better one. The method of how they get there doesn't really matter much and knowledge is always power, while money is not always power.
I want to give all citizens, no matter race, creed, ethnicity or financial status the power to enjoy everything this country has to offer without depending on government assistance unless a last resort.
I have not taken the test and from what I know of it (relatively little), it is a good test. However, I don't believe that anything like this would ever be pulled off without someone in power corrupting it for their own personal gain.
