Meryl Streep’s eery reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady” brings to mind Thatcher’s most famous quip, “there is no such thing as ‘society.’” None of the dwindling herd of Republican candidates has quoted her yet but they might as well considering their unremitting bashing of everything public.
What defines a society is a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most visibly in public institutions — public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on.
Public institutions are supported by all taxpayers, and are available to all. If the tax system is progressive, those who better off (and who, presumably, have benefitted from many of these same public institutions) help pay for everyone else.
“Privatize” means pay-for-it-yourself. The practical consequence of this in an economy whose wealth and income are now more concentrated than any time in 90 years is to make high-quality public goods available to fewer and fewer.
Much of what’s called “public” is increasingly a private good paid for by users — ever-higher tolls on public highways and public bridges, higher tuitions at so-called public universities, higher admission fees at public parks and public museums.
Much of the rest of what’s considered “public” has become so shoddy that those who can afford to find private alternatives. As public schools deteriorate, the upper-middle class and wealthy send their kids to private ones. As public pools and playgrounds decay, they buy memberships in private tennis and swimming clubs. As public hospitals decline, they pay premium rates for private care.
Gated communities and office parks now come with their own manicured lawns and walkways, security guards, and backup power systems.
Why the decline of public institutions? The financial squeeze on government at all levels since 2008 explains only part of it. The slide really started more than three decades ago with so-called “tax revolts” by a middle class whose earnings had stopped advancing even though the economy continued to grow. Most families still wanted good public services and institutions but could no longer afford the tab.
From that time onward, almost all the gains from growth have gone to the top. But as the upper middle class and the rich began shifting to private institutions, they withdrew political support for public ones. In consequence, their marginal tax rates dropped — setting off a vicious cycle of diminishing revenues and deteriorating quality, spurring more flight from public institutions. Tax revenues from corporations also dropped as big companies went global — keeping their profits overseas and their tax bills to a minimum.
But that’s not the whole story. America no longer values public goods as we did before.
The great expansion of public institutions in America began in the early years of 20th century when progressive reformers championed the idea that we all benefit from public goods. Excellent schools, roads, parks, playgrounds, and transit systems would knit the new industrial society together, create better citizens, and generate widespread prosperity. Education, for example, was less a personal investment than a public good — improving the entire community and ultimately the nation.
In subsequent decades — through the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War — this logic was expanded upon. Strong public institutions were seen as bulwarks against, in turn, mass poverty, fascism, and then communism. The public good was palpable: We were very much a society bound together by mutual needs and common threats. (It was no coincidence that the greatest extensions of higher education after World War II were the GI Bill and the National Defense Education Act, and the largest public works project in history called the National Defense Interstate Highway Act.)
But in a post-Cold War America distended by global capital, distorted by concentrated income and wealth, undermined by unlimited campaign donations, and rocked by a wave of new immigrants easily cast by demagogues as “them,” the notion of the public good has faded. Not even Democrats any longer use the phrase “the public good.” Public goods are now, at best, “public investments.” Public institutions have morphed into “public-private partnerships;” or, for Republicans, simply “vouchers.”
Mitt Romney speaks derisively of what he terms the Democrats’ “entitlement” society in contrast to his “opportunity” society. At least he still envisions a society. But he hasn’t explained how ordinary Americans will be able to take advantage of good opportunities without good public schools, affordable higher education, good roads, and adequate health care.
His “entitlements” are mostly a mirage anyway. Medicare is the only entitlement growing faster than the GDP but that’s because the costs of health care are growing faster than the economy, and any attempt to turn Medicare into a voucher — without either raising the voucher in tandem with those costs or somehow taming them — will just reduce the elderly’s access to health care. Social Security, for its part, hasn’t contributed to the budget deficit; it’s had surpluses for years.
Other safety nets are in tatters. Unemployment insurance reaches just 40 percent of the jobless these days (largely because eligibility requires having had a steady full-time job for a number of years rather than, as with most people, a string of jobs or part-time work).
What could Mitt be talking about? Outside of defense, domestic discretionary spending is down sharply as a percent of the economy. Add in declines in state and local spending, and total public spending on education, infrastructure, and basic research has dropped from 12 percent of GDP in the 1970s to less than 3 percent by 2011.
Only in one respect is Romney right. America has created a whopping entitlement for the biggest Wall Street banks and their top executives — who, unlike most of the rest of us, are no longer allowed to fail. They can also borrow from the Fed at almost no cost, then lend the money out at 3 to 6 percent.
All told, Wall Street’s entitlement is the biggest offered by the federal government, even though it doesn’t show up in the budget. And it’s not even a public good. It’s just private gain.
We’re losing public goods available to all, supported by the tax payments of all and especially the better off. In its place we have private goods available to the very rich, supported by the rest of us.
Even Lady Thatcher would have been appalled.
Robert Reich served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Labor under President William Jefferson Clinton from 1992 to 1997. He shares many of his thoughts and columns at Robert Reich, where this post first appeared.
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You mean this Saul Alinsky?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky
long time being about 10 years after the liberals started doing it to conservatives. After a decade of hearing being conservative meant you were racist, sexist, uncompasionate, greedy, etc it finally sunk in that the only way to combat it is to give it right back.
saul alinsky knew how to fight dirty and do it well.
“Nate, do you really think that you can settle disagreements in a definitive way by universally labeling whatever the other party suggests a liberal thing?”
Margalit, it’s been a long time strategy of the radical right to demonize the word liberal, like pedophile. It means they need few factual points for their arguments as people just look at each and nod their heads in parrot like agreement – yes, liberal, it must be wrong.
Yes, just like people who forgo having children don’t receive anything but bills for K-12 education, so I guess the government is bribing us into being fruitful and multiplying. Cool….
I have no clue what makes you get up every morning, or what your ultimate goal is, but allow me one more quote from a famous liberal, written in the midst of a revolution he helped lead, and these where his goals:
“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.” — John Adams, 1780
“nice language”
Spare me.
nice language
Spare me. “Problems reading Bobby?”
Right.
This whole thing is a fucking non-issue. One of many.
“When the issues on the table today in public politics are about complex monetary policy, complex scientific issues, global finances, global military strategy, etc., people must be educated enough so they themselves “may be relied on to set them right”.
I would argue that vocational training, although perhaps sufficient to provide you with well trained serfs, which could potentially be reduced to China level employment as quoted by Peter below, is not enough to allow the people to govern themselves.”
Problems reading Bobby? How can you take her statement any other way?
opportunity is not the same as bribery. Federal government gives college students 10s of thouands and loans them even more. Students forgoing college and entering the workforce to learn a skill or trade get nothing but the bill for those that went to college.
Exact same problem we ended up when the government bribed people to buy houses and gave them money to do so. Exact same result, people that should not take them up on the free handouts do and we all pay the price.
Oh, Pul-EEEZE.
Barry,
Nothing is ever certain, but it is a percentage game, and educated people do better on average.
Every young person should have the same opportunity. Obviously, not all will achieve the same results, but the opportunities should be equal. They are not.
Nate, do you really think that you can settle disagreements in a definitive way by universally labeling whatever the other party suggests a liberal thing?
Margalit doesn’t see college as a needed step to get a job, she wants everyone to go to college so they can be indoctrinated in liberal ideology. You can’t be a good citizen according to Margalit unless you have had liberal professors brainwashing you for four years.
Margalit –
We have a big diverse country, economy and population. We will always have a significant percentage of jobs that don’t require a college degree but rather specialized training in, say, welding, carpentry, plumbing, operating sophisticated machinery, etc. Many of these jobs can provide the holder with a very satisfactory standard of living for him or her and family. After a 40 year career dealing with companies in a wide variety of industries from an investor’s perspective, I can tell you that there are lots of jobs in corporate America that the human resources department determined requires a college degree but they really don’t. The college requirement is often an HR crutch and screening device in many cases. For people who have basic literacy and math skills and the appropriate job related aptitude, a training program of a few weeks to a few months in duration can get people ready to perform quite satisfactorily in the workplace without a college degree or maybe with just a community college associate degree.
In a knowledge based economy, a greater percentage of jobs do require a college degree than 40 or 50 years ago. Competition is also more intense today because of globalization and advances in technology. The number of man hours required to produce a ton of steel, for example, is down about 90% from 40 years ago and other technology advances have, in effect, de-skilled other jobs by, for example, replacing skilled machinists with button pushers who just need to watch over a group of machines and call the maintenance department when one breaks down.
Even people who don’t go to college right out of high school or shortly thereafter and later decide that they want to can often go part time in the evenings or on weekends sometimes even with employer help to cover tuition payments. I repeat my strong belief that the notion of the need to go to college for four years right after high school or soon after is way oversold. Moreover, given the combination of high and rapidly increasing costs and the need for many students to take on significant student loans, a college education is a less and less attractive value proposition for more and more young people, at least from a pure economic (incremental lifetime earning power) perspective. You also don’t need to go to college to be an intelligent, active and engaged member of your community. If you don’t go, you can still be intellectually curious, widely read and well traveled. You’re not condemned to a life of poverty and ignorance. Conversely, if you do go, a life of superior earning power and economic security is far from assured to put it mildly.
do you really believe every kid would benefit from 4 years in college? That is one of the most aburd and clueless things I have ever heard in the education debate.
Some people do not do well in a classroom or with book smarts, those people are wasting time and money in college.
Being a liberal I’m sure you would have no problem ruining their lives and taking their money chasing your cause. People like you don’t care about individuals just your ideology. That is how you were able to come up with housing projects and still pat yourself on the back for doing a good thing.
“Many kids are just not college material and would be better served if they learned a trade.”
I cannot agree with this statement. It belongs to another era. This sentence has been used historically to keep the children of laborers and other lowly groups from climbing out of their station in life.
This country achieved greatness precisely the opposite way. We educated more children in larger amounts, and the economy grew as a result. We are now being passed by over half of OECD countries in higher education attainment because the U.S. rates are stagnating and so is our economy. This is not a coincidence, and it will just get worse because the modern global economy does not need any more carpenters. It needs folks able to do nanotechnology research and China and Korea to name a few are producing them at better rates than the we do.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/61/2/48631582.pdf (this is very painful to read)
Education has been unequivocally linked to better income, better social mobility and better GDPs. Maybe instead of whining about how health care is growing to larger percents of GDP, we should find a way to grow the GDP faster, and we won’t achieve that by turning out plumbers and welders in record numbers.
I agree that college tuition is completely out of whack, and I agree that our schools need fixing, but I do not agree that we should accept a broken system and adjust our expectations to the broken state of affairs.
Here is the Truth of College
ISI reports that the average score for college graduates with at least a bachelors degree is 57%, versus 44% of non-graduates. Of the 33 questions, college graduates answered 18.9 correctly, versus 14.4 correct answers for non-graduates. ISI claims that a college education adds little value to the civic literacy of Americans. Some of the more astonishing results include:
(a) 36% of college grads can’t name all 3 branches of US government
(b) Only 33% of college grads know the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits the establishment of an official religion in the US
(c) Only 54% of college grads can correctly define free enterprise
(d) 18% of college grads can’t name a single right of the 1st Amendment
(e) Only 24% of college grads know that slavery was the main issue of the Lincoln-Douglas debates
(f) Only 24% of college grads know that the phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people” came from Lincoln’s speech
Who’s interest are you serving with your lies Margalit?
“So why on earth would someone so distrustful of government, as you seem to be, argue for the dumbing down of the electorate, in direct opposition to our founders vision?”
So your saying only liberal indoctrination is education? If you don’t spend four years listening to professors that have never earned in a living in what they teach you can’t be educated?
I’m saying we need to enlighten our electorate by not filling their head with crap like you have to go to college to make a good living and government loans and grants make college more affordable. If you want more education and want it affordable get the government out of it.
How can you look at the price inflation and not say government has failed.
“When the issues on the table today in public politics are about complex monetary policy, complex scientific issues, global finances, global military strategy, etc., people must be educated enough so they themselves “may be relied on to set them right”.”
Colleges in Ameica fail miserably at this. Your average college grad can’t discuss the basics on any of the issues you mention. Want to talk gender equality, rights, and idelogy you stand a chance.
Your arguing we need college for reasons college don’t evewn provide.
“there is no reason why education can’t be a part of one’s whole life that the whole of a part of their life. ”
I wish more people would think like this. I can’t think of a single employee that ever went back to school to freshen up and improve their skills.
Employees expect annual raises but seldom do anything to improve their value. Its doesn’t have to be getting a masters it would be nice if older employees would just invest the time to get better on computers for example.
Margalit –
As a general statement, I think the concept of a four year college education has been oversold to a lot of young people and it costs way more than it should. When I went through the University of Pennsylvania from 1963-1967, my whole four years cost $14,000 all in – tuition, room, board, books, incidentals, travel home for holidays, etc. When my son went through the same school from 1995-1999, it was roundly $140,000. Now it’s about $220,000 or 15.7 times what it cost when I went. Over the same period, inflation as measured by the consumer price index is up “only” about 5-6 times. Tuition at state universities is considerably lower but overall costs also increased as much or more in percentage terms over the same time period.
Many kids are just not college material and would be better served if they learned a trade. Others would be better off if they went to a two year community college at much lower cost and learned some marketable skills there. If they want to get a four year degree, they could transfer after two years and save a lot of money. Still others might be better off working for a year or two after high school, even at low wage jobs, and gain some maturity and a better sense of what they might want to do longer term before making the large investment in a college education.
I know and have met plenty of people over the years that never went to college but are pretty darn smart about everything from running a household and raising a family to getting good value for their money to politics and current events. Especially in this age of high technology and computerization, there is no reason why education can’t be a part of one’s whole life that the whole of a part of their life. Given the high cost of a four year college education and the fact that student loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy, whether or not to make the financial investment, the time commitment and to incur the opportunity cost of lost wages in the interim should be much more carefully considered than it generally is today.
Your insistence on equating people with jobs is unsettling to say the least. People in a democracy have responsibilities beyond their jobs.
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” — Thomas Jefferson
BTW, this one founder proposed an amendment to the constitution to allow federal government to finance education. He did so in an inaugural address in 1806, so he must have considered it important enough. During his times most jobs did not require reading or writing skills, so why would Jefferson want to burden the nation with teaching unnecessary skills for the job?
Because, in his opinion, government should be “by the people”, not by a super-class that can swindle the people into virtual bondage. And this is exactly what is happening today, or at least what is being attempted by the super-rich and “coincidentally” super-educated class.
When the issues on the table today in public politics are about complex monetary policy, complex scientific issues, global finances, global military strategy, etc., people must be educated enough so they themselves “may be relied on to set them right”.
I would argue that vocational training, although perhaps sufficient to provide you with well trained serfs, which could potentially be reduced to China level employment as quoted by Peter below, is not enough to allow the people to govern themselves.
So why on earth would someone so distrustful of government, as you seem to be, argue for the dumbing down of the electorate, in direct opposition to our founders vision?
Whose bidding are you doing, Nate? Because it doesn’t look like it’s the people’s……
“In fact we are almost on labor price pariety with China”
“Nor do the data on international wage comparisons point to dramatic deterioration in China’s wage advantage. According to research published in the Monthly Labour Review of the US Bureau of Labour Statistics in April 2009, compensation of Chinese manufacturing workers was only $0.81 per hour in 2006—just 2.7% of comparable costs in the US, 3.4% of those in Japan, and 2.2% of compensation rates in Europe. While these figures are now out of date by nearly four years, they underscore the magnitude of the gap between China and the developed world—and how difficult it would be to close that gap even under the most excessive of Chinese wage inflation scenarios.”
“For example, even if Chinese manufacturing wages increased at an average annual rate of 25% over the 2007-10 period—highly unlikely for reasons noted below—the hourly compensation rate would be just $1.98 in 2010. That would boost Chinese compensation to only about 4% of US pay rates—barely making a dent in narrowing the arbitrage with major industrial economies.”
Robert Reich is the equivalent of a free agent starting pitcher with a 5.74 ERA. How can you justify paying him 200K and not admit the system is broken. What has he ever produced in his life that would justify that level of compensation?
No wonder kids are graduating idiots, not only are they paying the high cost of tution but this is what they are getting for it, blow up the whole system and start over. The current one can’t and isn’t worth saving.
http://www.bcg.com/media/PressReleaseDetails.aspx?id=tcm:12-75973
And since wage rates account for 20 to 30 percent of a product’s total cost, manufacturing in China will be only 10 to 15 percent cheaper than in the U.S.—even before inventory and shipping costs are considered. After those costs are factored in, the total cost advantage will drop to single digits or be erased entirely, Sirkin said
Shipping cost, Piraticy, poor quality, all are huge offsets to labor. As long as we get Obama and his job killing administration out of office a large portion of our lost jobs will come home. We drove these jobs way and replaced them with unlimited umemployement and welfare. Better someone work for $5 an hour and work their way up then live off of saftey nets.
As of 2007, public records showed that over 17,000 employees in the University of California system earned over $100,000 a year.
One of this number was Prof Reich, who earned $205,000 and was #2444 from the top.
I realize that the cost of living is high in much of California, but this is still a reason for higher tuition.
In order to find ‘the top 1%’ some social critics can start by looking in the mirror.
when have i ever once defended healthcare wages? I would be the first in line to cut specialist and hospital administrator wages. I would cut academia out of it almost entirely.
Hard to argue with you peter when you just start making things up.
wage is one small piece of cost, you seem to forget ot don’t know this. We don’t need to make any where close to asian, I assume you mean china not japan, wages. In fact we are almost on labor price pariety with China, calcaulted at 5 times for most industries. That means you can pay an American 5 times what you would pay a worker in China and be further ahead keeping the job here.
Did you get a chance to say goodbye to your argument before I blew it up?
In March, “Professor X,” an anonymous English instructor at two middling northeastern colleges, published In the Basement of the Ivory Tower, an expansion of an Atlantic essay arguing that college has been dangerously oversold and that it borders on immoral to ask America’s youth to incur heavy debt for an education for which millions are simply ill-equipped. Professor X’s book came out on the heels of a Harvard Graduate School of Education report that made much the same point. The old policy cri de coeur “college for all,” the report argues, has proved inadequate; rather than shunting everyone into four-year colleges, we should place greater emphasis on vocational programs, internships, and workplace learning. Then, last month, a front-page article in the Times delivered striking news: Student-loan debt in the U.S. is approaching the trillion-dollar mark, outpacing credit-card debt for the first time in history. With all that debt, more and more are asking, what are we buying?
“I have actuarial training, and the true cost of state pensions is 20% of payroll. And has been for a long time.”
Bob – Thanks for that.
So, what should it be?
“Misunderstandings Regarding State Debt, Pensions, and Retiree Health Costs Create Unnecessary Alarm
Misconceptions Also Divert Attention from Needed Structural Reforms”
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3372
“There was a time 30 or 40 years ago when states like CA were investing significantly in infrastructure and higher education to support economic growth and build for the future.”
Not sure I agree with your analysis Barry.
“This commitment to infrastructure funding came to a stop in the 1970’s. Decreases in capital investment took place during the late 1960’s signaled by Gov. Ronald Reagan’s skepticism towards public sending. Then, during his term, Gov. Jerry Brown slowed infrastructure finance under the belief that growth should not go on without limit. Inadequate funds for transportation growth along with Brown’s support of environmental reviews and regulations led to fewer new highways. Environmental concerns also stopped the building of new water storage facilities. Proposition 13’s passage in 1978 led to a sharp diminishment of infrastructure projects owing to the proposition’s requirement of a majority for the passage of any new bonds or taxes. Many believe that Prop. 13’s success is an indication of 1970’s California voters dissatisfaction with government expansion.
“When [my daughters are] 18 years old, just hand them $200,000 to go off and have a fun time for four years? Why would I want to do that?” To Altucher, higher education is nothing less than an institutionalized scam—college graduates hire only college graduates, creating a closed system that permits schools to charge exorbitant prices and forces students to take on crippling debt. “The cost of college in the past 30 years has gone up tenfold. Health care has only gone up sixfold, and inflation has only gone up threefold. Not only is it a scam, but the college presidents know it. That’s why they keep raising tuition.”
well paying work does not require a college education. Plumbers make mopre then history majors or poly sci by a factor of 2-3 and there are actually plumbing jobs available.
I know dozens of businesses desperate for skilled workers that can’t find any while at the same time we have millions of unemployed recents grads. Kids are going to college and getting worthless degrees, look at any of the post graduation employement numbers. There are only a handful of degrees, hard sciences, where gradautes are getting jobs in their field.
This isn’t a new problem its been going on for years, people like you insist on continuming to lie to kids to feed your liberal indoctrination machine,
http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/CollegeForAll/graduates.html
Even college graduates are not getting the expected payoff from college, according to critics of the college movement. Many find themselves in low-paying service jobs and other lines of work not traditionally associated with a college education. From this perspective, graduation no longer provides reasonable assurance of a “college-level job,” e.g., a white-collar job in an organization that provides reasonable pay, good benefits, training opportunities, and the prospect of advancement at least to middle-management or mid-level professional status. We will examine first the changing occupational distribution of college graduates and then their earnings, premiums, and rates of return to investment in college.
“The proportion of graduates saying that their job did not require college-level skills increased from 24 percent in 1976 to 44 percent in 1991 and remained at that level in 1994.”
That alone destroys everything you argued.
44% of grads could have had their same job minus the 4-6 years in college and all the debt. Why continue your lies Margalit?
can we really call them saftey nets when 20-40% of the population are using them and people spend their entire life collecting them? We need to be honest and admit they are no longer saftey nets but tralling nets like you catch fish to harvest. Our saftey net programs are nothing more then vote nets any more.
Peter1 –
The attractiveness of a non-union environment to employers often has more to do with flexibility around work rules and the ability to cross train employees to do multiple jobs so they can fill in for each other and rotate work assignments. The hourly wage is less of an issue, especially in industries like autos, aerospace and steel. To the extent that wages are lower in the south than in the north is likely to reflect lower living costs in the south so the standard of living the wage can support is often comparable. New employers to the region like foreign owned car assembly plants do not have the retiree health and pension legacy costs that the old line companies have which is a significant competitive cost advantage.
Recently, more than a few jobs have actually started to return to the U.S. from overseas. Average hourly labor and benefit costs in the manufacturing sector are now actually lower in the U.S. on average than in Canada and much of Western Europe. Call center jobs are returning from India to improve service as customers prefer to speak to Americans with understandable accents. Where low wage countries like Mexico and China compete best is in the manufacture of products that are labor intensive like apparel and footwear, toys and electronic assembly. Outsourcing is still an issue in other industries as well but it’s not the race to the bottom that you suggest.
Capital always moves from higher costs to lower costs, usually subsidized by the taxpayer. Jobs moved south for non(anti)-union lower wage as well as for huge tax incentives (you know, that, government is an anchor comment). Nate, do you want U.S. workers to work for Asian wages and benefits? You’re the one defending health care wages here and about how they support the economy four times over as well as urging us to buy “American”.
Do you really think jobs moved south because southerners stayed in school and did better math or that jobs moved to Asia because their high schoolers did not drop out?
Asians will struggle for better wages and benefits just like everyone else and capital will try to find the next slave wage economy.
“I have actuarial training, and the true cost of state pensions is 20% of payroll. And has been for a long time.”
Bob –
Thanks for that. For the last 18 years, I worked for a subsidiary of a large manufacturing company with a significant percentage of unionized employees. Employees hired after July 1, 2003 were put into a defined contribution pension plan while the traditional defined benefit pension remained in place for employees hired before that date. For the defined contribution participants in their mid-40’s or older, the company’s annual contribution to the DC plan is 8% of payroll and that’s reasonably generous by private sector standards. Only about 20% of the private sector workforce has a defined benefit pension plan today vs. about 40% in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. Also, cost of living increases for pensioners generally don’t exist in the private sector except on an occasional ad hoc basis because they are cost prohibitive from a funding standpoint.
Rhode Island’s recent pension reforms reduced its unfunded liability from $7 billion to $4 billion as even the unions finally came to understand that the problem was real and couldn’t be solved by further increasing taxes. Everyone took a hit including current retirees. Cost of living increases were eliminated until the pension fund gets back to at least an 80% funded ratio. NJ recently enacted a similar provision.
There was a time 30 or 40 years ago when states like CA were investing significantly in infrastructure and higher education to support economic growth and build for the future. As the state and its localities agreed to ever more generous medical and pension benefits for its public sector workforce and retirees, funding for growth investments were crowded out by public sector compensation. When there are dozens and sometimes hundreds of qualified applicants for every teacher and police opening even when the economy is booming, the total compensation for those positions is far more than it needs to be to attract and hold qualified people. It’s about as simple as that.
While it may be feasible to raise taxes on the wealthy, especially on capital gains and qualified dividends, there aren’t enough rich people to come anywhere close to paying the bills for our entitlement and social safety net programs. If the middle class thinks these programs are important enough to sustain, they will have to pay more in taxes as well. At the end of the day, the middle class doesn’t deserve any more government than it’s willing to pay for.
My kids went to public school. No, it was not in the inner city, but a good percentage of students is bused daily from the city to our public school district. The district, inclusive of bused kids, by itself scored better than all other countries in the PISA tests. http://bit.ly/Aicyhb
Public education can work, if done well.
My kids have been organizing volunteer work in inner city schools for five years now. Nobody gets killed there, except the hopes and dreams of innocent children.
Education programs for teachers need to be as selective as those for engineering and lawyers, and compensation should follow the same rules. I am not a fan of teachers unions protecting members from being fired (wage negotiations is a completely separate thing).
Nate, you seem to be oblivious to how economies have changed during the last few decades. Today well paying work requires education. College educated people experience much less unemployment and earn a lot more than their uneducated peers on average. An outlier here and there does not change these facts.
Are those conservatives who believe that we send too many people to college inclined to send their own kids to the mines when they turn 16? or is this advice only applicable to “our poor”?
Neither political party is acting in the best interest of the people today. The game is rigged by big money and this has to stop.
I read the 14 pages and thus my comment it was drivel. How would I know it was filled with Dogma unless I read it? Where in education do we address comprehension?
“conservative well reasoned ideology,”
Conservative by who’s measure? I don’t know any conservatives who foolishly believe more indoctrination by universities would improve anyone’s life. Most agree we send to many people to college.
“The only way out of poverty, other than luck and crime, is education.”
Most sheep end up at slaughter not a life of roaming pastures Margalit. Education is not a solution to poverty, work is. Education is one form that work can take. Merely going to college does not increase a person’s earning potential. i.e. see women lib majors, history majors, etc etc. The American middle class did not achieve its growth from going to college, they did it by working, as has every other nation that advanced from third world. Very little of a person’s education comes from school, over reliance on public education is what leads people to mass debt and no job.
“I appreciate your desire to maintain a well stocked, well fed, arsenal of uneducated people to be exploited at will,”
You mean the Democrats power base, all those inner city poor voting Democrat 95% of the time even after 30 years of nothing in return. Yes you liberals know that game very well.
are you willing to send your kids to an inner city school where they could possibly be killed on any given day? By far its liberals in big cities who partake in the private schools, while you claim its a liberal solution its to a problem largely created by liberals.
See Obama as a prime example, after all his talk about public schools when it came down to it where did he send his kids?
What if a school is a failure, you would really require a kid to go there and receive an inadequate education just to support your principal?
Why should a well behaved kid suffer for the actions of truants?
“pay teachers enough to attract the best and brightest into that profession.”
How much is that? More importantly with such attractive wages how do you keep the average and poor from getting these jobs you intend for the best and brightest? Cleveland use to have civil test to get public jobs and promotions. These were such plum jobs that politicians bustardized the system to get their friends and family in. Obviously the result was terrible people grossly overpaid. And when I say politicians I really mean democrats as that is who runs Cleveland.
So while it sounds great on paper your exemplifying the typical liberal solution, pass a bill saying everything is going to be roses and unicorns and act shocked when it doesn’t work out. If you can’t fire criminal teachers now in most districts how do you plan on getting rid of them when you increase pay?
“break down the segregated poor neighborhoods and offer folks housing solutions in better places.”
Who is going to rent them housing in nice neighborhoods when they destroy them? Have you ever been a section 8 landlord? Again great on paper but not possible.
Teachers are already paid more than they would make in any other profession based on education and IQ, how is paying more going to weed out the bad ones?
The liberal solution is to create one public school system for everybody, including the rich and famous, with no options to “separate but equal”, or “the best money can buy”.
And my liberal addendum #1 to that solution is to pay teachers enough to attract the best and brightest into that profession.
My liberal addendum #2 is to break down the segregated poor neighborhoods and offer folks housing solutions in better places.
Social engineering? You bet.
I link a very pertinent document filled with conservative well reasoned ideology, including reference to Mr. Reich. Too bad 14 pages is too much to read nowadays.
Our poor need to not be poor. The only way out of poverty, other than luck and crime, is education.
I appreciate your desire to maintain a well stocked, well fed, arsenal of uneducated people to be exploited at will, but this is neither freedom nor democracy. Go read the over 14 pages where our founders address education.
really?
Percent of people by income who have gone to a museum in the past 12 months;
over 50,000 67.1%
under 9,999 35%
That would be almost half the usage. Unless you want to argue he literally meant not a single poor person has ever stepped foot in one the data clearly shows a far lower percentage of poor have been to a museum in the past 12 months.
In case someone wants to argue they dont have time only 35% of those that dont work at all have been either.
appears our worst schools spend almost three times as much as finland per student, what exactly are you liberals doing with all this money we give you and why do you keep demanding more? If this was healthcare you would say the government should take it over and spending