| rocketpig said: School is a terrible example. I've been a registered Libertarian for almost a decade but even I have to recognize when the party is flat-out wrong about something. School should be available to everyone. The greater the education level of a society, the better off everyone in that society will be. This is doubly true for our current global economy. We're no longer competing with ourselves but upstart countries like China, India, and Brazil as well. The government needs to ensure proper education for all its citizens for in the end, it will receive a return on that investment in higher wages and, ultimately, taxes. Education has a great ROI if it isn't completely bungled (don't get me started on teacher's unions and administrative problems in our K-12 system). Change "school" to "social welfare" and I'll agree almost every time. But education is different. It's an investment in the future. An investment the government needs to make. |
I agree we should provide education, but we need to change the way we provide it. Hitherto, our nation subsidizes the producers of education (schools). This is the wrong way of providing education. We need to subsidize the consumer and allow the consumer (parents and children) to choose the education they desire. Whether this is done through school vouchers or tax credits is up for debate, but subsidizing the producer is nonsense. We do this with foodstamps as opposed to government run grocery stores...so why do we not do it with something much more important?
