Meet Obama's New Chief of Staff: Rahm Emmanuel

[steven787]

Jackson50 said:

steven787 said:
So allowing the government to select certain companies to get rich off of government money... There's a word for that ideology, I forget what it is.

If government programs are socialism, what is it called when the government selects certain companies to provide those services?

I understand it is a difficult concept for some people to understand. The government does not select who receives the money. The parents make the selection based off the needs of the family. I liken it to food stamps-the government is providing the money, but the consumer is the one choosing where the money is spent. 

 

You are right, someone doesn't understand.  You are the independent-ish libertarian-ish one, you should see the big glairing flaw in your reasoning.

If the government creates even one restriction on what school or type of education  they fund, then they are selecting who to give the money to.  If they don't then there will be horrible abuse as schools will entice parents with kickbacks, ideological,religous, or attractive teaching methods that may or may not be effective.

It's a lose-lose scenario.

There's also a key difference between food stamps and this program.  Food stamps goto the poor, this would go to people who are able to use it.

Who would be more likely to send their kids to the school of their choice? A wealthier parent who can pay the difference and provide transportation to the private school or the poor parent who takes the bus to work or leaves too early or too late to provide transportation?  A parent in the suburbs would be more likely to use it than a parent in poor urban (real estate and staffing problems for private schools) or rural areas (distance and staffing problems).

Of course the wealthier parent would take better advantage of it.  This is another Psuedo-libertarian/psuedo-conservative plan for the government to provide welfare to people who don't need it.

A true conservative would want to manage public education, keeping it mostly the same and find ways to improve it with out spending more money.  Their conservative nature would also want a program that is applied equally across race, income, and gender.