(06-14-2019 11:07 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote: (06-14-2019 08:49 PM)georgewebb Wrote: (06-14-2019 02:58 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote: (06-14-2019 02:17 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote: (06-14-2019 11:47 AM)Rice93 Wrote: Total agreement there.
I’m better than both of you. I take care of my physically and mentally challenged sister to the tune of $60K a year, plus I drive her to all her appointments, manage her affairs. Because I can afford to do this, at least for now, the left thinks I don’t deserve/need my money and it should be taken from me and used to make somebody more equal. Somebody not me and not my sister.
But I get a $200credit on my taxes for my efforts. Tax break for the rich, I think it is called.
The left likely thinks that you shouldn't have to pay $60k per year to provide adequate care for your sister and that someone with physical and mental handicaps should have publicly funded healthcare caring for them.
What makes you think he is paying for merely "adequate" care?
Elsewhere you argued that allowing a person to use public funds to obtain education of their own choice is terrible.* Is it also terrible to use public funds to obtain health care of one's own choice?
*To be clear, school choice seems to be considered terrible only at the elementary or secondary level -- i.e. if it addresses the fundamental needs of poor people. If it's COLLEGE education (the staple of the middle and upper classes), then using public funds to help students go to the school of their choice is considered wonderful.
I guess I should have said “up to $60k” to make it clear that the point is that progressives’ positions would be that someone would not need to pay out of pocket for care, that one would only pay out of pocket if they wanted to do so (just like how someone should be able to pay for private school should they want to send their child their).
"Not needing to pay for care" is pretty open-ended: do you mean any care at all? Or just what someone (who??) considers "adequate"? And again, how do you know what level of care Optimistic is getting, or hoping to get?
(06-14-2019 11:07 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote: I also did not say that allowing a person to use public funds to obtain an education of choice was terrible - can you point me to that post where I provided such an emphatic response to using public funds to obtain an education of their choice?
Well, you didn't use the word "terrible". characterized such a use as "siphoning" and stated pretty clearly that "siphoning the funding away from the public school systems to the other ones undermines the ability to achieve those outcomes."
You did indicate a willingness to allow people to choose "charter" schools, apparently as long as they are government-owned and government-staffed. But that is as far as you would go in allowing people to use public funds for education of their choice -- which is a fairly constrained view of "choice". It's not quite equivalent to "You can have any color you want as long as it's black", but it is about like saying "You can have any model you want as long at it comes from this store".
Rice93 was less doctrinaire, saying that "If public support of private schools can be proven to achieve better results than public-only then I would support this." But then, he's not really a "progressive". :)
(06-14-2019 11:07 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote: ... don’t let that get in your way of trying to denigrate me.
For Pete's sake, I didn't denigrate you. I argued with you.
(06-14-2019 11:07 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote: And we actually haven’t discussed higher education on this board, so you’re drawing conclusions about my thoughts on higher education funding.
I didn't draw any conclusions about your particular thoughts. It is possible that you are entirely consistent on school vouchers: you may think they are a harmful "siphoning" at any level -- elementary, secondary AND college.
But most Democrats seem to think otherwise: that vouchers are harmful for elementary and secondary school students, but (under the name Pell Grants, or loan forgiveness, or other names) are awesome for college students.
I'm not sure why they have this dichotomy, other than the fact that the noisiest Democrats seem to be patrons of private or elite public schools and thus have no personal concern about elementary/secondary education, but are deathly anxious to get free college.
More generally, it seems that a lot of political positions on education are starkly dichotomous between pre-college and college: what types of taxes should be used for funding; whether faculty should have subject-matter knowledge; whether the faculty should be a "closed shop"; whether consumers should contribute anything to the cost; whether governing bodies should be politically insulated or politically accountable; even something as basic as whether faculty can choose their own textbooks. I'm not sure why. Yes, pre-adult and adult education are different, but they are (or should be) a continuum, which should include not just college but also vocational education.
As I mentioned earlier, I know several leftists who have tried to shame other parents for sending their kids to private elementary or high schools, but I have never known a leftist who tried to shame a parent for sending their kid to the Ivy League instead of Texas A&M. If anything, the reverse: some would have no reluctance to express disdain for a family that chose A&M over the Ivies. Nor have I heard anyone argue that obtaining a grant or loan to go to Rice or Trinity improperly "siphons" money away from A&M and UH.