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US: Education is improving at fast pace
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Philadelphia is so broke the city is closing 23 public schools, never mind that it has the cash to build a $400 million prison.

    Construction on the penitentiary said to be "the second-most expensive state project ever" began just days after the Pennsylvania School Reform. Facing a $304 million debt, the Commission instead approved a measly $2.4 billion budget that would shut down 23 public schools, wiping out roughly 10% of the city's total.

    But it's not like Pennsylvania does not have the money to fill the debt. Rather, PA's GOP-controlled Houseof Representatives recently passed a tax break for corporations that will cost the state an estimated $600 million to $800 million annually.

    Via: http://www.alternet.org/education/philly-closes-23-public-schools-generously-builds-400-million-prison-where-kids-can-hang

  • 9 Replies sorted by
  • firstbasefirstbase

    IMHO, out of a $3.75 billion annual budget, the city's nearly 20% real unemployment rate, graft and union deals are the culprits. Blaming the risk-takers in the private sector rings hollow to me.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Blaming the risk-takers in the private sector rings hollow to me.

    Sorry, blaming who? Corporations are risk takers?

  • johnnymossvillejohnnymossville

    @Vitaliy_Kiselev Many Corporations have 1-10 employees. In fact I would say a majority of corporations are small businesses. These people ARE risk takers and they would benefit from this.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Many Corporations have 1-10 employees. In fact I would say a majority of corporations are small businesses.

    OK, lets in this case look at the exact tax break proposals and exact corporations income distribution.

  • firstbasefirstbase

    Private sector entrepreneurs/job creators/businesses are the engines that drive both micro and macro economies. Government at its best is a vehicle to provide infrastructure and basic necessities for the public good. Government at its worst is an insatiable and ever-expanding behemoth bent on self-perpetuation that inefficiently and unfairly redistributes private assets to further its own longevity and political agenda. I'm afraid we have government at its worst.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Private sector entrepreneurs/job creators/businesses are the engines that drive both micro and macro economies.

    It is principles of Austrian school :-) Btw, worstening of most people lifes will be made exactly with this words.

  • jrdjrd

    @firstbase

    IMHO, out of a $3.75 billion annual budget, the city's nearly 20% real unemployment rate, graft and union deals are the culprits.

    There's no doubt high unemployment increases state budgets, but as if for the other claims, why make such an accusation if, by your own admission ("IMHO") it's merely an opinion?

    Do you have any facts to support your assertion? And in what way is "graft" to be distinguished from corporate tax breaks and sweetheart deals between the state and private companies?

  • firstbasefirstbase

    I don't pretend to have all the answers from my vantage point. I just generally believe that individual freedom and the general principle of keeping that vast majority of what we earn as individuals trumps the incentive-killing principles of the redistributionist collective where those who produce surrender and those who sit collect. These beliefs probably stem from my childhood experience when our 200-acre family farm was essentially confiscated through eminent domain. Confiscatory capital gains taxes forced us to auction off the remainder of our property. We ended up in a trailer park. That is no joke.

  • jrdjrd

    @firstbase

    Well, to repeat myself, do you have any evidence that "redistributionist collective" (not that we have thing remotely approaching it in the U.S.) is really "incentive-killing"?

    I ask, because there's a small literature on that subject -- economists (or voodoo priests, if you prefer) trying to determine the "ideal" tax rate which provides the highest social benefit but doesn't sap personal initiative. Based at least on studies done to date, the U.S. is nowhere near the ideal -- taxes on high wealth are much too low, which is also a form of redistribution, because of the enormous taxpayer resources devoted to protecting private wealth and providing business-specific services. In effect, these people are getting a free ride, paid for by the middle-class. Low-wages, accompanying the decline of unions and tax breaks for relocating overseas, is another form of upward redistribution.

    As for "individual freedom", I'm all for it too, except that in the world of U.S. politics, the proponents of low taxes and no regulation don't seem to have much use for the Bill of Rights, as we see now with Edward Snowden -- the so-called "conservatives" who claim to hate government are the loudest crying "treason" and want to lock him up for life, just for letting us know what the government is doing.

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