Deadbeat Parents

[alphamale]

I pay thousands of dollars in property taxes every year. I live in one of the lowest crime rate areas of the country - so the police, etc, budget is low. Other things that are city services elsewhere, like trash pickup, are paid directly by homeowners. So about 80% of the taxes goes to government schools. Almost everyone here is in the middle class and up. The question: why should I have to pay the education bills of middle class parents? I have as much business doing that as they do paying for my ski vacation.

[Adam]

Ya know, it's certainly a shame that you don't have any time to respond to any of the substantive replies to your dozens of other threads, like you told livius.

[Ari]

Look around at the current US, no one is paying for "education"

Although I know your just a sock jock I would say money being wasted on education isn't your biggest concern. You should ask yourself why should you be paying for the vacations of politicians that don't earn what they make anyway. Like here in California our do nothing legislature that has helped get the state in-debt and who most people have lost confidence in has just voted themselves a pay raise because apparently they feel like they are doing such a good job they deserve to help themselves to more tax payer money.

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by Adam

Ya know, it's certainly a shame that you don't have any time to respond to any of the substantive replies to your dozens of other threads, like you told livius.

Uh, you seem to be lost. Why not go back to the home page and navigate down? Good luck! ( )

[Adam]

Originally Posted by alphamale

Uh, you seem to be lost. Why not go back to the home page and navigate down? Good luck! ( )

Hmmm...still wasting time here instead of responding to all those evil liberals you could be stomping into the ground with your superior non-rotted-by-pee-see-appeaement intellect. Get on with it!

[Crumb]

I believe that all people benefit from a well educated populace.

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by Crumb

I believe that all people benefit from a well educated populace.

Society benefits from everyone having shoes, dinner, and recreation to relieve stress. It doesn't follow that government should tax people to pay for these items for the middle class - nor for education.

[ms_ann_thrope]

Originally Posted by Crumb

I believe that all people benefit from a well educated populace.

Pipe down, you brainwashed liberal pussy!

Actually, a well-educated populace is probably NOT to the personal advantage or benefit of alphatroll and his ilk. The rest of humanity, yes.

[Adora]

Originally Posted by alphamale

Almost everyone here is in the middle class and up. The question: why should I have to pay the education bills of middle class parents?

Because then their children won't be breaking into your house and stealing your cash you would otherwise use to pay for your ski vacation, and the police budget will consequently remain low as well, and then will be able to get better paying jobs so they don't grow up and go on welfare, which you would then bitch about even more. Think of it as a pay-off for you being such and arsehole, a bit like community service. I bet if you asked nicely, they'd even give you an orange jumpsuit.

[alphamale]

Actually, a well-educated populace is probably NOT to the personal advantage or benefit of alphatroll and his ilk. The rest of humanity, yes.

Because you're a dumb cunt with reading problems, you didn't see that the issue was who should pay, not whether people should be educated. Whattaya say you take your dumb-cunt puff balls and go to the playground?

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by Adora

Because then their children won't be breaking into your house and stealing your cash you would otherwise use to pay for your ski vacation, and the police budget will consequently remain low as well, and then will be able to get better paying jobs so they don't grow up and go on welfare, which you would then bitch about even more. Think of it as a pay-off for you being such and arsehole, a bit like community service. I bet if you asked nicely, they'd even give you an orange jumpsuit.

Are all the women here dumb shits? They should take THEIR money and pay for THEIR education bills. Get it yet?

[seebs]

Originally Posted by alphamale

I pay thousands of dollars in property taxes every year. I live in one of the lowest crime rate areas of the country - so the police, etc, budget is low. Other things that are city services elsewhere, like trash pickup, are paid directly by homeowners. So about 80% of the taxes goes to government schools. Almost everyone here is in the middle class and up. The question: why should I have to pay the education bills of middle class parents? I have as much business doing that as they do paying for my ski vacation.

Before I answer this (and I think I can), lemme ask you something:

Do you really want to know? Have you given the matter any thought? What do you think the role of government is? How do you feel we determine whether a given use of government funding is a reasonable one?

[ms_ann_thrope]

Originally Posted by alphamale

Because you're a dumb cunt with reading problems, you didn't see that the issue was who should pay, not whether people should be educated. Whattaya say you take your dumb-cunt puff balls and go to the playground?

I guess you do not understand the idea that since you as a member of the community are deriving a benefit from the existence of public education that you should help pay for it, regardless of whether you yourself have a child?

But OK, back to your "substantive" OP then, champ. Do you drive on roads in Rancho Santa Margarita? Are there public parks there? Electricity for streetlights? A mayor? Any critical infrastructure? I thought so! For better or worse, communities are "in it" together, alphamale. Neither you nor anyone else can or should be allowed to directly cherrypick what you will and won't help pay for via your property taxes. There's probably someone down the street from you who doesn't drive and thinks it's really raw that his tax dollars help maintain the asphalt under the wheels of your car. That's life. Surely you can appreciate that if taxpayers had line item control over what their taxes pay for, municipal operations of every type would cease to function. You do have some voice into how your taxes are spent via your participation in elections and ballot initiatives.

If you really feel like you're being screwed, get someone knocked up and start availing yourself of the system. Have a whole litter so that you really optimize the return on your investment!

And please, let's not talk about my cunt puff balls here in mixed company. I'm taking the medicine as prescribed and I think the condition is improving, but I'm still a bit modest about the whole experience.

[Plant Woman]

What I want to know is why my tax dollars pays for viagra via medicare, so old men can get it up?

Now back to being serious. Ms. Ann I haven't looked for stats, but isn't investing in our children an investment for a better future for all?

[ms_ann_thrope]

Originally Posted by Debbie T

What I want to know is why my tax dollars pays for viagra via medicare, so old men can get it up?

Now back to being serious. Ms. Ann I haven't looked for stats, but isn't investing in our children an investment for a better future for all?

Well, that's the opinion shared in this thread by myself, Crumb, and Adora, but we're deluded or something. alphamale made clear in his eloquent post to me that he is not arguing that people should be not educated; rather, he is questioning why this occurs with the use of his dime, which is apparently especially vexing for him since he lives in a middle-class enclave where all parents should presumably be able to pay for their children's education without any contribution from his property taxes. "Sharing the costs of living in a civilized society" seems to be an alien concept for him.

[Carnivale Ed]

Originally Posted by alphamale

I pay thousands of dollars in property taxes every year. I live in one of the lowest crime rate areas of the country - so the police, etc, budget is low. Other things that are city services elsewhere, like trash pickup, are paid directly by homeowners.

Quite seriously, if you're paying for other people's children to be educated, I think it's only fair that your trash be picked up for free. Why isn't it?

[Odysseus]

Surely you agree that education is a fundamental right for children?

Im not sure how it works in America but in this country Education is mostly state funded. I went to a private school but my parents tax is not less, in fact it is probably more because those who earn good salaries are taxed more. I do not mind because i see the role of the state as having to provide for the more vulnerable members of society. This includes Children of, as you eloquently say "Deadbeat Parents". Would you prefer that these children turned into more deadbeat members of society. Would you also prefer to go back to the days where only those of noble blood were allowed into university?

If you were complaining about helathcare for drug addicts, then maybe you have a point. However children cannot provide for themselves so someone else has to.

How would you feel if the Government was full of the upper classes?

[beyelzu]

Originally Posted by alphamale

Society benefits from everyone having shoes, dinner, and recreation to relieve stress. It doesn't follow that government should tax people to pay for these items for the middle class - nor for education.

i disagree, a republic does not function well when its electorate is poorly educated. there is a societal need for education. not so for shoes or recreation.

[Odysseus]

Originally Posted by beyelzu

i disagree, a republic does not function well when its electorate is poorly educated. there is a societal need for education. not so for shoes or recreation.

Thats correct. A democracy, in order to be said to be a true democracy relies on the electorate to be able to make objective choices when voting. for that to be the case education is required, otherwise it is possible that media alone may influence voting.

[D. Scarlatti]

Originally Posted by Odysseus

Surely you agree that education is a fundamental right for children?

"Fundamental right" is something of a loaded term in this country, since it suggests a constitutional right. There isn't any direct mention of education in the federal Constitution, and what you would call a conservative in this country would argue until they were blue in the face that not only is there no fundamental right to an education in the Constitution, but also that there was no such right at the time the country was founded.

Individual U.S. states maintain their own school systems, but there is a federal Department of Education that administers federal standards and transfers federal tax money to states tied to conformance with those standards. Many leading political conservatives have called for the abolition of the federal Department of Education. Along the nuttier outposts of conservatism there are calls to abolish public schools completely.

One of their greatest victories here in recent years has been in the federal Supreme Court, where they won the ability to use tax grants to remove children from public schools and install them in private schools, many of which are run by religious organizations. Despite the fact the Constitution generally forbids this, the Court reasoned it was allowable since the money first goes into the parents' hands who then make the choice at which private school to spend the money, so the money isn't transferred directly between the government and the church.

[Odysseus]

I see what you mean. I just think that everyone deserves an education! I must look through the constitution one day, and see exactly what it covers.

[livius drusus]

Originally Posted by alphamale

I pay thousands of dollars in property taxes every year. I live in one of the lowest crime rate areas of the country - so the police, etc, budget is low. Other things that are city services elsewhere, like trash pickup, are paid directly by homeowners. So about 80% of the taxes goes to government schools. Almost everyone here is in the middle class and up. The question: why should I have to pay the education bills of middle class parents?

My parents are in a similar position. They live in a small town in Connecticut which used to be a farming community but has over the past couple of decades transformed (some might say devolved) into a bedroom community for people who work in Hartford.

My parents are one of a handful of property owners left from the farming days who have more than a half-acre plot, and they pay exorbitant property taxes to support the local schools. The parents are extremely demanding as well: two soccer courts, two baseball fields, the whole overachiever facility package.

It's definitely unfair, I think. My dad is retired, my mom makes less than $35,000 a year, they're living on property that has been in the family for a hundred years, they have no children besides me and I'm long past school age and we weren't even living there when I was in school, they're witnessing the demise of the local classical yankee culture in favor of strip mall/soccer mom generica, and then on top of all that they have to pay thousands of dollars a year in property taxes to educate the children of people who make 10 times the income they do.

I keep telling my (Republican) dad he should run for local government.

[Ari]

I wonder how many here had their parents pay for their entire education?

[livius drusus]

I did, but I didn't live in the US until college, so I don't know if I count.

[Shake]

Originally Posted by alphamale

Are all the women here dumb shits? They should take THEIR money and pay for THEIR education bills. Get it yet?

*reads the above* Oh no he didn't!