Tax-Happy Parents Blow a Valentine’s Day Kiss to Government
by Lawrence Reed on Monday, February 14, 2011 at 8:54am
(Lawrence W. Reed is president of the Foundation for Economic Education--www.fee.org--in Irvington, New York and Atlanta, Georgia.)
Half the time I read an article in the mainstream press, I’m compelled to translate itbut not from a foreign language into English. Simply converting it from nonsense to pig Latin with a little logic would be a vast improvement.
Example: This morning’s Wall Street Journal (February 14, 2011, page A-3) carries an article by Stephanie Simon entitled, “Tax Complaint: Too Low.” The sub-head reads, “Parents in School District Hit by Cuts Want to Pay More, but State Won’t Allow It.” It’s all about a couple of mothers in the Shawnee Mission School District in Kansas. They’re unhappy that a statewide cap on property taxes prevents their rather wealthy district from placing a proposal for higher local taxes on the ballot. According to the story, they’ve filed a civil-rights suit in federal court, “claiming Kansas has denied them the fundamental right to use their property as they see fit, including paying higher taxes on it for better schools.”
One of the mothers says that if citizens want to “go above and beyond” what current law allows the government schools to spend, “they ought to be able to do that. Don’t tie our hands behind our back.”
The assumptions here reek of collectivist nonsense. Is this really a case of individuals being denied the right to use their own property peacefully as they wish? Hardly. Nothing stops these two mothersor anyone else who might agree with themfrom donating to the government schools all the cash and services their little hearts desire. What they are complaining about is that current law prevents them from stealing property from other peopleparents and non-parents alike, including those who might feel they already pay enough and would vote no if they could.
These mothers would like to rustle up a posse of 50 percent-plus-one for the purpose of looting the other 50 percent-minus-one and they’re mad that the sheriff says they can’t. Instead of self-righteously parading as “friends of the kids,” they ought to hang their heads in shame or get off their butts and call a bake sale.
This is not only a commentary on the character of two tax-happy mothers; it is also a statement about government provision of schooling. Imagine all the ways in which we utilize the private sector for the purposes of education: private schools, home schools, the Internet, books, magazines, field trips, television, computers, ad infinitum. Does any one of the myriad providers of such things ever tell his customers, “Stop buying from me. I don’t want you to spend another dime no matter how much you like my product.” Of course not. What kind of lunatic arrangement would do such a thing? Answer: Only a politicized one whose funding rests upon force, not consent.
It turns out that what motivates the State of Kansas (prodded by activist courts) is not sympathy for the taxpayer. Its cap on local property taxes is motivated by an egalitarian impulsethe notion that one district might spend more than another for its government schools. A bureaucrat for the Kansas City Public Schools (what do you want to bet that he’s vastly overpaid?) is quoted in the Journal article this way: “We do not want a situation where the quality of a student’s education depends on his zip code.” That might allow for one district to “poach” the best teachers from another district!
Can you imagine such a horrible thing as a valuable teacher having the opportunity to go where her services would leave her better off? Oh my, the things these bureaucrats have to worry about!
If experience plus untold billions of wasted dollars over the decades should teach us anything, it is this: The mass of expensive and perverse incentives that unionized and politicized government schools represents is not reformable. Its problems are inherent, systemic and institutionalized. None of us would want our own businesses or those we patronize to operate the way government schools do. For the sake of the children, let’s have the courage to scrap them as we would scrap a failing collective farm. Now!
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