Education: Pay for what you use
Posted: March 8th, 2006 by R. Lee WrightsAuthor: R. Lee Wrights
Should individuals be forced to pay for something, to pay for anything, that they have no use for? Would you expect to receive a bill from say, the gas company, if you did not use natural gas in your home? Would you pay an invoice from an appliance store where you had never made a purchase in your life? Why would you pay a milkman who never delivered any milk? Would it help to be told that you are being charged for all these things because you must be forced to contribute “your fair share” for the benefit of everyone that does use those goods and services? Your fair share? What is fair about forcing people to pay for things they do not need and will never use?
There is nothing fair about forcing people to pay for things they do not use, of course. Hence is the problem with every universal social program that has ever been concocted by human beings, to which education is no exception. Any social program that is applied to all taxpayers, by design, forces some people to pay for some things they will not use. It does not take a genius to figure out, that is just plain wrong.
How do I know it doesn’t take a genius to come such a simple realization? Well, because some Canadian politicians have apparently come to realize that it is wrong to charge people for things they do not use, particularly public education. And, I am of the opinion that if politicians of any stripe can figure it out, surely anyone can. The good news is, if you are a senior citizen living in Ontario you get a reimbursement on your property taxes for the schools you are not using. I hope someone in the States is paying attention.
It all started in May of 2003 when Janet Ecker, Ontario’s Minister of Finance, introduced the “Ontario Home Property Tax Relief for Seniors Act.” It proposed a new program that provided senior homeowners and renters a refund for a portion of the property tax on their principal residences. The refund is expressly for the “education portion” of their tax bills. In other words, Ontario does not make its senior citizens pay for schools they are not using. It looks like Ontario’s government is at least trying to be fair with some of its taxpayers and I certainly applaud the effort.
Under Minister Ecker’s “Ontario Home Property Tax Relief for Seniors Act” it is estimated that seniors will see savings on their taxes of 450 million dollars annually. That works out to about $475 in annual savings for each of Ontario’s 945,000 senior households. It may not seem like very much, but I bet it means a lot to those almost one million taxpayers getting the tax break they desperately need and rightfully deserve.
Now, I can hear the critics screaming already about the government’s loss of 450 million dollars in revenue for education, and how it must surely adversely affect the quality of education the children are receiving. Well, it is not really such a big deal according to Ontario’s own Ministry of Finance website which had this to say about property-tax relief:
“Providing property tax relief for seniors in no way diminishes the government’s commitment to public education, which is based on a student-focussed (sic) funding model. With the enhancements announced in the 2003 Budget, education funding for the upcoming 2003-04 school year, including direct provincial transfers and education property taxes, stands at a record $15.3 billion — the highest level of education funding in Ontario’s history, which represents a $2.4 billion increase since 1995.”
So you see, the government, nor the children, are really hurting at all from doing the right thing for taxpayers that already carry way too much of the burden created by the beast Bureaucracy.
Now, how about taking this exercise in fairness one-step further.
As I said, I applaud Ontario’s government in realizing an unjust taxation when they see it; and, for moving in the right direction to address a flaw in the system. But, if government is showing this kind of understanding toward the elderly, how much harder would it be to recognize all the other unfortunate victims of an unfair tax? If Ontario’s government is to be criticized at all in its efforts to reform taxes for education, it is only that they haven’t gone far enough. Many individuals are unjustly taxed every year to help pay for public school systems they do not need or use, and they need to be recognized right along with the elderly.
Who are these forgotten individuals who are forced to pay for government schools they are not using, you ask? First and foremost are the single taxpayers that do not have dependent children. Some, of course, will meet other singles, marry and have children, but many of them will never have children and never need a public school system. It is simply unfair, as it is with the senior citizens, to force these individuals to pay for a service they never use. One cannot claim someone else has a fair share of anything in which they do not share.
Even individuals that do have children must be considered on an individual basis in order to continue our exercise in fairness. How about the parents that choose not to send their precious offspring to government-controlled schools, but instead choose to send them to private institutions? And what about the parents that have decided to educate their own children at home? We can’t forget any parent that has chosen alternatives to public schools because they just don’t use the system. Why should any of these people be forced to pay for services that are not being provided for them? Don’t they deserve a tax break too? Well, of course they do!
The answer is really quite simple. Individuals should not be forced to pay for anything they are not using, so only make people pay for what they use. If parents chose to take advantage of state-run schools, then they certainly should be expected to pay the government for the service. But, if individuals are not using a public education system, they should not be forced to pay for one.
Simple! Pay for what you use. Why should education be different from any other commodity on the free market? Only those that actually use a product should be expected to pay for it, even if the product happens to be education.
Editor’s note: Special thanks to Marilyn Callaghan for research assistance in preparation for this article.
March 14th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
While I agree with the notion that people should not pay for what they don’t use. I’m not sure that we can correctly state that seniors and various people without kids can state they do not benefit from education of others. Society as a whole hbenefits in numerous ways because of dollars spent on education. Various studies have shown that educating a person has the highest return on investment compared to other approaches. When a Senior buys a new car or gets that car fixed, he or she uses someone who received an education. When a vacationing childless couple on the ski resorts gets on that detachable quad lift, they benefit from the education of an engineer. Perhaps some of their tax dollars supported the scholarships and loans used to help with the engineer’s education.
Now let’s look at the flip side of the coin. If we take the arguement of this article to it’s logical conclusion, then only those who actually have a child of school age should pay for it. Let’s just say a couple with three children needs to pay for their children through college. Many states pay around $2,000 per year per child. The state of New York pays greater than $8,000 per year per child. Let’s take the middle ground of $4,000 per year per child for K-12th grade. So 13 years multiplied by $4,000 multiplied by 3 equals $156,000. Now let’s put each of them through college at an assumed rate of $25,000 per year per child with no government support. That comes to $300,000. The grand total for this education these kids need to be a value-add to society is roughly $456,000 or $152,00 per child.
Next we must remember that kids start their education when the parents are still young and do not make the their peak in salary. Do 29 year old parents make enough to support their kids starting school? What choices do we give these parents? Perhaps we should incent them to not have kids……………………………………except that the next generation would not have enough people to support a very old generation of seniors. Who’s going to fix car when it breaks? Who’s going to create the software you use to check on your insurance claims?
Here’s the bottom line, if we accept that education of all kids provides great value to us as a society, then we must accept part of the burden for their education. We should not look purely at our own lives while we drink our grande lattes and pontificate on how smart we are to force those dim-witted people who have kids to pay for anything to do with their mistake to have a child. The long term will prove just how short-sighted that approach is.
October 14th, 2006 at 10:21 am
I have no children. I never attended public schools. I should not have to pay to send other peoples children to school.
October 27th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
I am in the process of having my son tested for ADHD. The teachers keep telling me that he has all of the signs. They have told me that he does not belong in the school environment, that he should be on medication. (That’s another whole story). I am not so sure. But one thing I do know is that I feel lthat I have no choice now but to homeschool my child. I sure don’t think it fair to be forced to pay taxes for Education when he won’t be at a Government operated school. No way!
March 10th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
I have no children. have been paying school taxes for 27 years. its getting close to 4000.00 per year. Maybe we all benefit from education, but how about a discount. New york has the star program but have never seen a decrease they just raise the taxes higher every year.
September 18th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Zane
I have a directly relevant article, if you are interested in posting it here let me know.
November 6th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
People without children also benefit society buy conserving resources. One less person for your child to compete with. Less competition for jobs, food etc. The child you have will be compensated with a paycheck for any work he may pursue. In an overcrowded world I have done you as much a favor as you think you may have done me. Another point. If a person is home schooled or has gone to a private school do I compensate him for that education?Public education is also a plank of the communist manifesto. Karl Marx would be proud.
March 14th, 2008 at 1:22 am
but isnt it better if we all pay taxes for the future generations?
or did we gain absolutely nothing from our ancestors’ hard work?
May 6th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
At some point you shouldn’t have to pay for schools anymore. I was in private school and then had to attend public schools,”they sucked” in comparison. At 46 with no childeren for what little I received from our poor education system, district 156 in Mchenry IL, I do not think I should give them a dime anymore.
We all would be better served to pull the plug and go to small private or home schooling using internet courses. Kids could learn at their own speed, progress at what their good at, and be tested every so often to confirm learned requirements. Really smart students today are often boured and restricted in public schools; or wourse they are tossed out or drugged.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
At some point you shouldn’t have to pay for schools anymore. I was in private school and then had to attend public schools,”they sucked” in comparison. At 46 with no children for what little I received from our poor education system, district 156 in Mchenry IL, I do not think I should give them a dime anymore.
We all would be better served to pull the plug and go to small private or home schooling using internet courses. Kids could learn at their own speed, progress at what their good at, and be tested every so often to confirm learned requirements. Really smart students today are often bored and restricted in public schools; or worse they are tossed out or drugged.
June 22nd, 2008 at 8:53 am
I just happened to google this topic and low and behold…here it is…I too have always felt why should I pay for public schools, when my own (one) child attended private school, and I had to also pay for that. I realize that was ultimately my own choice not to take advantage of public schools…but I have always wondered why I should pay for public schools in taxes, esp. for those that still to this day, want to overpopulate the world and have litters of chldren, at taxpayers expense. They must continually build more and more schools, and raise the tax dollars every year. Then we also have to supply after school care for those that work and just produce children, because, they can…and leave it up to someone else to take care of them, because they truly cannot afford to have that many children. Then their is the school zone traffic cops needed, the revenue of tickets for going 2 miles over the speed limit in those zones..the crimes these “children” are now committing both in and out of school…I am over all of it. I say, you have children, you pay according to how many children you desire to bring into this world…the more kids you produce, the more tax dollars you shell out…and leave the rest of us out of it…even if we did have children, but they are now grown and have kids of their own….we paid our dues, now we need a break because we no longer need the school system….we are done needing it….thanks for your time.
June 22nd, 2008 at 8:54 am
I just happened to google this topic and low and behold…here it is…I too have always felt why should I pay for public schools, when my own (one) child attended private school, and I had to also pay for that. I realize that was ultimately my own choice not to take advantage of public schools…but I have always wondered why I should pay for public schools in taxes, esp. for those that still to this day, want to overpopulate the world and have litters of chldren, at taxpayers expense. They must continually build more and more schools, and raise the tax dollars every year. Then we also have to supply after school care for those that work and just produce children, because, they can…and leave it up to someone else to take care of them, because they truly cannot afford to have that many children. Then their is the school zone traffic cops needed, the revenue of tickets for going 2 miles over the speed limit in those zones..the crimes these “children” are now committing both in and out of school…I am over all of it. I say, you have children, you pay according to how many children you desire to bring into this world…the more kids you produce, the more tax dollars you shell out…and leave the rest of us out of it…even if we did have children, but they are now grown and have kids of their own….we paid our dues, now we need a break because we no longer need the school system….we are done needing it….thanks for your time.
June 29th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
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