1. Yes, there are dumb Democrats that vote against school referendums. But organized efforts to vote down school referendums are always brought by no-new-taxes Republicans. They don’t like the taxes.

2. Public schools have no competition. There is a big, fat, huge difference between public and private schools that you are glossing over. Public schools have to accept everybody. The poorest, the most handicapped (or whatever the PC word is), those without support at home. Public schools don’t get to pick and choose. Also please note that private schools are expensive! Money seems to help just fine for private schools like Blake. Who the hell says that money won’t provide for a better education, of course it does.

Do a little test. Force all private schools to accept all applicants. Then see how well they “compete”.

3. Public schools don’t need competition. Competition implies winners and losers. In markets, some do well and some close up shop. We can’t close up shop. We need schools everywhere. Failure is not an option. Competition is the wrong way to think about education. Schools are not markets. They shouldn’t be markets.

4. Being anti-teacher is just retarded. Teachers are where the rubber meets the road. It’s like being anti-doctor. Teacher’s unions are a force for good in the world. Teachers are a force for good. You’ve met these people. They are good people. Not perfect but good, way better than average. You should be ashamed to be anything but pro-teacher. You are not pro-teacher if you are anti-teacher’s union.

5. School vouchers are the dumbest idea ever put forward by Righties. Here’s an idea, I have private security company that provides security at my house. (I don’t really, but bear with me.) So I don’t need the police. Plus the police need competition, right? Let’s take $100/month out of the police budget and give it to me, in a voucher, to offset my expenses with my private security company. Isn’t that a great idea? OF COURSE NOT. If you are rich enough to afford private security you don’t need a voucher from public money. Same goes for education. The Righties lie to us and say that school vouchers allow non-rich people to send their kids to private schools, too. That is completely false. A) the vouchers aren’t nearly enough money and B) private schools can just raise their rates by the same amount to keep the status quo. Plus, as I said, private schools can deny anybody they want. They have no constitutional mandate. They are an entirely different animal.

I hope I never have to send my kids to a private school. I am the son of public school teachers and I want us, the people, to provide high-quality education to every single child, period and without exception. If people choose to send their kids to private schools, fine, I don’t care. But do it on your own dime.

Like I said at the beginning, the correct way to address any problems in the public education system is to fix them. There is no other option and taking money out of the public education system and giving it to private schools is perhaps the dumbest “solution” I have ever heard.

I heard a man on the radio a while ago now who was from the GAO. He summed up the answer to the health care problem succinctly. The government should cover preventative health care and catastrophic health care. People should be left to take care of themselves in between. This could include having no insurance or being covered by traditional health insurance.

The economics of this are obvious. Preventative health care pays for itself by reducing the cost of future care. Catastrophic situations are where you want to spread the risk out among the largest base possible.

Now of course doing this is not free even if it results in a huge savings. The amount of money spent on health care and health insurance now is enormous. Companies and families are paying tons of money into the system. There is plenty of money in the system. The problem is the Medicas and the Blue Crosses fuck it completely up in the middle. They add no value, in most cases they take value away, and they live fat off the proceeds. Everyone is hassled by the insurance companies, doctors and patients and they both get nothing in return.

We could have a government-sponsored health insurance program that let patients go to any doctor for preventative or catastrophic care. The bill is paid with taxpayer money. Well-off individuals could choose whatever additional health insurance they wanted. No one would be forced into the system.

The other great thing with this is that it takes health insurance back out of the workplace. Companies spend a lot of time and money fucking around with it. There is no reason that employers should be in the loop. Again, if companies want to add extra insurance, fine, whatever, but every employee you hire will already be covered with preventative and catastrophic insurance. That is a huge benefit to businesses.

So, yes, we gotta tax someone for it. Businesses are paying money now. Individuals are paying money now. Paying it into a national health insurance system makes more sense than paying it to Blue Cross. I think we can deliver better coverage cheaper and cover everybody.

To be crystal clear to the Righties out there, we shouldn’t socialize medicine. We should socialize health insurance. It is the fiscally conservative thing to do.