Posted by strikeout26 on 5/8/2018 11:33:00 PM (view original):
Posted by tangplay on 5/8/2018 4:21:00 PM (view original):
1. Equalize education spending per student.
2. Require body cameras for police.
3. Change the justice system so that police are accountable (Right now people in criminal justice work with police so they are prosecuting their own co-workers. Also don't let police who commit crimes re sign with other police stations.
4. Stop the war on drugs. Don't over perscribe Opioids.
5. Take away voter ID laws.
6. Invest in prison rehabilitation.
7. Better and more public defenders.
8. Strip out individual cases of redlining.
9. Invest in local poverty solutions.
Sorry, Tang. I've been busy making money so that you can redistribute it.
Lets start with this. I have been telling you for a long time that every suggestion you have requires government intervention. You just proved my point. You just gave me 9 solutions that involve government intervention. So, what you're telling me is that you believe the government can solve all of our problems. Also, most of your solutions require more spending by the government. The government doesn't produce anything and is already $21 Trillion in debt. Where does this money come from? I know. Lets tax the top 1%. I guess 40% of their income already going to the federal government is not enough. Lets make it 60%. Just because they either worked hard or were extremely innovative, they still don't deserve to keep what they've earned. It's better to give it to perfectly healthy people without jobs.
Now, lets talk about your list:
1. I've worked in an inner city school. Funding is not an issue. The problem is that the kids don't care about education. Why do they not care? Because it is not stressed at home. If you would like to hear some of comments that I heard, let me know and I will be glad to share. Kids who take education serious in poor schools are chastised by their peers. If you really want these schools to thrive, you have to be quicker to dismiss the children with behavioral issues. The biggest problem is that teachers are not able to teach because they can't get control of their classrooms. Money can't fix that.
2. I'm okay with this. I think the majority of cops are honest, decent people who work very stressful and dangerous jobs, but I don't see any harm in this.
3. See #2.
4. Don't have any knowledge on this.
5. Stupid idea. We need an assurance that the person who is voting is who he says he is. Now, if you wanted to add pictures to voter registration cards, i'm okay with that.
6. Invest what? If you mean money, how will it help? Where will the money come from?
7. Public defenders are the lowest paid of all lawyers. Why would the better ones want to take this job?
8. Banks are in the business of making money. If they deem you a default risk, they will not lend to you. Banks do not care which race you are. If you have good credit and a stable income they will loan to you.
9. Invest what? If you mean money, prove to me that these programs work. Also, where is this money going to come from?
First off, money. Again, you have two options here.
1. Raise the top 1%'s taxes. If we raise it to 40% from 33%, we would rake in 157 billion more dollars per year. Well enough to pay for all of this and more. I will talk about costs later but this is a good way to raise funds. If we simply taxed the top 1% of the top 1% up to 40%, that would raise 55 billion. Still well enough to cover most of this. Remember, the top 1% gets 2.1 million dollars in income every year, and the top 1% of that raises 9.4 million per year. This is hardly a major increase. Instead of an average person keeping $1,407,00 of their annual revenue, they keep $1,260,000. Boo-hoo. Poor millionaires. Let's all cry for the super rich, who remain super rich. Sorry, I don't feel sorry.
2. Cut the military budget by 1/7. We currently spend 700 billion dollars on our military. More than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, UK, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Italy, Australia, Brazil, Israel, Canada, Iran, and Turkey COMBINED spend. If we cut it by 100 billion dollars, we would still be spending just as much as we did at 9/11, and would still be tripling China's spending. And we could pay for all of this.
So, yeah, we have two pretty good options here. As to your point about government, I am not a libertarian. I believe that the government exists in part to create social change and to make the welfare of the people better. I am not scared of big brother.
Anyway, on to the list.
1. Some of that is correct. I went to the poorest school in my town, which was located in the poorest part of my town, and I have experienced kids who can't get their crap together. Is the solution to give up on these kids? No. Here's the thing. We had students (like me) in that school who legitimately wanted to learn and didn't have equal opportunity to compared to kids in other schools. Some kids who wanted to learn didn't have great role models for parents, but still were good kids. To be fair, though, you are correct that parenting is a big issue.
Anyway, while other kids had state-of-the-art technology and brand new renovations in their schools, we had classes in a shed, plaster crumbling from walls, and pages missing from textbooks. While other schools got super-good enrichment classes and tons of extracurricular activities, we had one year of sub-par honors schooling and almost no field trips or extracurricular activities. The teachers were underpaid and didn't want to be there, with one outright leaving in the middle of the year and not being replaced.
There are two issues with this. The first being that students who actually wanted to learn were way behind once we got to middle school. There were almost no kids from my school doing any extracurricular activities at higher levels, and most people who should be taking honors classes dropped out of them because the lack of teaching in elementary school left them behind.
Secondly, at a psychological level, when you have classes taking place in bad conditions, THAT TELLS YOU THAT YOUR EDUCATION DOESN'T MATTER. When a teacher leaves in the middle of the year, and the school doesn't replace them, that tells a third grader that school really isn't important. Same when you have classes in a shed. You may say that you have personal control over your actions but these are fourth graders we are talking about. They aren't making super complicated calculations in their head, or defying psychology.
Anyway, funding can fix that. Studies have shown that the more funding a school receives, the better achievement their students make. So, yeah, funding is definitely an issue. In Finland, they did a plan similar to this one, and EVERYONE'S achievement went up. One last thing: Some experts have said that investing in equalizing education could be really good for the US economy. If the poor were to do as well in school as everyone else, the cost of investing in education would pay for itself in the long run.