Larry Elder's Anti-Tax Fallacy

Today, Larry Elder was disparaging a California assemblayman's plan to raise txes on those making over $143,000 to bolster funding on education. Elder asked why money should be taken from him to pay for childrens' schooling. Why can't parents figure out how to pay for their own children's schooling? Earlier, Elder had done some rough math and said that California spends $10,000 per pupil. Even if we half that amount, there aren't too many parents who can afford $5,000 a year school tuition per child.

Larry Elder is taxed - as are the parents of school age children - so that there is a collective fund sufficient to support a system where every child is schooled. Laryy Elder is also taxed to maintain roads and a public infrastructure that he may only use a part of. No one has figured out a way for people to be taxed precisely for only those services they use and no others. So we have the current system. Typical of Elder's ahistorical perspective is the conversation he had with a caller. The caller said that an educated citizenry reduces crime. Elder replied that before the public school system, where was all the crime? We had a much more agrarian economy before the public school system. Adults could be illiterate and still find work. Not so today. Laryy Elder doesn't think he benefits from an educated public. He lives in a libertarian fantasy. It is incumbent on Larry Elder and others who agree with him to work out in detail an alternative system that meets their demands and present it for examination. Otherwise, all he's doing is tired rabblerousing.