Education is a service like any other, the whole reason it's overpiced and of poor quality is because it is funded by forcible appropriations, whereas a private servicer has to convince a buyer of value, either by displaying their higher quality or lower price relative to competing servicers. Moreover, if you cut government education, it puts money that otherwise would have been taken from parents through taxation back into their pockets, at which point they can buy the service directly. Even if you thought it was moral to redistribute money downward to families who had way more kids than they could afford and are poor BECAUSE of that choice, and don't mind staying there BECAUSE you subsidize them the poorer they get, it would still be far better to have a voucher system where the money is divied out to the consumer rather than to the producer. That way, the provider is actually incentivized to work harder, now having to convince others to voluntarily relinquish their money to them and not someone else.
Second, why are you bringing up things like law enforcement when other states are perfectly capable of offering the same thing without being buried under insane amounts of debt? You obviously haven't done much research on California, that state has all kinds of wasteful spending and boards and committees up the wazoo. There are a ton of things they could cut before touching the police.
The problem with little games like this is that it can't reflect the basic dynamic of taxes: the amount against which a tax rate is administered changes based on the rate, because high taxes makes people flee to other states or sit on their wealth where they will completely avoid it. Non-participation and exodus both get you nothing on a high tax rate, because 20% on nothing is less than 1% on many people and transactions. Duh. You have to be a complete moron to think that all you need to do is "raise the tax rate" and bam, there's your revenue. But I suppose I just described the majority of America.
Facebook
Twitter