Education

Vouchers:

I would like to have a total free-market approach to education meaning the government is completely out of the education business and no regulations of schools, unfortunately I don't think that will happen in the next 20 years. Since government is going to be in the business of schools I think a school voucher of $5,000 for every child would be great for the education of Minnesota. This voucher could be used for any school which also includes homeschooling. This would make all of the public schools more productive because the majority of the parents would seek to have their children to go to the best school.

In the state of Minnesota would be spending about $13,405 million on education in the 2010-2011 biannual budget. If we had a $5,000 voucher for every student and let the individual public schools be turned into non-profit schools, the state of Minnesota would save about $4,995 million per biannual budget. That means Minnesota could eliminate the Gross Earnings Tax $564 million; Alcohol Tax $153 million; Cigarette & Tobacco Tax $369 million; Other Tax $1,415 million; and Other Revenues $1,572 million; a total of $4,073 million in tax elimination. The remaining $922 million could either pay down some of the debts that Minnesota has, or lower the Statewide property tax (which I'm in big favor of eliminating this tax). Of course if Minnesota just eliminated the whole Education system and let the free market reign in education then we could really cut taxes!

References:

http://www.mmb.state.mn.us/doc/budget/report-pie/general-july09.pdf

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/stateprofiles/sresult.asp?mode=short&s1=27

Ideas from the Jason Lewis Show http://www.jasonlewisshow.com/

Taxing the Rich to Help the Poor

Is it Moral?

Is it right for a society to tax the rich and give to the poor? I think not. Why, because if a society tax from the rich and give it to the poor it is like stealing money? Think about it, if a robber goes to a bank and steal money of course it is wrong and the robber will go to jail if he gets caught. Instead being a bank robber he votes for a politician that will tax the rich so he can get money for free, is that wrong also? The second example is the easiest to do because every two to four years the entitlement class could just vote for a politician that will give them money and benefits. This cycle keeps going on and on until the rich starts moving away or stop working. Then the entitlement class will suffer because less rich people will be around to feed their unproductive lives. This is why I'm not too fond of taxes and giving it to the poor. As governments raise taxes then people will not invest/spend as much and sometimes leave all together to a different state or country.

Fair Share

Is the rich really paying their fair share?

How much is the rich paying? The list below will help to illustrate.

The top 1% pays 38.02% of the total income tax shares

The top 5% pays 58.72% of the total income tax shares

The top 10% pays 69.94% of the total income tax shares

The top 25% pays 86.34% of the total income tax shares

The top 50% pays 97.30% of the total income tax shares

This is shocking the bottom 50% pays only 2.70% of taxes

Now of course the rich will always ending up paying more but I can't stand it when people whine that the rich isn't paying their fair share. According to the Tax Foundation that uses IRS data the rich is paying well above their fair share.

Pre-1930s

Some groups of people say we need to tax the rich so that we can help the poor and elderly. Forcing groups of individuals to help the poor and elderly is not really helping because the poor will not be productive in society because why would they want to work if they can sit in front of the TV all day and eat chips and receive money for being poor. The only people that deserve to live that way are the ones who made it from poverty to wealth. I'm not saying people don't have the right not to be productive but don't do it on the backs of the rich. Before the the whole government welfare came about in the 1930s, their were groups that were private welfare programs and private unemployment insurance. The poor of our nation use to rely on private welfare programs, private unemployment insurance, churches, and many other organizations.

Ripple Effect

Another thing about taxing the rich. Has anybody in this nation have been hired by a poor person? No, the poor are employed by richer people. Those richer people are hired by the rich (millionaires and billionaires). The more billionaires there are the more millionaires there are and the richer the nation becomes. Billionaires invest their money into companies that are controlled by millionaires which employs the middle class. Some people of the middle class will start businesses that will hire the lower class, like local restaurant owners, gas station owners and many other small businesses. I my self am part of the lower class of society and I do lawn care for people. They of course have enough money left over to be able to pay for my services. If we tax those who have money then I'm out of lawn service jobs or a reduced number of them.

Could Government take that money and just give it to the needy of society and still have a thriving economy? No, why would the rich do work at all if they are being taxed too much. The rich are rich so they could use their resources to live off of for the rest of their lives. The lower class will also be unproductive because why would a lower class citizen work if they can get stuff for free.

Note that I'm not saying all people of the lower class are unproductive but when people are giving the option of either working hard or vote to not to work hard then typically people will do the simple voting for a candidate that will give them stuff. Also I'm not saying that all the people who receives benefits from government aren't all the entitlement class. Entitlement class consist of people who don't want to work hard but want to live a good life on the backs of the rich.

Summary

Taxing the rich to give to the lower class, the poor and needy isn't going to solve the problem. What will solve the problem is unleashing the private sector to create companies with little government interference so that the lower class and poor will work productively and the truly needy will be helped by churches and non-profit organizations.

References:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/ff249.pdf (table 6)

http://www.jasonlewisshow.com/main.html

Fire Department

Why should the Fire Department be privatized? For one thing it would reduce the liability of the city. If I was mayor of city X, I would go about privatization of the fire department in such a way that the fire-fighters would have some kind of ownership in the Fire Department Company. The fire department company would be on its own without support from the city.

Now how would the Fire Department make money, they would charge a monthly fee for each property to protect from fires. Say there is a fire at your property the Fire Department would go out and do what the fire department typically dose take out the fires of the property. The Fire Department can charge a fee of $5 per square feet per year. For simplistic sake lets say you have a property of 1,000 square feet. That would be $5,000 a year/12 months which equal about $417 a month. This of course is a very simplistic, in real life it may be a lot lower than $5 per square feet. This would apply to the property owners. Now if somebody doesn't want to take the fire department insurance then they will run the risk of losing all the property they own if it caught on fire.

What about apartment complexes? The property owner would have some liability if there is a fire in an apartment. The apartment complex can say to the people who live there do you want your property to be protected? The vast majority would say yes and they would be gladly take the higher rent if that meant if there is a fire then there would be less damage if they don't.

What if you don't have fire department insurance but still want the fire department to come out and take out the fire? You can but if you are willing to pay a big fee because they don't know what the fire department company is getting into.

Could there be two different fire departments in one city? Well, yes, each fire department would be a company and if somebody doesn't want have fire department x but they want fire department y then they can either create one or convince a entrepreneur to get into the business of fire departments. Then there would be competition among x and y. The consumer wins! Because they will be competing for you and they want to have a high quality service with the lowest possible price.

Yes, a Fire Department can and should be formed into a private company and that the market is to open to anybody that wants to go into the fire department business.

Marriage

Lets have a little history lesson on government roll of marriage. Alabama had a law that basically said interracial marriages was illegal. In 1883 Supreme Court basically said that the Alabama law was unconstitutional because of the 14th amendment. This was a victory and a curse because it allowed government to have a say in marriage. I think it would of been best if government made no laws on social issues particularly marriage and let the people decide how they should live there lives. In Minnesota there is amendment about to be voted on in next election that would allow Minnesota to decide whether or not to have marriage between one man and one woman. There is all ready a law that makes one man and one woman marriage the only marriage. The reason why there is an amendment vote on this issue is because people don't want to have judge rule against it. So, it makes it harder for the Judicial system in Minnesota to make the law illegal. I do agree with principle that marriage should be between one man and one woman but should I regulate my morals on other people? What if thirty years or so from now the majority of people has a different sets of morals that is against my morals and they want to regulate my life because their morals say they have the right to regulate me. I think not. I think that marriage should be left out of the government completely. I don't want to see churches being forced to accept homosexual marriages but I don't want to see the church regulating marriage through government force. A church has the right to accept or reject a particular marriage, for what ever reason. I will stand with any church that will reject unbiblical marriages whether thats homosexual or a non-Christian marrying a Christian but I do draw the line when it comes down to government to decide. Whether or not you believe that marriage should be open or close the government should be out of marriage completely.

Gas Tax of Each State

Gas tax from each state varies greatly from 8 cents per gal. in Alaska to 46.6 cents in California.

This is just the regular gas not diesel. Each number that is after each state is in cents. The Federal Gas Tax is 18.5.

The list:

1. California 46.6
2. New York 44.6
3. Hawaii 44.4
4. Connecticut 41.9
5. Illinois 39
6. Washington 37.5
7. Michigan 35
8. Florida 34.5
9. Indiana 34.1
10. Nevada 33.1
11. Rhode Island 33
12. Wisconsin 32.9
13. Pennsylvania 32.3
14. West Virginia 32.2
15. Maine 31
16. North Carolina 30.2
17. Ohio 28
18. Montana 27.8
19. Nebraska 27.7
20. Minnesota 27.2
21. Idaho 25
22. Kansas 25
23. Oregon 25
24. Utah 24.5
25. Vermont 24.5
26. South Dakota 24
27. Maryland 23.5
28. Massachusetts 23.5
29. Delaware 23
30. North Dakota 23
31. Kentucky 22.5
32. Colorado 22
33. Iowa 22
34. Arkansas 21.8
35. Tennessee 21.4
36. Alabama 20.9
37. Louisiana 20
38. Texas 20
39. New Hampshire 19.6
40. Virginia 19.5
41. Arizona 19
42. Mississippi 18.8
43. New Mexico 18.8
44. Missouri 17.3
45. Oklahoma 17
46. South Carolina 16.8
47. New Jersey 14.5
48. Wyoming 14
49. Georgia 12.4
50. Alaska 8

You add both state and Federal Gas tax together, in Minnesota case it would be 27.2+18.5=45.7 cents. Then subtract the total tax from the price you pay at the pump then you will get the real gas price. The average price of gas in Minnesota is $3.328-0.457=$2.871.

References:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/245.html

http://www.minnesotagasprices.com/Prices_Nationally.aspx (3:16 PM 2/24/2011)

Egypt

The United States should leave Egypt alone. The United States has been messing with a lot of countries to many times. United States should not give any more foreign aid to any country anymore. Yes, I would give no money to Israel and the rest of the Middle East. Obama needs to really look at his foreign policy. He said he would have a different foreign Policy than George W. Bush but in reality there is barley a difference. Obama escalated the Afghanistan war and he isn't going to bring all the troops home from Iraq because there are billions of dollars poured into Iraq for bases. That is why the government of Iraq and some of its people are against the United States.