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