"Pete C." wrote in
.com:
Han wrote:
"Doug" wrote in
:
On 25 Jan 2012 14:03:07 GMT, Han wrote:
RonB wrote in news:49abe15e-ccf3-4bc0-bb20-
:
On Jan 25, 5:00 am, "HeyBub" wrote:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_1...544/mitch-dani
els -...
Yep. The government is slowly but steadily eliminating one of the
most effective educational systems in our country..... Small,
but strong rural schools.
Ours survived a serious school battle about five years ago. But
it will probably be gone within ten.
What's needed is dedicated teachers and involved parents.
BOTH! I said BOTH!!
I only watched a portion of the pep talk but when he said the best
teachers should be rewarded, I asked myself define "best" and then
I said with what. I mean some people can't afford their homes much
less property tax increases of which help pay for the teachers. I
thought maybe a better way was not to reward the "best" teachers
but just get rid of the bad teachers. Of course then we have to
define what "good and bad" is but aside from the definitions, I
think a teacher doing his/her job shouldn't get rewarded but should
keep their job instead. I think the reward is seeing their student
graduate college and come back to say thank you to that teacher. I
realize not many students do this but maybe we need to teach the
students "manners / respect" as well as academics. Just my 2
cents worth...
It is difficult to define and measure what a good teacher is,
Indeed!! I am not saying it would be easy, nor that there shouldn't
be ways to so so. But ...
Both my daughter and son-in-law are high school teachers in less than
privileged districts. While it is very rewarding for them to see
students succeed, especially those they get when they at first appear
to be "losers", it isn't helpful to them when their net take home pay
gets cut significantly, as happened in NJ when the millionairs' tax
was cut, but teachers were told to pay much more for their healthcare
and in addition had their pension funds reduced once again (NJ has
refused to pay the contractually arrived at amounts into the pension
funds).
Everyone wants to pay good teachers more (and get rid of bad ones) but
nobody wants to pay for it. The thing is, what legal, constitutional,
moral, etc. justification do you have for taxing some people at a
higher rate just because they have deep pockets? Why should one person
pay $0.50 of every dollar they earn while someone else only pays $0.15
of every dollar they earn? No rational person can be in favor of
anything but a single flat tax on all income from all sources as being
fair to everyone.
I don't believe there is a single "flat tax" person advocating that we
should add up all the tax revenue, divide by the number of tax payers,
and make everyone pay that amount. Looking up total federal income tax
http://tinyurl.com/6wm3qfc
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/y...USbn_13bs1n_10
#usgs302:
~1 trillion
Number of individual returns filed
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=380531
130 million
1,000,000,000,000 / 130,000,000 = 1,000,000/ 130 = $7,692
Now how are we going to get that amount from the roughly half of all
filers who now do NOT owe income taxes? Or better, where would they get
that money from?
I really think (and the "socialist" in me agrees) that paying taxes
should be in relation to your ability to contribute. If the income
distribution in the US was much, much more flat, a flat tax (in % of
income, not a set amount) would be defensible, but it isn't.
Before we get to the flat tax, let's eliminate the tax loopholes, and we
should first discuss whether charitable contributions, mortgage interest,
state & local taxes should be deductible. After all that's what brought
my income taxes down to less than 14% of AGI.
--
Best regards
Han
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