Hi All. Marcy has come up with an interesting idea for our Tax Day panel discussion: in order to reverse the federalization of police and federal mandates like Common Core or the No Child Left Behind Act, we need to stop depending on the federal government for funding local services. The idea is to return to the basic services that most folks expect from government like police, roads, and schools funded by local taxes.
This could be accomplished by reviewing the services that could be discontinued (SRO school police at $133K each, while the national average is $58K; homeless benefits that encourage more folks on the dole; below market subsidized housing; and inactive/underutilized school property. Also privatizing services like the nonprofits and experimenting with a private transit system. Also bring City salaries in line with national salaries (that one's for you, Starchild).
Guest panelists could be someone from a taxpayer association explaining how basic services could funded while keeping Prop 13 in place and some techie entrepreneur explaining how economic growth could reduce the need for free services. We could center the discussion on local control, which seems to be a kind of hot topic these days. I'm thinking of a title for our topic something like "Local Control--How Do We Get it Back?"
I like Marcy's idea because it encompasses a lot of values us Libertarians hold dear: low taxes, keeping government as close to home as possible, privatization, and self-reliance rather than dependence.
Please advise your thoughts.
Thanks!Aubrey
That sounds good to me…
Mike
Hi All,
First, the idea is not exclusively mine, since Aubrey and I have been frying our brains with all kinds of discussion as to what to present for Tax Day. So, all I did was jell some of our discussion into the topic of local control.
The point is that we all gripe about militarization of local police or federal intrusion into education with Common Core, but there is very little discussion on the fact that he who pays the piper calls the tunes. I would bet if one of us volunteered to interview older parents (who would now be grandparents or great grand parents) they would speak about the days when parents (both Mom's and Dad's) who were involved in their children's education were the decision makers as to what went on in the neighborhood schools where their kids went. The PTA did not just have bake sales.
The San Francisco Examiner today had an article about San Francisco police getting surveillance equipment from the federal government and using the equipment to obtain cell phone data. Sure, now we all can have all kinds of street demonstrations, and pass all kinds of rules to regulate the use of this equipment. However, all that accomplishes is more rules and a bigger bureaucracy to enforce them.
Here is the link to The San Francisco Examiner article
Marcy