smooth

Your answer is yes. You would have to pay for your child's education out of pocket.

How much taxes did you pay last year? Let's leave out all the other government services you benefitted directly or indirectly from last year--now, could you have sent your child(ren) through a year's education on that?

I wonder what would happen after only a few private corporations owned the education system. How much would they monitor and direct what was being taught? What emphasis would they place on various courses?

Does this society benefit most from broad-based education, or segmented schools of thought?

How much more would education costs spiral once a guaranteed minimum is removed? I mean, that's the beauty of government programs--they provide a base minimum standard without legislation. They don't force private companies to act through direct regulation (which libertarians are usually in support of, I've heard), but many people realize that something needs to regulate private behavior. Some argue that the market is adequate. If true, then government programs utilize the market to do just that.

By providing a bare minimum at a subsidized cost, private companies have to offer as good or better products for cheaper or the same price. The best example of this is the mail service.

It's the most reliable entity I know of. It's so reliable that for decades it's slogan was used in place of reliability. If you want something done, you send it in an envelope--banks, bill collectors, and relatives know that. This is a blatant fact--it's evidence is that the US postal service receives no outside funding besides stamps! And mail delivery isn't even their primary function--it's mail fraud, which is a huge investagotory branch of our government. It's mostly tax fraud since transactions always have to be done over the wires or through the mail.

But the interesting thing is that even with all the options that replace the mail service, even free ones, haven't hurt it. Private companies can't get lower rates, although they can get pretty darn close. Rates are comparable across the board and I can only assume that's because the government price acts as an anchor to the private prices. And that's good, because a government agency is not beholden to stock holders or accruing profit--so it has no ulterior motive other than providing the service it was created for.

I can only think of one main reason no one would ever propose dismantling the US Postal service, reliable communication is essential to this nation's economic, political, and social stability. And that's profound.

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman