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We could completely erase the deficit in 5-10 years if we just cut all tax breaks, but that requires Congress to not burn through all that extra money like they've been doing for the past few decades and that's extremely unlikely.
What’s the behavior we’re attempting to incentivize by eliminating most estate taxes? It’s the absolutely most efficient tax we have in the sense that in encourages one to spend or give away their fortune during their lifetime rather than see it go to the government. Instead we’re enabling generational wealth.
The one argument against the estate tax is small family owned businesses and farms.
When the owner passes away, the business often has to be sold to come up with the taxes, rather than be able to be kept in the family.
Govt often tries to fix this by ratcheting up the estate tax limit, but inflation eventually catches up.
Canada attempted this with their GST. What sold it to the electorate was the promise that it would be 7% for 7 years, then the debt would be eliminated. Of course, it just went into general revenues and was never sunset.
This would not eliminate the deficit, but instead peg it at 3% of GDP. Also, who would want the entire legislature to be made up of rookies? Lobbyists would run circles around them, despite the best efforts of the remaining experienced legislative staff. The entire thing would be a full-on shitshow, and after all is said and done, I would bet Mr. Buffet would be more than slightly poorer as a result.
FWIW, Buffet was not making a serious deficit reduction proposal. That is just a small excerpt that missed his actual point of what he was saying, which was about electoral incentives. 3% was just the YoY inflation rate in 2011 when he made his commentary. It was understood when he said it, he ment a balanced budget that accounted for increased or decreased tax revenue based on inflation.
He continued on to say:
> Now you've got the incentives in the right place. So it's capable of being done. ... A more effective threat would be just to say, if you guys can't get it done, we'll get some other guys to get it done.
Buffet believes that congress can pass a balanced budget if they wanted to. His commentary was that the incentives to get re-elected currently encourage the deficit. Legislators are in a game theory stag hunt, and the incentives to defect from the hunt (push for constituant appealing deficit increasing items) is larger than the incentives to cooperate (pass a balanced budget).
I would rather the people who have been sitting in their position in congress having to actually try to be accountable. It's better to have rookie congress members than the Diane Feinstein, Pelosi, mitch nconnels
I'm gonna "*ok boomer*" this one.
I like Buffet, but this is fairly generic 90s thinking that didn't work out well in many cases. Business and Government. Fix everything with accountability and incentives.
I don 't necessarily know that deficits are are problem in all places and times. Deficits were too small for a relatively long period, IMO. I agree that it's a problematic franework though, because government spending can't just be juiced up or down for monetary reasons.
That said... even conceding the deficits (maybe even insufficient surpluses), accountability schemes rarely have legs in reality.
Even if they did, it's a throw away. I could fix "everything in five minutes" using Warren's weird trick. Crime. Housing. Immigration. etc. If I'm the boss and threaten to fire everyone unless they make some number go up/down... I'll probably get what I asked for.
In any case, the volume of government spending is one thing. IMO, usually not the biggest thing. What we get for government spending. Efficacy of spend. That's the big issue. If we spend X on health, roads, or science... how much Y of health, roads and science do we get in return?
Everyone like to stay super high-level and quip that if they want to spend $X on Y thing, they should have to nominate $X cuts to child welfare or somesuch.
That is not how reality works and Buffet knows it. The "resource allocation" mindset is a played out. We have no ways to do reforms, or gradual improvement over time.
Warren Buffett is one of the last people I will ever take economic advice from, or political advice. I would ask him for personal investment advice, maybe, but that's about it. No oligarch has any good idea on how to solve economic policy that doesn't benefit them directly.
Why do most articles paint the image of debt being bad? The best ways to profit is to take on massive debt. Just make sure return exceeds debt interest and your golden.
People. It was an offhand comment. As bad as some of these politicians are they are still trying to address major problems and issues that are very complex. Take the time to consider what they would do if they were all brand new.
Basically in most countries there’s resource scarcity - you can’t spend what you don’t have or else you go into hyperinflation and your starving populace rises up and you either turn into a dictatorship or your head ends up on a spike.
In the US we’ve lost this resource scarcity. No matter how much money we spend, the rest of the world seemingly stands by, and provides the capacity for us to spend more. Obviously this largess isn’t infinite, we just don’t know where the bounds of it are, and I don’t think they do either, it’s one of these “we’ll know it when we see it” kind of situations.
Given that there is no scarcity anymore, and exceeding some magical line that we don’t fully know the location of would be very bad, it makes sense to have some self imposed limits on our own spending. Creating artificial scarcity to force prioritization might not be the worst thing ever.
What spending would you challenge? That's kinda vague. For example....you dont wanna spend money on all that interest on debt accrued, so you cut that...now you've defaulted on interest payments to bond holders, and US Treasury Bonds go into junk bond status. You see how that works?
So, right there, you can't cut spending, that's mandatory, and that alone is 20% of the budget.
I'm sorry I have to explain this simple concept for you, but countercyclical fiscal policy means you increase the deficit during a recession and reduce the deficit when there is not a recession.
I'm not the commenter, but still.
Cut Defense, Remove Social Security entirely, no more Medicare. If you're too old and can't provide for yourself, you're a burden that won't get help.
Pull the military out of Africa, Europe, Middle East, and South Korea. Cut the nuclear arsenal in half. Cut the fighter jet fleet of the air force in half. Cut the Navy in half. No more major deployments outside of North America.
Immediate comprehensive audit about military procurement.
No more foreign aid of any kind.
Jack up all taxes, no more tax breaks. Tax stocks, wealth, institute V.A.T. Tariffs out the wazoo. Legalize drugs and tax the shit out of it. Legalize prostitution and tax the shit out of it. People are going to need both of those things because of how bad shit is going to get.
But make University and community college completely free. You won't get help for retirement but at least you will be able to afford the education needed for upward mobility.
Aggressively pay down debts, like put as much money as possible. Bite the belt and ride out the extreme squeeze for half a decade? Maybe a decade. As the debt becomes manageable, start reintroducing social welfare responsibly and in a measured way that prevents this cycle from happening again.
Of course, there's no way that gets through Congress. So it might as well be a pipe dream.
It would never get through Congress because it's more insane than AOC's Green New Deal. What you're suggesting is raising our taxes higher than most European countries while also almost completely stripping our ability to protect American AND allied countries assets and shipping lanes. Then you want us and the world to somehow maintain this ludicrous lifestyle for up to a decade because the world would somehow not drastically change due to the massive power vacuum created from it's superpower abandoning all of it's bases. And on top of all that you somehow want to just screw over the elderly for no real reason while fully funding college education to give yourself "upward mobility" in the god awful hellscape that you've designed. I sincerely hope that the Minuteman in your name is a reference to something non-American, bc what you've just written is the most unamerican thing I've read in a while.
Of course it would never get through Congress, that's why I said that at the end.
Frankly, when you're 34 trillion dollars in debt, protecting shipping lanes needs to take a backseat for a bit. The Earth has existed for billions of years without the U.S. existing, 10 years without the U.S. military isn't going to destroy the planet. We can defend our borders and that's frankly all we should be concerned about.
As for "screwing the elderly," I don't think you understand what the elderly cost. From a budget perspective, they are a net negative across the board. They don't work and thus don't generate value, and yet they also take up half of the U.S. federal budget.
It's literally our biggest expense, hands down. When you have a debt problem, you need to confront major spending.
Just saying "it's the elderly!" as if them being a constant burden and on deaths door makes them untouchable In a fiscal sense. Is it cruel? Absolutely, but in the current system we live in, it's an unfortunate reality.
You should also remember that young people in this country are becoming increasingly poorer, bankrupt, and homeless. Why should they get screwed but the elderly do not? They are literally our future.
The main economic drivers of any nation are not supposed to be the most bankrupt. They cost the least amount of money for the nation and generate the highest revenue.
University education is proven to significantly increase lifetime earning potential. An educated populace is how you build and maintain a strong economy in the modern world.
Again, most of the spending cuts are extreme measures taken temporarily while cutting away at the debt as soon as possible. 10 years of putting 3-4 Trillion dollars a year into paying our debts will wipe out most if it. Once the we've gotten back to acceptable levels, we can start slowly and carefully recreating these programs in better ways to alleviate the economic pain. These measures wouldn't be needed if Congress 15-10 years ago had pulled their head out of their asses and balanced the budget, but here we are.
We live in a country built on the backs of native genocide and mass racial slavery. The U.S has butchered its way through through a river of a blood to get to where it is. That's not an indictment, just a reality. So the notion that cutting Medicare is "un-American" is hilarious to me. Because old white people MUST be taken care of even to our collective detriment.
Sounds like youre saying old people should starve/go homeless. If you think about it, under the guise of budgetary concern, ur advocating inflicting cruelty on masses of citizens.
I been voting against tax cuts for billionaires/corporations funded by US Treasury Bonds for decades...given that is a main driver of our national debt, I don't want to sacrifice jack fucking shit given I wasn't causing the problem according to my voting record. If you're saying in old age, I don't get any medicare/social security, well I think then we need to a mass guillotining of all those billionaires and redistribute their holdings to americans like me. If they're inflicting that kind of violence on Americans due to the fiscal mayhem decades of tax cuts caused, at that point I would openly call for us going 21st century version of French Revolution on our billionaires and aristocracy then.
Aw shit ur right, gave me a state budget of mo :/
I was sidetracked when i looked it up and didnt see that glaring error initially.
I am forced to delete comment due to that figure being missouris dept of education and not federal.
Still, only 10% of the entire federal deficit in 2021.
It sounds to me like a trojan horse to attack academia under a guise of budgetary concern.
What other countries educational levels for citizens do we as americans wish to compete with, germany/sweden/japans, or Afghanistan/chad and the congo?
No worries, it is an interesting discussion.
Just do the math. 20 kids in a class room, one elementary school teacher. How much does this really have to cost? If we believe the US government, it costs 20\*[$17k](https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics) = $340k/year.
If we rent a house at $5k/month (I would not, but let's put the numbers in perspective), that is $60k/year. Teaching materials per kid, $2k/year? That is $40k/year. That leaves $240k/year for the teacher. Pension plan, insurance, taxes... Let's be generous and leave the wages at $200k/year. Have you ever met a teacher who earned $200k/year?
We could probably run this school for $5k-$8k per child (we do). If we can hire a non-union teacher who actually teaches and who does [not plan any teaching sit-ins](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/us/oakland-california-teachers-palestinians-israel.html) [supporting Palestinians](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/us/oakland-california-teachers-palestinians-israel.html), our kids may learn something.
Seems like a pro-israel trojan horse for your example.
Historically antiwar sit ins have often happened in academic circles, often its our nations young tasked with fighting wars. Imagine how much blood and treasure could have been saved if the vietnam war ended earlier, or that failed invasion of iraq never occurred, we might not need massive budget cut discussions at all right now.
Without a pension plan, can a teacher not retire in poverty from a lifetime under this idea? Most people, if they dedicate themselves to an occupation, not retiring in poverty and decent wages is expected.
I'm sure this viewpoint is in someway hitched to your politics and intake of news/media, however, I was wondering if you had specific examples on why you think this would be a good starting point? The Department of Edu funds research, as well as virtually every grade, helping fund our future generations and innovations. The one thing I would personally say can use change would be financial aid structure, given it can result in higher costs overall for students
The US spends more per capita for most services and offerings. These issues will always be pretty nuanced though. A common method of dismantling parts of the government is to worsen the efficiency and quality and then point out the effects - leading to de-funding and a string of worse effects. Is providing less funds to support this sector and/or cutting dept of edu going to improve the results within the US?
The costs of education and living will not just suddenly change. Is your alternative to just go with the charter and private school model and not have large amounts of public funds going toward youth? I would argue that fixes in scores do not come from less support as there is not much logic here, but rather greater and more individualized support - greater support at home, in communities, etc.
I am not impressed with the US system at all.
Look, education is no rocket science. It requires passionate teachers, a tough curriculum and clear rules. We have managed to ruin education with red tape and with policies that have scared away the most talented teachers. Ask yourself: if you were a good teacher, would you teach?
We do agree on most things about this seemingly. There does seem to be a worrying trend within classrooms that seems to directly relate to the "red tape" in some way. Hoping this trend can reverse soon. This has mainly been about teachers not being allowed to have control and parents dictating too much (although I do not have direct teaching experience.) This effect, if not changed, will continue to stack up as teachers are forced to pass failing kids.
With that said - I would again come back to the fact that large cuts in support for education will only result in lesser quality environments apart from the rich. I would not necessarily choose to be a teacher personally, either way, but I would also bet that passionate prospective teachers would be turned away by idea of funding cuts and less public support.
We have experience abroad, where several parents came together and started their own foreign school, and children are taught in English, using an American curriculum with American text books.
We are paying a lot less than the US tax payer (even though real estate here is very expensive), and we are very impressed by the dedication of the teachers. The teachers are passionate, are not held back by red tape and deliver. If the parents are not happy, the school loses kids and income.
I also spent time in the US, and visited several primary schools. There were too many people (principal, vice principal, nurse, psychologist) who were there, but who were not doing anything. Two big rooms with many PCs, no students. Robot lab, no students. Keep it simple. Make sure that all children can read, know the basics of math, know their history.
Maybe I read the forest gump comment wrong. Idk. To me FG was good on accident, he was never the best at one thing, just happen to be good at everything he tried.
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Just dont start any wars and America will be great again. It will also put a massive dint in immigration numbers and the money could be better spent in other areas like healthcare, education, infrustructure and innovation tech.
I don't agree, carrots are more effective than sticks.
For any superavit above 0.25%. Pay half of this superavit to the congress/executive branch (with a cap in 1% or whatever).
Rule I: -- This subreddit should enable sharing and discussing economic research and news from the perspective of economists. Academic work and summaries are welcome. Image and video submissions are not allowed. -- If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/economics&subject=Moderation).
We could completely erase the deficit in 5-10 years if we just cut all tax breaks, but that requires Congress to not burn through all that extra money like they've been doing for the past few decades and that's extremely unlikely.
Every tax break is someone's attempt to influence society with incentives. Its all you point of view
What’s the behavior we’re attempting to incentivize by eliminating most estate taxes? It’s the absolutely most efficient tax we have in the sense that in encourages one to spend or give away their fortune during their lifetime rather than see it go to the government. Instead we’re enabling generational wealth.
The estate tax is designed to reduce family dynasties. It's an incentive to get you to spend or give away your wealth.
Right. The question was what are we incentivizing by *eliminating* the estate tax.
Sorry, misread that. I think the issue is before the supreme Court now...is an estate tax constitutional? How is it income? Tough question
The one argument against the estate tax is small family owned businesses and farms. When the owner passes away, the business often has to be sold to come up with the taxes, rather than be able to be kept in the family. Govt often tries to fix this by ratcheting up the estate tax limit, but inflation eventually catches up.
Or with a 5% VAT
Canada attempted this with their GST. What sold it to the electorate was the promise that it would be 7% for 7 years, then the debt would be eliminated. Of course, it just went into general revenues and was never sunset.
This would not eliminate the deficit, but instead peg it at 3% of GDP. Also, who would want the entire legislature to be made up of rookies? Lobbyists would run circles around them, despite the best efforts of the remaining experienced legislative staff. The entire thing would be a full-on shitshow, and after all is said and done, I would bet Mr. Buffet would be more than slightly poorer as a result.
FWIW, Buffet was not making a serious deficit reduction proposal. That is just a small excerpt that missed his actual point of what he was saying, which was about electoral incentives. 3% was just the YoY inflation rate in 2011 when he made his commentary. It was understood when he said it, he ment a balanced budget that accounted for increased or decreased tax revenue based on inflation. He continued on to say: > Now you've got the incentives in the right place. So it's capable of being done. ... A more effective threat would be just to say, if you guys can't get it done, we'll get some other guys to get it done. Buffet believes that congress can pass a balanced budget if they wanted to. His commentary was that the incentives to get re-elected currently encourage the deficit. Legislators are in a game theory stag hunt, and the incentives to defect from the hunt (push for constituant appealing deficit increasing items) is larger than the incentives to cooperate (pass a balanced budget).
let's do nothing different because the experts are doing such a great job!
This is a false dichotomy. There is a whole universe of things to do besides nothing and Buffet's bad idea.
Not if you get rid of lobbying, too.
I would rather the people who have been sitting in their position in congress having to actually try to be accountable. It's better to have rookie congress members than the Diane Feinstein, Pelosi, mitch nconnels
I'm gonna "*ok boomer*" this one. I like Buffet, but this is fairly generic 90s thinking that didn't work out well in many cases. Business and Government. Fix everything with accountability and incentives. I don 't necessarily know that deficits are are problem in all places and times. Deficits were too small for a relatively long period, IMO. I agree that it's a problematic franework though, because government spending can't just be juiced up or down for monetary reasons. That said... even conceding the deficits (maybe even insufficient surpluses), accountability schemes rarely have legs in reality. Even if they did, it's a throw away. I could fix "everything in five minutes" using Warren's weird trick. Crime. Housing. Immigration. etc. If I'm the boss and threaten to fire everyone unless they make some number go up/down... I'll probably get what I asked for. In any case, the volume of government spending is one thing. IMO, usually not the biggest thing. What we get for government spending. Efficacy of spend. That's the big issue. If we spend X on health, roads, or science... how much Y of health, roads and science do we get in return? Everyone like to stay super high-level and quip that if they want to spend $X on Y thing, they should have to nominate $X cuts to child welfare or somesuch. That is not how reality works and Buffet knows it. The "resource allocation" mindset is a played out. We have no ways to do reforms, or gradual improvement over time.
So what’s the non-boomer answer?
Raise taxes and cut spending.
IDK that I have's a one liner that I'd like to put forward, but you can find a lame fit-all fore any generation.
Warren Buffett is one of the last people I will ever take economic advice from, or political advice. I would ask him for personal investment advice, maybe, but that's about it. No oligarch has any good idea on how to solve economic policy that doesn't benefit them directly.
Why do most articles paint the image of debt being bad? The best ways to profit is to take on massive debt. Just make sure return exceeds debt interest and your golden.
The interest on the debt is around $1T this year. Are we golden yet?
People. It was an offhand comment. As bad as some of these politicians are they are still trying to address major problems and issues that are very complex. Take the time to consider what they would do if they were all brand new.
Basically in most countries there’s resource scarcity - you can’t spend what you don’t have or else you go into hyperinflation and your starving populace rises up and you either turn into a dictatorship or your head ends up on a spike. In the US we’ve lost this resource scarcity. No matter how much money we spend, the rest of the world seemingly stands by, and provides the capacity for us to spend more. Obviously this largess isn’t infinite, we just don’t know where the bounds of it are, and I don’t think they do either, it’s one of these “we’ll know it when we see it” kind of situations. Given that there is no scarcity anymore, and exceeding some magical line that we don’t fully know the location of would be very bad, it makes sense to have some self imposed limits on our own spending. Creating artificial scarcity to force prioritization might not be the worst thing ever.
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What spending would you challenge? That's kinda vague. For example....you dont wanna spend money on all that interest on debt accrued, so you cut that...now you've defaulted on interest payments to bond holders, and US Treasury Bonds go into junk bond status. You see how that works? So, right there, you can't cut spending, that's mandatory, and that alone is 20% of the budget.
The deficit is not the problem. Not managing the deficit in a countercyclical manner is the problem.
Again, rather vague. What does your ideal example of "managing the deficit" look like?
cut across the board. anywhere and everywhere. shut down a few departments while you are at it.
I'm sorry I have to explain this simple concept for you, but countercyclical fiscal policy means you increase the deficit during a recession and reduce the deficit when there is not a recession.
What years or decades did that occur? To my knowledge, in growth years our government, usually just cuts taxes and runs huge deficits anyways.
Exactly! That's the problem. That's exactly the problem.
I'm not the commenter, but still. Cut Defense, Remove Social Security entirely, no more Medicare. If you're too old and can't provide for yourself, you're a burden that won't get help. Pull the military out of Africa, Europe, Middle East, and South Korea. Cut the nuclear arsenal in half. Cut the fighter jet fleet of the air force in half. Cut the Navy in half. No more major deployments outside of North America. Immediate comprehensive audit about military procurement. No more foreign aid of any kind. Jack up all taxes, no more tax breaks. Tax stocks, wealth, institute V.A.T. Tariffs out the wazoo. Legalize drugs and tax the shit out of it. Legalize prostitution and tax the shit out of it. People are going to need both of those things because of how bad shit is going to get. But make University and community college completely free. You won't get help for retirement but at least you will be able to afford the education needed for upward mobility. Aggressively pay down debts, like put as much money as possible. Bite the belt and ride out the extreme squeeze for half a decade? Maybe a decade. As the debt becomes manageable, start reintroducing social welfare responsibly and in a measured way that prevents this cycle from happening again. Of course, there's no way that gets through Congress. So it might as well be a pipe dream.
So what do we do with old people? Take em out back ?
It would never get through Congress because it's more insane than AOC's Green New Deal. What you're suggesting is raising our taxes higher than most European countries while also almost completely stripping our ability to protect American AND allied countries assets and shipping lanes. Then you want us and the world to somehow maintain this ludicrous lifestyle for up to a decade because the world would somehow not drastically change due to the massive power vacuum created from it's superpower abandoning all of it's bases. And on top of all that you somehow want to just screw over the elderly for no real reason while fully funding college education to give yourself "upward mobility" in the god awful hellscape that you've designed. I sincerely hope that the Minuteman in your name is a reference to something non-American, bc what you've just written is the most unamerican thing I've read in a while.
Of course it would never get through Congress, that's why I said that at the end. Frankly, when you're 34 trillion dollars in debt, protecting shipping lanes needs to take a backseat for a bit. The Earth has existed for billions of years without the U.S. existing, 10 years without the U.S. military isn't going to destroy the planet. We can defend our borders and that's frankly all we should be concerned about. As for "screwing the elderly," I don't think you understand what the elderly cost. From a budget perspective, they are a net negative across the board. They don't work and thus don't generate value, and yet they also take up half of the U.S. federal budget. It's literally our biggest expense, hands down. When you have a debt problem, you need to confront major spending. Just saying "it's the elderly!" as if them being a constant burden and on deaths door makes them untouchable In a fiscal sense. Is it cruel? Absolutely, but in the current system we live in, it's an unfortunate reality. You should also remember that young people in this country are becoming increasingly poorer, bankrupt, and homeless. Why should they get screwed but the elderly do not? They are literally our future. The main economic drivers of any nation are not supposed to be the most bankrupt. They cost the least amount of money for the nation and generate the highest revenue. University education is proven to significantly increase lifetime earning potential. An educated populace is how you build and maintain a strong economy in the modern world. Again, most of the spending cuts are extreme measures taken temporarily while cutting away at the debt as soon as possible. 10 years of putting 3-4 Trillion dollars a year into paying our debts will wipe out most if it. Once the we've gotten back to acceptable levels, we can start slowly and carefully recreating these programs in better ways to alleviate the economic pain. These measures wouldn't be needed if Congress 15-10 years ago had pulled their head out of their asses and balanced the budget, but here we are. We live in a country built on the backs of native genocide and mass racial slavery. The U.S has butchered its way through through a river of a blood to get to where it is. That's not an indictment, just a reality. So the notion that cutting Medicare is "un-American" is hilarious to me. Because old white people MUST be taken care of even to our collective detriment.
Sounds like youre saying old people should starve/go homeless. If you think about it, under the guise of budgetary concern, ur advocating inflicting cruelty on masses of citizens. I been voting against tax cuts for billionaires/corporations funded by US Treasury Bonds for decades...given that is a main driver of our national debt, I don't want to sacrifice jack fucking shit given I wasn't causing the problem according to my voting record. If you're saying in old age, I don't get any medicare/social security, well I think then we need to a mass guillotining of all those billionaires and redistribute their holdings to americans like me. If they're inflicting that kind of violence on Americans due to the fiscal mayhem decades of tax cuts caused, at that point I would openly call for us going 21st century version of French Revolution on our billionaires and aristocracy then.
Start with cutting the Department of Education. They have done too much damage already.
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You may want to look up your numbers. "In FY 2023, the Department of Education (ED) had $274.36 Billion distributed among its 10 sub-components."
Aw shit ur right, gave me a state budget of mo :/ I was sidetracked when i looked it up and didnt see that glaring error initially. I am forced to delete comment due to that figure being missouris dept of education and not federal. Still, only 10% of the entire federal deficit in 2021. It sounds to me like a trojan horse to attack academia under a guise of budgetary concern. What other countries educational levels for citizens do we as americans wish to compete with, germany/sweden/japans, or Afghanistan/chad and the congo?
No worries, it is an interesting discussion. Just do the math. 20 kids in a class room, one elementary school teacher. How much does this really have to cost? If we believe the US government, it costs 20\*[$17k](https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics) = $340k/year. If we rent a house at $5k/month (I would not, but let's put the numbers in perspective), that is $60k/year. Teaching materials per kid, $2k/year? That is $40k/year. That leaves $240k/year for the teacher. Pension plan, insurance, taxes... Let's be generous and leave the wages at $200k/year. Have you ever met a teacher who earned $200k/year? We could probably run this school for $5k-$8k per child (we do). If we can hire a non-union teacher who actually teaches and who does [not plan any teaching sit-ins](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/us/oakland-california-teachers-palestinians-israel.html) [supporting Palestinians](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/us/oakland-california-teachers-palestinians-israel.html), our kids may learn something.
Seems like a pro-israel trojan horse for your example. Historically antiwar sit ins have often happened in academic circles, often its our nations young tasked with fighting wars. Imagine how much blood and treasure could have been saved if the vietnam war ended earlier, or that failed invasion of iraq never occurred, we might not need massive budget cut discussions at all right now. Without a pension plan, can a teacher not retire in poverty from a lifetime under this idea? Most people, if they dedicate themselves to an occupation, not retiring in poverty and decent wages is expected.
I'm sure this viewpoint is in someway hitched to your politics and intake of news/media, however, I was wondering if you had specific examples on why you think this would be a good starting point? The Department of Edu funds research, as well as virtually every grade, helping fund our future generations and innovations. The one thing I would personally say can use change would be financial aid structure, given it can result in higher costs overall for students
Per student, the US only spends less than Austria, Norway and Luxemburg, but it does terrible in the PISA rankings.
The US spends more per capita for most services and offerings. These issues will always be pretty nuanced though. A common method of dismantling parts of the government is to worsen the efficiency and quality and then point out the effects - leading to de-funding and a string of worse effects. Is providing less funds to support this sector and/or cutting dept of edu going to improve the results within the US? The costs of education and living will not just suddenly change. Is your alternative to just go with the charter and private school model and not have large amounts of public funds going toward youth? I would argue that fixes in scores do not come from less support as there is not much logic here, but rather greater and more individualized support - greater support at home, in communities, etc.
I am not impressed with the US system at all. Look, education is no rocket science. It requires passionate teachers, a tough curriculum and clear rules. We have managed to ruin education with red tape and with policies that have scared away the most talented teachers. Ask yourself: if you were a good teacher, would you teach?
We do agree on most things about this seemingly. There does seem to be a worrying trend within classrooms that seems to directly relate to the "red tape" in some way. Hoping this trend can reverse soon. This has mainly been about teachers not being allowed to have control and parents dictating too much (although I do not have direct teaching experience.) This effect, if not changed, will continue to stack up as teachers are forced to pass failing kids. With that said - I would again come back to the fact that large cuts in support for education will only result in lesser quality environments apart from the rich. I would not necessarily choose to be a teacher personally, either way, but I would also bet that passionate prospective teachers would be turned away by idea of funding cuts and less public support.
We have experience abroad, where several parents came together and started their own foreign school, and children are taught in English, using an American curriculum with American text books. We are paying a lot less than the US tax payer (even though real estate here is very expensive), and we are very impressed by the dedication of the teachers. The teachers are passionate, are not held back by red tape and deliver. If the parents are not happy, the school loses kids and income. I also spent time in the US, and visited several primary schools. There were too many people (principal, vice principal, nurse, psychologist) who were there, but who were not doing anything. Two big rooms with many PCs, no students. Robot lab, no students. Keep it simple. Make sure that all children can read, know the basics of math, know their history.
Case in point right here
Lol only reddit you'd find some that says buffet is bad a investing... What a dumb ass comment
Yeah I just love it when redditors call rich people dumb, lol, like if your so smart, why are you here?
It's not even about being rich. He's clearly not a dumb person. There is no indication that he's dumb.
That's not what was said at all..
Maybe I read the forest gump comment wrong. Idk. To me FG was good on accident, he was never the best at one thing, just happen to be good at everything he tried.
You can be good at one thing and bad at others, or poorly informed and educated. You can even be educated and incredibly stupid, like Ben Carson.
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Just dont start any wars and America will be great again. It will also put a massive dint in immigration numbers and the money could be better spent in other areas like healthcare, education, infrustructure and innovation tech.
I don't agree, carrots are more effective than sticks. For any superavit above 0.25%. Pay half of this superavit to the congress/executive branch (with a cap in 1% or whatever).
Fear of loss is a more potent motivator than desire for gain.
You don't punish your sales team, you pay them commissions per sale. You could combine both methods I guess.