Paul Krugman takes a look at the state of education today in America, and has some telling observations. Krugman has raised this point before, about what government really is, but it’s worth bringing it up again:
The federal government, as an old line puts it, is basically an insurance company with an army: nondefense spending is dominated by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. State and local governments, however, are basically school districts with police departments. Education accounts for more than half the state and local work force; protective services like police and fire departments account for much of the rest.
Follow the money: this is why conservatives have a bug up their butts about public education. If they can’t make money off it, they’re damned if they’ll pay taxes to support it. Which leads to a death spiral as tax cuts never pay for themselves.
What tax cuts do, instead, is sharply reduce revenue, wreaking havoc with state finances. For a great majority of states are required by law to balance their budgets. This means that when tax receipts plunge, the conservatives running many states can’t do what Trump and his allies in Congress are doing at the federal level — simply let the budget deficit balloon. Instead, they have to cut spending.
And given the centrality of education to state and local budgets, that puts schoolteachers in the cross hairs.
Read the whole thing. Krugman lays out how conservatives are attacking the victims of their policies — because they’re starting to fight back.
Conservatives do kind of have a point though. As a conservative, you don’t need to have a good education to succeed. You don’t need to have any intellectual ability or curiosity. All you need is money and the right line of blather. You can even become president...
Oh, and if you want to read something really infuriating, it’s an editorial by Nathan M. Jensen spelling out how politicians on both the left and right are turning government into a wealth transfer machine for corporations, largely under the radar. It’s not just about mindlessly cutting taxes — it’s about taking what money does come in and converting it to private gain at public expense.