The Greenroom » Forum Archive » A Radical Proposal For Real Stimulus

According to the U.S. Department of Education, roughly $553 billion was collected in tax revenue to fund the public school system in 2007. I couldn’t find any 2008 numbers, but of course they’re bound to be even higher. Can you imagine the economic stimulus of dropping a half-trillion dollar market into the private sector? The frenzy of companies forming to compete for the best teachers, build the most attractive educational infrastructure, and market their services to discerning parents would be astonishing.

The tax savings to citizens would be significant. Of course, we would need to provide educational vouchers for lower-income citizens, so some educational taxes would still need to be collected… but the federal government current spends over $9000 per year, on average, to educate each student. It’s much higher than that in some areas, most notably Washington, D.C., which spends a whopping $25,000.00 per student. Does anyone doubt that competitive private schools can do better, especially when the economies of scale for handling seventy million customers kick in? Parochial schools already offer superior education at less than half the average cost of government schools.