Productive and unproductive people is a myth
No its fact. Its not a black and white fact, most people are productive to a certain extent, but there are some who are unproductive through choice or disability, and there are others who are extremely productive. The extremely productive often do well for themselves, but they usually generate more money for others than themselves (and that's before considering taxes, or charitable contributions, the actions of their job, their investments, or their business produce more benefit for others than the benefit they themselves see. In other words a majority of the wealthy create a positive externality in the process of gaining their wealth.
That only a few people at the top can do the job
Recognizing that some people are more productive than others, with a few being either very productive, or very unproductive, isn't saying anything about "a few people at the top". To the extent the productive people get to the top they often don't start out that way, nothing elitist about that. Allowing opportunity to "get to the top", is the opposite of protecting an entrenched elite.
so we must all support them with special tax breaks
In terms of taxes they provide most of the support for the government, and still would even with lower, more reasonable rates. As for special targeted tax breaks, supporters of free markets oppose them, preferring lower rates and less distortion through the tax code. Statists are much more likely to support such breaks (they may attack specific breaks that they oppose, even whole categories of breaks, but they usually support other categories, while also supporting special targeted extra taxes on those they don't like.)
Studies show for every dollar we spend on head start we get back between $60 and $300 in lower crime
I wasn't making any statement about head start. Your changing the subject, imposing your non-sequitur. But studies mostly show that head start is mostly a waste of money.
"The report sums up the findings as follows: “Head Start has benefits for both 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds in the cognitive, health, and parenting domains, and for 3-year-olds in the social-emotional domain. However, the benefits of access to Head Start at age four are largely absent by 1st grade for the program population as a whole."
journalistsresource.org
While these results are uninspiring, they become even less impressive when more closely examined. Heritage’s David Muhlhausen calls into question the less-than-rigorous statistical methods employed by HHS:
In some cases, HHS reports statistically significant impacts based on a standard of statistical significance is p<0.10 which is not the norm for most social scientists. The 0.05 level is the norm. With a sample of 4,667 children, there is no reason to use the easier 0.10 level. The larger your sample size the easier it is to find statistically significant findings, so using 0.10 as the standard for statistical significance is unwarranted with such a large sample size… For example, if they used the standard level of significance for the 1st grade year language and literacy measures, then the study would report no statistically measurable impact on all eleven measures. Instead, the lower standard used by HHS allows for them to report that Head Start had at least one positive impact on raised language and literacy.
In essence, had HHS not used a less-rigorous method of evaluating Head Start, the report would have shown no impact on the language and literacy outcomes for the four-year-old cohort.
blog.heritage.org
What we need to do now is spend a ton of money on public edcuation and then you will see a surge in productivity.
We already spend a ton of money on public education, with spending growing at a rapid rate decade after decade. What we need instead of just spending more money, is more productivity within education. The best way to get that would be to make our education system less monopolistic and more open to competition and choice. |
