Essay: The Promise We Need - 1/17/07

What always amuses me is the degree to which most of us have been brainwashed about taxes. After years of irresponsible tax cuts, there seems to be some slight possibility now of a modest increase so that the state can pay its necessary bills.

Actually, it would be more correct to say that there is some  possibility of a rational discussion about state revenues. But even that has been more than enough to give some ideologues fits. I am now being blasted with e-mail from various groups urging me to help do something to save us from a tax hike.

Well, lighten up. Taxes will be going up -- or at least I hope so. They are, as Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, the price we pay for a civilized society. By the way, I am not rich, and the odds are that I pay more taxes than you do. I should pay more than average; my wife and I both have decent jobs and no children.

There is something else a civilized and financially successful society requires: Educated citizens. 

Today, the Center for Michigan is holding a town hall meeting in Kalamazoo on Education and Michigan’s Future Economy.

To prepare for this conference, the two top offices of the Center, Phil Power, its founder, and Executive Director John Bebow, prepared a lengthy examination of the potential of the Kalamazoo Promise.

Kalamazoo promises to completely pay four years of college tuition and fees at any Michigan college for any high school graduate who has spent an entire career in Kalamazoo public schools.

Among the things the Center for Michigan wants today’s conference to discuss is whether the state could possibly afford to extend that promise to all our citizens.

I think that’s the wrong question. What we should be asking is whether we can afford not to do that -- and the answer is clearly no. When it comes to competing for the jobs of the future, we are falling behind other states, not because of high taxes.

We are falling behind because our adult workforce is less educated than average, the legacy of the day when any high school dropout could always get a good paying job on the line.

Now, we drastically need to improve our state’s education levels. That doesn’t mean getting everybody a bachelor’s degree in English literature. That means giving our society a fighting chance by educating everyone to the extent of their aptitude and ability.

Providing a full tuition-only grant for all public university students in Michigan would cost a little less than a billion dollars.

Sound like a lot? Spread out among the average homeowner, it amounts to no more than a case of beer a month.

That’s pretty cheap, when you are talking about all of our futures. The libertarians have a slogan: There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.  And I promise you, they’re right.

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Comments

[Sick of it]

Oh boy...what a great plan, free college for everyone. Sounds wonderful, except one thing, any tax increase this year won't be for compulsory university education, it will be to fill the gap made by a bunch of amateur politicians who actually believe that raising the minimum wage, keeping unemployment insurance and workers comp exorbitantly high, as well as keeping two antiquated tax systems that simply won’t compete with other states (the SBT and the PPT). The problem is Jack, both the democrats and…and the republicans are wrong. We need to fund higher education, we need better roads and infrastructure, we need to invest in K-12 education, we need to keep our business taxes…simple, broad based and competitive with other states. We need leadership in this state that isn’t afraid to tell the MEA that their MESSA program is a waste of taxpayers money, and that defined pensions for new teachers is too costly, and they need to switch to a 401(k) like everyone else in this world. For goodness sake, even legislators switched themselves to 401(k)’s! What won’t work is simply raising taxes to pay for an K-12 system that is not working, for roads that are falling apart, and for programs that are clearly wrong headed. We incarcerate longer and spend more money than the other great lakes states, and we have more municipalities and school districts than we need. It’s like the Iraq war Jack, the current course just isn’t working…we have to change direction, but if we are going to just stick with the status quo, I don’t want to give up my 12 pack of beer for a close minded continuation of what amounts to a broken policy.