Part of the problem in the US is that we try to send everyone to college. That last statistics I saw said that something like 45% of high school graduates enroll in a 4 year school. With the economic downturn the amount is probably even higher. Statistically speaking, this means pretty much everyone with an average intelligence or higher is trying to go to get a bachelor’s degree.

I’ve seen suggestions that to do well in college, you really need to have an IQ of at least 115. This is a much smaller percentage than 45%.

There is a role for vocational training and for many it is a good way to get a career without the expense of college. For example, electricians and plumbers are paid well. If they have business sense, they can be paid very well. Their educational experience is usually on the job training–they get paid to learn their skill.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t allow people with average IQs get into college. Hard work can often make up for raw mental abilities. But at the same time, I don’t think trying to get more people into college benefits them personally or society as a whole.

Quite a few of the big universities will basically let you come for free if your family makes less thank $60,000 per year and have good academic skills. Harvard and Standford both do this and I think quite a few other schools are following their lead. I worked during the summer to pay for my undergrad degree at a fairly expensive school and scholarships paid for the rest so it isn’t like people who are highly qualified academically are always graduating with huge college loans.

I don’t know how many Europeans go to the US to get an education… It’s not a trend I have seen. Of course some cross the pond, the big majority doesn’t. And there are movements in the other direction. The small brain drain to the US is mostly in very specialised fields in big name universities.

re:taxing people who don’t go to college: like I said before: they also benefit from having a country with a lot of higher educated people (better economy, more jobs, …). The are also paying for the college education of their children, if any. Not to mention the fact, that maybe they would go to college when it’s only 500 bucks a year. Also: who now pays if someone defaults on his student loans?

re: “Most people succeed through hard work and that option is available to everyone.” I never said that this isn’t true, in general. It does depend on your definition of succeeding, however. To give an extreme example: a 3 foot dwarf can practice what he want, he will never play in the NBA.

Succeeding as defined in Tessa’s post was defined as: getting through college. No matter how much work you put in, there is a base line of intelligence that is required to get academical succes. And that’s what I meant with ‘talent’ It doesn’t mean that someone without it cannot ’succeed’ in life (whatever your definition), but it won’t be in academia.

Education isn’t something that is a simple commodity. For some reason, the US educational institutions seem to be in high demand. Trying to pay for it with taxes would likely reduce the differentiation that is keeping that demand high.

Plus, there are some people who aren’t going to go to college. There isn’t a good reason for them to be taxed in order to pay for people who are. People generally value things more when they are paying for it themselves. If a college education were free, how do you think that would impact students academic performance.

Regarding talent and luck: There are quite a few studies suggesting that talent is a very small component of success and often has a negative correlation. Most people succeed through hard work and that option is available to everyone.

If you had taxes that did redistributed wealth, he wouldn’t have those high student loans. Education would be much cheaper when payed for by taxes (like it is in every other first world nation) It basically pays back what you put in in futur tax earnings and it is better for society to have more educated people. There: classic redistribution of wealth that benefits all. What’s unfair here is the financial burden an education is in the US, and the solution is exactly what you’re railing against.

And there is also somthing wrong with your logic:
“And if someone wants to throw out some argument on how a person from a lower income family, bad neighborhood infested by gangs and bad influences and drugs and violence have less chances of becoming successful…don’t even attempt it cuz he’s proven that it can be done. It may be harder than some people, but it’s not impossible and it’s all about hard work”

first of all: 1 example tells us nothing about the frequency this happens.

Secondly: you are skipping two enormous parts of the equation: talent and plain old luck. Even with all the work in the world, you still need those two. If you don’t have academical talent, you won’t get far. If you’re plain unlucky: same thing (fr.ex: getting hit by a stray car.) Work is important, but very unfairly, you also need talent and luck.

Thirdly: the whole idea of wealth distribution is avoiding the existence of those neighbourhoods.

Then after college gets a full time job, while attending grad school for his masters part time at night. He studied and worked so hard that he was able to pay for grad school out of his own wallet. And he slowly paid off his student loans from undergrad. After he graduated with a master with a 4.0 (not because he’s super smart, but because he just studied his butt off at night) he got out a very huge loan (that he must pay back 100% again plus interest) to go to law school.

In law school he studied any chance he had when he wasn’t in class. (first year law students werent allowed to work, that was the rule at his school) so he devoted all his time to school…all this time couldn’t afford a laptop for law school and had to write out everything on a notepad while the entire class had a laptop (and for those who know law school..a laptop is a must have). During this time he still was sleeping on the living room floor because there was no way he can get his own place either… anyways, he ended up graduating law school in the top 10% of his class and was able to get a good job in a law firm. he started out at 125,000 per year and evenually is now at 250,000. But because of the taxes taken off… he is making roughly 144,000 after taxes. Which is fine, but he’s putting in 16 hours a day of hard mentally exhausted work in order to make that much so he can send home to his family that are still considered lower income (mainly cuz his parents are old, his brother has a medical condition etc…) Now how is giving almost half his income to people who are buying soda pop and redistributing money to those who are not working as hard as he is, FAIR? Taxing him is fine, taxing him more than others is fine, but taxing almost half, is UNFAIR especailly because he has family members to take care of.

He pays his taxes, donates as much as he can to charity or people we know who needs money, and we believe that everyone should get healthcare no matter what, and we don’t mind getting taxed more to help people who needs help, but seriously…to just redistribute the money to the middle class or whoever else so that they have more money without working as hard as he did just so it’s “FAIR”!!!!! Is simply very UNFAIR to my husband and to those who’s worked that hard to get there.

We don’t live in a huge house, or drive a reallllly nice car like people think…we just try to live within our means and help out the rest of the family or people we know. We believe that by simply taxing those with higher incomes more isn’t really going to help the people of america….it just makes it so that people who work hard there entire life to get where they are have no motivation to work hard anymore. If middle class or lower class is saying give us money, they don’t appreciate it as much…buying soda and junk food and cable tv is not appriciating the hard work someone else is doing just to end up paying higher taxes. I don’t mind helping lower class, and those who needs it…but i believe that you have to give people an incentive to work harder and eventually they can get to a point where they would understand why taxing almost half your income cuz you worked harder is unfair.

I don’t mind paying more taxes than middle class or lower income, but almost half your paycheck is just cruel when you’ve worked roughly 96 hours a week to earn it. Don’t you guys think that’s just plan cruel? What makes a person want to even work hard then. It makes no sense. 16 hours a day, 6 days a week….so he can pay back over 100,000 worth of student loans and take care of the rest of his family along with his wife and kids. now, how is that FAIR?

And if someone wants to throw out some argument on how a person from a lower income family, bad neighborhood infested by gangs and bad influences and drugs and violence have less chances of becoming successful…don’t even attempt it cuz he’s proven that it can be done. It may be harder than some people, but it’s not impossible and it’s all about hard work….Now tell me, once someone has worked that hard….is it FAIR to take close to half his income and give it away to someone else who didn’t work as hard? Now, i’m not talking about people with disabilities or medical issues that prevent them…. i’m talking about people who have two arms and two legs and a normal brain that can go to school and study and work hard.

It’s pretty sad, when someone who works 96 hours a week get paid the same amount as someone working 40 hours a week or so just because of taxes. People really need to understand that there is no incentive for some people to work hard in school if they are just handed free money….

I know my writing seems all over the place and a lot of misspellings here and there…but forgive me, it’s late where i am. i have a baby that wakes up around this time…lol.

However, this makes too much sense and will never happen, least in my lifetime.
Thanks a lot, collective stupidity.

Also, this: ‘If you are buying a $8,000,000 house, the tax break does practically nothing.’ is, frankly a strange thing to say. The rich person doesn’t HAVE to buy a 8 mln dollar McMansion.

Then again, if disagree with you about taxes anyway because I do believe that hat taxes should be used to redistribute money. The rich have used the total of society to get where they are, the rest of that society should be able to reap some of the benefit it has provided for that rich person. It’s only fair.

One issue is that the definition of “middle class” and “lower class” need to be revised. When I was growing up in the 80’s, middle class could easily mean someone making $40,000/yr. In fact my parents made about $35,000/yr and we lived fairly decently. Now, the definition needs to move up a ways.

I’ve made about $27,000 – $30,000 a year, and am barely able to make ends meet. My monthly income after taxes was around $1,100. Almost $850 of that went to reoccuring monthly bills (rent, utilities, phone, internet, cable with rent and utilities being the highest portion) which left the rest for food, gas, maintenance on my car, and whatever other expenses came up.

My point by all of this is that while in the 80’s, $1,100/month was a lot of money and got you a long ways, now it’s not very much. Especially when it takes $40.00/wk or more to fill up your car (and I have a small car– not an SUV). So while those tax breaks are there, it’s a lot easier for the “Middle class” (as it should be defined now) and the “Upper Class” to take advantage of them.

You are entirely correct though in that they need to live within their means. If you have 3 people in the house, there’s no need for a 5 bedroom 3 bathroom house. Assuming that two of them are married, a 2-bedroom or 3-bedroom is more than enough. And you don’t need an SUV or anything more than a smaller car to travel in.

I also totally agree about the food stamps and government checks going to soda pop and snack foods. There should be a strict list of things that you can buy with those. I watched three women buy 4 1-liter bottles of pop, candy, ice cream bars, and chips the other day. The two that paid used their Food Stamp cards to pay for the items. Not one of the things they purchased would be considered “good nutrition” by any means.

Sorry for the long rant, but there’s a few things I felt needed to be said.

Have a great day:)
Patrick.

Unfortunately this requires a longer term view that what government usually takes. So instead we give deductions for spending and tax people who are making money.

Personally I think we would be better off if we could get back to the mindset that we pay taxes for the services our government provides us. Under that type of scenario someone who makes $50k would pay less than someone who makes $1 million, but not that much less. As it is, we have a mentality that the government owes some people and some people owe the government instead of everyone “paying for what they use.”

Thanks for your comment. It is good to get feedback on stuff like this.

@Mary – Maybe it is different where you live, but I see lots of people around here who have allocated so much of their income to buying cheap technical marvels that they don’t have anything left to pay for essentials or to take advantage of opportunities that come their way.