[geeks] Re: [rescue] Re: Taxes (was: Computerfests)

[Mike Meredith]

On Sat, 17 Apr 2004 17:17:39 -0500, Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:
> I don't believe that education should be the responsibility of the
> taxpayer.  We're okay with the idea of paying for college, why aren't

Not all of us are.

> Fiat funding tends to lead to slack attention to efficiency.  I see
> this firsthand every day, working for a state agency.  In august (the
> last month of our fiscal year), it's the worst, since that end-of-year
> spending frenzy takes hold and we buy all manner of useless crap in
> order to keep our funding.  No one ever asks if we're overfunded.

It's certainly crazy (I see *some* of this myself), and I can't see why
the most obvious cure for this problem isn't tried ... allowing
organisations and departments to save funds from year to year in a
contingency fund.

> If you take away fiat funding, and schools are funded directly by the
> parents of the students attending, you have a competitive incentive
> to:
> 
>    1) Use money efficiently, because there's no guarantee of it being
>       there next year.
>    2) Provide the best education possible and otherwise keep parents
>       happy so that they'll get more students in the future.

The UK system has an element of this. Schools get funding based on the
number of children they teach, and parents (in theory) select which
schools their children go to. This does mean the better schools tend to
get better funding, but there's a few problems with the system.

> valid ways of getting the job done.  In fact, if I have to be totally
> honest, I'd -love- to see a socialist society work out without the

Sweden.

> inherent corruption on behalf of those governing the socialst machine.

Actually you'll find corruption in any system whether socialist or not.
It's endemic to *power* and not to socialism. And of course it's found
in private industry as well as the public sector.

> The difference is that I don't think that can happen because of the
> inherent inefficiency and tendency towards corruption that cames with
> centralized governmental control.  So, I'd rather see people take care

I don't see inefficiency and corruption being tied to centralised
government. You see it of course, but it's also to be found in large
companies. Unfortunately large organisations can also be more efficient
than many small organisations doing the same job.

Now if we could get rid of the suits, it wouldn't matter how things were
organised ... it would be inherintly more efficient :)