Paying for Education, continued

I apologize for my previous post.  I hit send before I finished it. In fact, my proposals have already been implemented by our representatives in government.  It's called the lottery.  According to one study referenced by John Goodman, "the poorest third of households buy more than half of the tickets sold in any given week."  Continuing, Goodman reports "African-Americans spend five times more on lottery tickets than white people."  This is the state-sponsored way to help pay for public education.  Whatever the intentions of the politicians, this is the result.  Those who can least afford it are the ones who are spending the most on the lottery.  Slick state-financed advertising campaigns push it.  And these advertising campaigns are exempt from federal truth-in-advertising laws.  Moreover, the bulk of the advertising is deliberately "timed to coincide with the receipt of government benefits, payroll, and Social Security payments."  Gambling pimps in Washington and in the various state capitols are preferentially targeting johns who can least afford it, but it's the johns who are getting screwed.

Paying for Education

Education is something that most people value.  So most people believe it's something we as a society should pay for.  I've been thinking about how to help finance public education and I've come up with two measures that I propose to help raise the necessary money.

First, I propose that the population be divided into three groups based on income.  For simplicity, let's just call them the poor, the middle class, and the rich.  The poor would then be required to pay more than half of the education tax.  The other two groups would be required to pay the rest.

Secondly, I propose that each white person be charged a tax at a certain rate.  Whatever that rate is, each African-American person is required to pay five times more.

Those are my proposals.  I look forward to any comments.