FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Rob Latham
(801) 299-9999 (office)
Libertarian Organizing Committee
P.O. BOX 526025
Salt Lake City, Utah 84152-6025
chair@lputah.org
WWW.LPUTAH.ORG
LIBERTARIANS “FOR” EDUCATIONAL SCHOLARSHIPS REFERENDUM
SALT LAKE CITY – By a vote of its membership, the Libertarian Organizing
Committee is encouraging Libertarians and liberty-minded Utahns to vote for
Citizens State Referendum Number 1.
“On balance, voter approval of education scholarships through
Referendum 1 will improve educational outcomes for children compelled to
participate in taxpayer-funded, constitutionally-mandated government
education systems in Utah,” says Rob Latham, chairman of the Libertarian
Organizing Committee.
“Allowing parents to use some of the wealth extorted from taxpayers
to place their children in voluntarily-attended learning environments will
help decentralize the dangerous gun-runs schools that have captured a
nation’s highest 97 percent ‘monopoly’ share of K-12 students in Utah,” adds
Latham.
Latham also thinks that the educational scholarship program’s design
will encourage many parents — who don’t obtain additional funding — to
partly contribute toward the total tuition amount and stimulate more
personal investment and involvement in their child’s learning, which has
been shown to improve educational quality.
“Despite valid concerns that taxpayer-funded educational
scholarships will perpetuate parental dependence on educational welfare,”
says Latham, “Referendum 1 is an important first step toward separating
school and state.”
“Therefore, Libertarians will continue to champion the right and
responsibility of parents to educate their children, and advocate replacing
taxes with non-coercive alternatives such as user fees to fund services,”
says Latham.
Rob Latham’s arguments are interesting. Rob is a big L libertarian, whereas I am a small. I have written a series of articles addressing why Utah’s Voucher program is bad from an explicitly small l libertarian position. I will release them later.
I think it’s interesting that Rob, a Libertarian, is advocating a program that constitutes essentially a redistribution of wealth. That is hardly libertarian at all. It seems that in his arguments the ends of getting kids out of government run schools justifies the unlibertarian means of “wealth extorted from taxpayers”.
Tax credits I could support, because that really IS the parents money, unlike this panzi wealth redistribution system now proposed.
I suppose a true libertarian would propose eliminating public schools altogether. But Rob is apparently a pragmatic libertarian. Knowing that public schools aren’t going away, he supports a program that would dilute their monopoly, allow choice, and improve education. Go Rob!
If spending education money at private institutions is a
“panzi wealth redistribution system”, why isn’t the present system considered the same thing?
It seems that Rob is giving up his principles in an attempt to lure some of the far right away from the GOP.
Rob tries hard but let’s face it, here in Utah the Democratic Party leadership is much more inline with Libertarian principles than the GOP Party is.
Steep,
The present system also redistributes wealth. Vouchers go a step further by creating the smokescreen of the illusion that the voucher recipient is recieving some kind of tax credit or refund. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I don’t see it as a smoke screen. Utah has decided to pay for the education of children. Vouchers just open up the monopoly that the state presently has in providing the service. Just like we use private constuction firms to bid for state road projects, we can have private schools bid competetively to educate Utah kids.
Bush just signed a new Pell Grant increase.
I guess that money should go straight to state-run
schools rather than to the students, too.
The major thing to remember is that 100% of the income tax $$ must be used for education. So if the money for vouchers is coming out of the general fund, what is paying the price? When do we get the bill for new roads, buses, get the message.
The major thing to remember is that 100% of the income tax $$ must be used for education. So if the money for vouchers is coming out of the general fund, what is paying the price? When do we get the bill for new roads, buses, get the message.