My friends at Moore Tea Citizens Blog are calling me out. The headline reads “Civitas Is Now supporting Redistributional Welfare.” Moore Tea opposes Civitas’ support for Personal Education Savings Accounts (PESA). The blog read: “the program [ Personal Education Savings Accounts] uses the NC tax system to take money from the North Carolinians with their own financial struggles and family heartache and gives it to the selected group of families with ‘special needs.’ ”
Redistributional welfare? Not a chance. Moore Tea bloggers seem to forget that the North Carolina State Constitution (Article IX) lays out the state’s obligation to provide a free and uniform system of public education for all students. The statement is clear. How education is to be financed and delivered are the only real questions and the legislature has say over how those are answered.
North Carolina currently spends over $9 billion on K-12 public education. While there are many good public schools, we know that many fail to offer children access to a quality education. Growing dissatisfaction has fueled a parental choice movement and birthed educational options such as charter schools, the Opportunity Scholarship program, Special Needs Scholarship and most recently, the Personal Education Savings Accounts.
These programs fufill the state’s mandate educate all students. They also offer parents the chance to determine how and where their child attends school. As parents make that choice, the schools are ultimately accountable to the parents – the best kind of accountability. Moreover, the cost of educating a child at many parental choice programs is less than the costs of education at traditional public schools.
We should applaud lawmakers for approving the Personal Education Savings Account program and offering parents another educational option. PESA offers parents an innovative way to provide their special needs son or daughter access to a quality education, an option that was previously unavailable for parents in many schools because of lack of resources, staff or training.
It is important to note that the PESA program is largely targeted on students who are already in the public schools. PESA offers those children, an opportunity at a better education. This is a key difference between parental choice and welfare programs. Welfare programs are redistributive. Money is taken from those who have and given to the have-nots. Parental choice programs give parents choices on where they can send their child for a better education. However, the money will be spent regardless of where the parents decide to send the child to school.
North Carolina has a constitutional obligation to educate all children. The parental choice movement has expanded how that obligation is met by offering parents other educational alternatives
Is PESA redistributional welfare? If you still think so, you a need better understanding of our State Constitution and the promise of parental choice.
I moved to Moore County this spring where I run a manufacturing business. Prior to this I lived in Cary for 20 years and was deeply involved in school choice efforts, in particular the low-cost Thales Academies, now the largest independent K-12 school system in NC. Moore Tea folks are well-meaning, but have little knowledge of the liberal Tomfoolery that has beset government schools in the Triangle and elsewhere. Most Moore Tea folks are well into retirement and remain loyal to public schools for the past. Most live in the southern part of the county with the highest incomes and relatively good public schools and one very expensive private school. The region is also home to many affluent retired government workers and former government school teachers. It is a great place to live but a bit of a bubble unlike most other parts of the state where parents are desperate for affordable choices for education.
Guaranteed Minimum or Basic Incomes would create Freedom and Choice and do away with the waste and corruption of the Welfare State.
F.A. Hayek among others supported this.
More Liberation ideas from Scott.Not only a socialist but lies about being a Liberian.
Charles Murray of the Heritage Foundation also supports the Guaranteed Minimum Income. He agrees it would lead to more Freedom and Choice while doing away with the Welfare State. These ideas are completely Libertarian.
If Scott had ever run a business he would know that a guaranteed minimum income will destroy most of the small businesses in this country.Who gets to make the decision on what the rate would be.Businesses have to pay 7.6 percent of the employees gross pay to S.S. and Medicare.They also have to pay 15.2 per cent on their own pay to S.S.and Medicare.This cost on top of whatever some Socialist said the rate should be would bankrupt most small business.Scott is like most in the Democrat Party that thinks anyone in small business are rich.
I’m not in the Democrat Party Larry, nor did I vote for Hillary or Bill Clinton.
There are many Capitalist countries who not only have Guaranteed Minimum and Basic Incomes, they also have National Healthcare systems. Social Security and Medicare would no longer be in existence, and true Tax Reform would solve any problems.
You are arguing a subject you obviously know nothing about!
Scott,I have forgotten more than you know about business.Those that can,do.Those that can’t,teach.If you didn’t vote for the Clinton’s why are you are telling us they aren’t crooked when a blind person could see that they had nothing before Bill became President and are now worth more than 100 million.Harry Truman said it best,if you get rich in politics you are crooked.
Scott,can you read? Explain how lying under oath is not a crime.