Obama to pay for free pre-school by unfair taxation?

well we have all seen the arguments over the years about cigarette taxes being unfair taxation. normally it is stated that raising tobacco taxes is all about paying for "extra health care needed for smokers". well this certainly is not about paying for health issues due to smoking. it is blatant unfair taxation. why should smokers ONLY shoulder the burden of paying for preschool for everyone? if it is something needed then some other way should be found to pay for it not put the burden on people who are already paying MORE THAN ENOUGH taxes on a product only some use. perhaps a tax on DIAPERS would be at least a bit fairer since at least those people would be the ones either using the service now or in the future.

We don't have the full budget yet, but the six-page brief is loaded with priorities that the President laid out in his State of the Union address and has campaigned around the country to promote. Among those is his plan to invest in early childhood education through his Preschool for All initiative. The proposal calls for providing all low- and moderate-income households with free preschool, to be paid for by raising federal taxes on cigarettes and tobacco products. The White House has so far declined to provide details about the proposed tobacco tax rate or the cost of the preschool program. Read more: www.businessinsider.com...

Government believes in getting children while they are young. Obama is calling to pay for pre-school so they can indoctrinate children sooner. Pretty brilliant plan sadly.. take money from people's addictions to fund a re-education program.

there's no such thing as free

Also doesn't this kind of promote people to keep smoking?

Whats wrong with getting kids in pre school?
Seeing how bad the US education system is I think you should be cheering for this.
It is the most important time for a child's learning and it may help people who can not afford it send their child to get it.
The kids are all our future and If they get educated without financial worries on the parents it will be better in the long run.

Education, Education, Education. Most important thing in the world.

Originally posted by ModernAcademia
there's no such thing as free

Also doesn't this kind of promote people to keep smoking?

Pretty much says, Save the children, kill yourself

weird way to help children..

reply to post by ModernAcademia


Smoking is in decline in general. Young people aren't being pulled into the big tobacco industry anymore, so the fact that he's going to use that product's tax increase to pay for it shows me they aren't serious.

Revenue for tobacco products is falling and revenue for smoking cessation is up. How long can that program actually survive, without going into the red, if it relies on a declining industry?

Very dumb. Early Childhood education should be done by parents. There's no reason to put your kids in pre-school, you should be preparing them for that yourself.

~Tenth

reply to post by boymonkey74


The problems with education in the US cannot be solved merely by adding more years spent in the system. The system isn't working. Before the education our kids receive becomes world-class the system will need to be overhauled from top to bottom.

I would suggest starting by removing those things that have been proven false but are still retained in the syllabus due to emotional desires.

It is obviously unfair for any subset of the populace to be singled out to pay for everyone else. If, as you say, children are everyone's future then everyone should bear an equal part of the expense.

reply to post by Montana


Ok maybe the way the tax is only on ciggie smokers change that but it is well known that pre school (or how we in the UK used to call it playschool) does have advantages for the child especially disadvantaged children.

I loved going to play school meeting and interacting with loadsa kids...I fell in love with my teacher (Miss Coldicott the Goth teacher I dreamt of getting married too ).

If it helps the kids I see no problem with it.

Oh and I smoke and I wouldn't mind if told that my Tax would be going to the education of kids..
BTW how much does a pack of Marlborough cost in the states? £8.30 here thats why I smoke baccy

Originally posted by ModernAcademia
there's no such thing as free

Also doesn't this kind of promote people to keep smoking?

Supposedly "smoking" falls under a "per-existing condition". Still need to research that so don't take it at face value. It is merely the rumor right now but it is apparently up to the bureaucratic "exchange" board to determine that from state to state.

Originally posted by boymonkey74
Whats wrong with getting kids in pre school?
Seeing how bad the US education system is I think you should be cheering for this.It is the most important time for a child's learning and it may help people who can not afford it send their child to get it.
The kids are all our future and If they get educated without financial worries on the parents it will be better in the long run.

Education, Education, Education. Most important thing in the world.

The problem withthe part in italics is that the people responsible for making our education system crappy are the ones doing the preschool. If someone screws up a job, you don't expand his abilities.

Originally posted by boymonkey74
reply to post by Montana

 

Ok maybe the way the tax is only on ciggie smokers change that but it is well known that pre school (or how we in the UK used to call it playschool) does have advantages for the child especially disadvantaged children.

Most of the advantages seen from preschool are actually social, not directly intellectual. The same effect could be achieved by the parents getting of their arses and taking their kids to the park!

But that would require effort on their part. not others, so you will never see it.

Reminds me of a picture I saw a couple of weeks ago....

We spend 40,000 a year to lock up our criminals....but only pay 8000 a year on education for our children.

Complaining about education spending is the one spending issue that's downright stupid to complain about.

Originally posted by Ghost375
Complaining about education spending is the one spending issue that's downright stupid to complain about.

So if education sucks the solution is to spend more on education?
That's always the solution? Throw more money at the problem?

Do you think it's possible that you could may do more with less money if these idiots actually come up with a plan?

Money money money money money other people's money all the time money?????

It's not a stupid thing to complain that too many parents want to outsource parenthood, especially in a publicly funded arena.

Probably ritalin vaccines will follow this eventually for pre-schoolers.

It's time for people to start thinking again!!!!!

reply to post by generik
They are going to keep raising taxes on tobacco products regardless of what they claim they will use the tax money for. If they really intend to use it for free pre-school I would much rather my tax money be used for that than for bailing out big banks or bribing terrorist regimes.

Free pre-school would be a blessing to my family. I stay home with my grandchild as my daughter can't afford daycare, and it has caused financial hardship for my husband and I- not to mention I am more than ready to get out of the house and go back to work. Something like this would help.

By the way, I, my hubby and both of my daughters as well as almost everyone else in my circle of friends and family are smokers. I think between the lot of us our tax money would more than cover the cost of free pre-school for my grandkid.

Originally posted by boymonkey74
Whats wrong with getting kids in pre school?
Seeing how bad the US education system is I think you should be cheering for this.
It is the most important time for a child's learning and it may help people who can not afford it send their child to get it.
The kids are all our future and If they get educated without financial worries on the parents it will be better in the long run.

Education, Education, Education. Most important thing in the world.

it was not my intention to disagree with children in daycare, but the UNFAIR taxation they want to put in place to pay for it. IF they want to provide daycare then by all means they should try to do so, but with a FAIR method of paying for it. putting the burden on only a portion of they population that may not even have kids that could take advantage of it is not fair at all. hence why i made the comment about taxing diapers. heck they could also tax those who would not be covered by this "free daycare", and baby products of all types, which would certainly be a fairer way to tax for it. at least in that case people who would be using the service would be paying for it. other than that just like for elementary and high school funding it really should come out of income-taxes at least that is a much fairer way of it than to add yet more tax to a product that is not only already EXTREMELY HIGHLY TAXED as it is, but a product only some people use, that has absolutely NOTHING whatsoever to do with education. as someone has mentioned a dwindling number of people which would mean building up the tax all the time just to stay at a constant rate. seriously WHY SHOULD smokers be the ones responsible for paying for this it has nothing at all to do with smoking? how about instead of smokers it was a tax on "diet products"? things like diet soda, weight watchers type meals, sugar substitutes, meal replacement drinks, and anything else related to trying to loose weight. would THAT be fair?

as for "Whats wrong with getting kids in pre school?".in my opinion kids would be far better off at home with a parent, or even another relative then be put into preschool. i have known many people who have worked in these places (most of them good people who love kids), they don't normally teach much of anything that can't be as easily learned at home. in the end they are generally just places to babysit kids so the parents can work or do whatever without having to deal with their kids. sadly a lot of people who use these places actually spend little time with their children at all, dropping them off before 7 am and picking them up after 6 pm. basically for 5 days of the week picking the kids up feeding them dinner and putting them to bed to wake them up the next day to take back yet again. this is one of the things i believe has been causing a lot of the issues in currant society.

it would actually be far better for the children to instead of wanting to provide preschool, to instead work on getting people payed enough so that like in years gone by people could afford to live on ONE WAGE. which would let young children be raised not by impersonal institutional care but by loving families.

i just loved this "Seeing how bad the US education system is I think you should be cheering for this.". now why would having preschool make a difference? do you honestly think that it would not be more of the same? that "free preschool" will somehow magically fix it?

The education system in the US went down hill when Carter created the Department of Education.

Considering the sheer amount of money we spend on education we should have the smartest people on the planet.

Education is not about spending $$ on them teach not indoctrinate that other thread relates to this one about "your children belong to the community":.

Get them young, brainwash them, you will have them for life the greatest danger to despotism?

Intellectual activity.

Rob from the rich "for the children"
Rob from the smokers "for the children".

Robbing their futures for mediocrity because spending a billion dollars on education does not make a person "smart".

Just means you have a expensive paper weight.

So, Head Start has been declared as an utter failure since its 1965 inception and Now Obama wants to throw this idea at the wall to see what happens? Butt out. Govt. manhandling only leads to failure in practically everything that they touch.

Head Start, the most sacrosanct federal education program, doesn't work.

That's the finding of a sophisticated study just released by President Obama's Department of Health and Human Services.

Created in 1965, the comprehensive preschool program for 3- and 4-year olds and their parents is meant to narrow the education gap between low-income students and their middle- and upper-income peers. Forty-five years and $166 billion later, it has been proven a failure.

The bad news came in the study released this month: It found that, by the end of the first grade, children who attended Head Start are essentially indistinguishable from a control group of students who didn't

Knowing all of that Obama made the following push

But that's beside the point. Even if it's true, it means that Head Start will be of no lasting value to children until we fix our elementary and secondary schools. Until then, money spent on Head Start will continue to be wasted.

Yet the Obama administration remains enthusiastic. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius and Education Secretary Arne Duncan both want to boost funding for Head Start -- that is, to spend more on a program that's sure to fail. That's after the president already raised spending on the program from $6.8 billion to $9.2 billion last year.

Instead of throwing more dollars at this proven failure, President Obama might consider throwing his weight behind proven successes. A federal program that pays private-school tuition for poor DC families, for instance, has been shown to raise students' reading performance by more than two grade levels after just three years, compared to a control group of students who stayed in public schools. And it does so at about a quarter the cost to taxpayers of DC's public schools.

Sadly, Obama and Duncan have ignored the DC program's proven success. Neither lifted a finger to save it when Democrats in Congress pulled the plug on its funding last year.

Perhaps it's unrealistic to expect national Democrats to end a Great Society program, even when it's a proven failure. Perhaps it's unrealistic to expect them to stand up to teachers' union opposition and support private-school-choice programs that are proven successes.

All Hail the push for a "Great Society" Are we to surmise that Head Start will remain in addition to Obama's Free Pre School?? Wow!

www.nypost.com...

Wouldn't it be great if we learned from the failures of Head Start and actually focused on the programs that have worked over the years? The advancement of a Social Agenda always takes precedent over rationale and logic!!

This is getting really funny...

Anything that Obama proposes will be twisted into an "evil plot" even if it means...Preschool BAD...smoking..GOOD!

Hey BTW ...A multitude of studies have shown that early childhood education translates to ...

Higher income..
Better health...
Longer life spans..
Less crime..
Stronger national economies through increased competitiveness...

Etc.

Not rocket science here and not an evil plot...just trying to give kids a leg up and by extension the USA.

I think perspective is very important here. I really don't mind paying an extra tax on cigarettes (yes, I do smoke) compared to those in the UK having to pay a TV tax. I can't even imagine how enraged I would be if a US official came to me with a warrent demanding to inspect my house for an unathorized TV.
TV License