General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy say "free" when we mean "tax-funded"?
"Free" seems to me to be a terrible word for Bernie's idea about education funding. It is easily rebuked - "nothing is free" - and is a terribly irritating word for many. I think tax-funded is more honest and does more work. By "work" I mean that many of our social woes can be traced to a divestiture of economy from community. Whether shipping jobs away, de-funding schools, ecological concerns, or passing off the health care disaster to future generations in the name of profit, people and businesses seem to be turning away from community. By bringing honor back to the term "tax" and "tax-funded," maybe we can re-discover some of our communities and better understand the interconnectivity of society and economy.
So, Bernie has my vote, but I wish he would please stop calling for "free" education. It sounds uninformed and I think it does more harm than good.
*I put this in GD because it is a comment on language - I don't think this is a policy or primary post*
libdem4life
(13,877 posts)I wish he'd bring it home to the USA where people can relate.
Our society/culture/economics are full of socialist programs that people take for granted, i.e. "free" K-12 education...on and on.
Sivart
(325 posts)I completely agree, and its frustrating.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)"Free" food stamps. They give almost everyone working there part time status forcing them to go to the "Free" ER. Since they don't qualify for medical assistance.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)Why should offering the same thing for college be called something different? If anything, he is being consistent with something that we have said is an awesome idea for our children up to the age of 18. Now he's just adding four years to that idea. If he started calling it something different, wouldn't that just give ammunition for the right to say "see, it's not the same thing"?
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)in terms of taxes and marketing, etc. However, I suspect that sympathy for "free programs" for individuals over age 18 takes a steep dip.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)My point is that "free education" is a term that is very commonly used in the US. People know what it means. Bernie is just using the phrase that everyone knows.
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)But you are restating the point I am refuting without additional argument. Yes, I know it is in common use. I find it detrimental.
Trajan
(19,089 posts)We pay for ALL public education by choice ...
I don't want 'free stuff' ... I want our society to wisely choose to pay their public education using our tax dollars ...
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)We all know that public education is funded by taxes (though not all know which taxes--but that's a different story).
Bernie is just using the language we have been using in the US for some time. So not only should he fight to provide free education post-secondary, he also needs to fight the term we've been using for nearly a century?
Trajan
(19,089 posts)Even conversing with you here costs me a few seconds of my life ...
I should have known you were a teacher by the way you ... Signed your name?
Anyways, snarkiness aside - when someone uses the term 'free education', they are committing a fallacy ...
So please continue, teacher person ...
We are done here ...
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)It is free for the person getting the product. They may or may not pay some taxes that go into the pool, but they don't have to pay to attend--it is free for all that are in the district. As opposed to private education that you need to pay for. Even if you don't pay taxes, you get to have the education.
Why the teacher hate? I'm sorry that someone in my profession was horrible to you at some point in your life.
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)As I mentioned before, I think the word taxes has a hell of a lot more implication of community than does a semantically twisted version of "free".
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)quite literally, based on taxes. So he is already fighting this fight. Say the word - "taxes" - "free" is a fantasy and a rhetorically weak word in this context.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)http://www.ibtimes.com/hillary-clinton-tuition-plan-making-college-free-donald-trumps-kids-not-what-2126868
It's a phrase that everyone uses. Pretty much everyone realizes that the education doesn't really cost $0.00 to provide.
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)I realize it is in wide use and I find that to be to the detriment of the national political conversation. I am sorry if I wasn't clear or was too Bernie-centric.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)I just don't know what the phrase needs to be without being unduly complex and, to some extent, setting it self apart from K-12 education.
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)But in the terms of Bernie using that phrase now, it is problematic. We would need to have that phrase be used extensively for K-12 education first so that everyone would realize it would be the same type of thing.
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)But that seems weird to me!
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)with raising the top rates. But I get what you're saying. Our country is pretty damn weird when it comes to taxes.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)The important distinction is that how much you pat doesn't depend on how much you use.
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)I am fascinated with language use.
mythology
(9,527 posts)We have a political culture that abhors paying taxes. It sucks as taxes can be used well and to provide for the general welfare, but so many people revolt against higher taxes.
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)We can't avoid it, I don't think. If we do, well, we may need a better word than "free".
MindPilot
(12,693 posts)Calling something like education "free" just gives the opposition the exact talking point they need to dismiss the whole concept.
"So who's gonna pay for it?"
Things like healthcare and education are a common good. Just like well-maintained roads and a safe air traffic control system, we all benefit so we all contribute. Anyone got a problem with chipping in a buck or two each paycheck to keep airliners from falling on your house? Probably not, then why so much opposition to healthcare that would keep nasty diseases from spreading around, or making sure as many as possible have productive skills so they are not panhandling in front of the Krogers?
Nobody ever tries to pitch police protection as "free"; it is just understood that paying for it is part of the rent.
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)You really understand!!
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)We refer to all of these services as "free" at some point. None of it is free and all of it is supported by taxes of some sort.
I think one can get way to over interested in semantics. "A rose by any other name..."
You can start calling spiders by a different name, it won't take long for the new name to take on the same negative connotation as spider. You can call it "shared sacrafice" if you want, or "share responsibility" or whatever. But in the end it will become known for exactly what it is.
Ever had a boss tell you "we don't have problems, we have challenges". Or worse, "it's not a crisis, it's an opportunity".
Did that change your perceptions?
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)"opportunities." The word "taxes" is the reality. The word "free" is the semantic game, from my perspective.
kcr
(15,320 posts)It doesn't matter what you call it. We need to somehow get away from the hyper-individualist thinking in our society in order to get more people to accept ideas like that. I hate to say it, but people who quibble at free are just trying to find ways to argue against it because no one thinks The College Fairy is going to wave her wand and pay the bills.
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)the hyper-individualism you describe. I only have partial solutions, I'm afraid.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Why do we call white a color when it's merely the absence of color? It's easily rebuked. By bringing honor back to the phrase 'absence of color'. Maybe we can rediscover some of our communities.
So I like Clause Monet, but I wish he would have never called white a color preference... it sounds uniformed and I think does more harm than good.
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)white is all colors. For reflected light, white is the 100% reflection of all colors and 0% absorption. Black is the reverse for all of these examples.
Color is fascinating and part of the reason I studied physics for a few years. As a painter and light artist, I am still fascinated by black and white.
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)Some people will not be paying taxes and some people will. Some people will be entitled to use the resources that people pool together to provide some will not. Right now we have a situation where people are paying lots of taxes for very little in terms of services and being able to access resources while the rich get very cheap labor and hold onto vast amounts of wealth giving back very little.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Sales taxes apply to everyone and that is why they are so regressive. But we need to stress just that when we get into this type of argument. I am so sick of it. I hate this "the poor don't pay taxes" when they most certainly do and it hits their pocketbooks harder than the middle or upper classes.
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)anyway I read about a millionaire that had to pay what would be about 6,000 dollars for what would be a very low fine in the US.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,361 posts)"taxpayer-funded higher education" Google results: 2,310 results
"tax-funded higher education" 394 results
"free higher education" 113,000 results
"taxpayer-funded tuition" 1,450 results
"tax-funded tuition" 2,030 results
"free tuition" 487,000 results
"taxpayer-funded university tuition" 4 results
"tax-funded university tuition" 3 results
"free university tuition" 21,800 results
The Wikipedia article is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_education
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)Thank you for the research and compilation. Your info combined with yet another "free tuition" thread gone down the predictable course makes me believe it is very necessary to re-connect taxes with social services and to re-connect economy with community.
Orsino
(37,428 posts)...and corporate media have sufficiently demonized taxation that typically socialized efforts are seen as expenses rather than investments in ourselves.
hunter
(38,326 posts)Be thankful the air you breathe hasn't been monetized yet. (Who knows how long that will last...)
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)that can be carried in one's pocket.
But I disagree that "everything is free." Some things - a very many things that, I think, improve life immeasurably compared to even just decades ago - only exist because of labor and coordination of effort.
hunter
(38,326 posts)What we are calling "economic productivity" these days is a direct measure of the damage we are doing to the earth's natural environment and the human spirit.
That's just the wretched numbers. I can do the math.
Fortunately I don't have to believe in anything to get through the day. Nature will always do what nature does. Exponential growth always ends. As they say on the triage deck, the bleeding always stops. (My sister is a paramedic, my wife's career is similar, with even more high power, highly scientific, highly technical university training.)
This planet has seen many innovative species flame out. We humans are not the first, and we won't be the last.
In ten million years nothing is left of us but a peculiar layer of trash in the geologic record and a few bits of metal floating around in outer space.
Personally I think we should be paying people not to work, and that taxes ought to approach 100% at some multiple of this minimum income, probably a multiple less than twenty. Pump the oxygenated water into the bottom of the pond, skim the scum off the top.
The world would actually be a better place if some people stayed home all day having protected sex, smoking pot, and playing video games. Hard working gangsters and steroid pumping gun loving cops do not make a community a better place.
Even better, further education and art. Free. Celebrated.
The devil finds work for idle hands. It's called Wal-Mart. It's some fucking church stuffed full of affluent "Prosperity Theology" Christians, madly seeking something, anything, to fill up the empty places in their souls.
Realistic, sustainable, economics is basic pond maintenance. If the circulation stops the scum on the top gets so thick the environment beneath becomes dark and anaerobic.
Our high energy, fossil fueled economy, in which the rich get richer, and everyone else gets kicked around by sadistic goons wearing steel toed boots, needs to be killed dead, with extreme prejudice.
I doubt the wealthy political classes of this world will ever support fair, sustainable economic systems, but nature will stomp'm extinct one of these days.
Whatever happens, the meek shall inherit the earth, but only because there are so many of them.
It's not a hypothetical thing either. There are places on this planet today where civilization is already collapsing.
Seeing the world through the eyes of an evolutionary biologist doesn't mean I exist in a dark hopeless place. This world is endlessly fascinating, I can honestly say I've never been bored. My family, crazy artists the whole lot of them, bring me great joy. My pets, all of them from the shelter, make me happy, even when they are bad. I have a garden, especially a tomato vine that thinks it's a perennial. I like computers. I don't buy hardware or software. People throw away easily repairable computers that run Open Source software just fine. (Debian is awesome! Your mileage may vary. I've been on the internet since 1979 and was present when the early BSD editions were released into the wild. After a brief and sometimes lucrative affair with Microsoft Windows, Debian was like coming home again.)
I've been homeless and off-my-meds too. Dumpster diving feral man. There's no promise I won't visit that place again.
But wow, it's all been a wild ride, even in an economy largely controlled by disgusting sociopaths.
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)I also don't personify nature. I too have eaten from dumpsters. I too have lived in the woods and been unemployed for years pursuing non-materiality. I now just live moderately.
The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)Humans are just good at hiding or manipulating it. It's always there though, one way or another.
The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)It'll be difficult to bring honor back to the word tax, when you look up the definition of the word tax.
Then, if taxes are what hold our community together, and I happen to think taxes are about the only thing that holds America together(because it seems like we're all pretty sick of each other), then we don't really have a community to hold together.
meow2u3
(24,771 posts)I hope I cleared that up for you.
Or, you can call it a publicly funded college eduction.
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)I find "Free" to be disingenuous and easily argued, but I already said all that.