This is a bit of a heads-up from Greg Mankiw — describing the Manhattan liberals’ dream endstate, where bureaucrats like Cahill control your life:
The town I live in (Wellesley, MA) wants to build a new high school, and the State Treasurer Tim Cahill objects to the cost. The state government is providing some funding, as it typically does for school building projects, but the town is willing to fully fund the incremental cost of all the bells and whistles that Mr Cahill objects to.
Why, you might ask, is the cost of these add-ons a state issue at all? Why not let local residents decide what kind of high school to buy? According to the Boston Globe, Mr Cahill explains his position as follows:
One community should not be able to provide better opportunities for kids versus another community just because they have the money.
In essence, Mr Cahill does not want the residents of Wellesley–a group with higher-than-average income–to spend their own money on their children. I suppose it is better for them to buy fancier cars or spend more on dinners out at tony restaurants. But better school facilities? Absolutely not!
Mr Cahill’s one-size-fits-all principle has many implications. For example, why should wealthier parents be allowed to hire tutors for their kids? Or give them private music lessons? Or send them to pricey summer camps? If Mr Cahill thinks that people should not be able to spend their own money to improve the lives of their children, the Wellesley High School is only the first step of a much larger project.
Mr. Cahill’s comments are right out of the socialistic-communistic text book. “From everybody according to their ability, to everybody according to their needs.” I.e. redistribution of income because everybody should be alike.
Of course socialism, defined as the way to reach communism, never happened and never will. But there are still residues in the thinking and background of some people, including Mr. Cahill.
Mr. Cahill clearly states that the Wellesley kids can’t have “it” if not everybody can have “it.”
I say: “Damn the torpedoes.” Go ahead an build with your own money!
I don’t agree with Mankiw’s take on this. His position is predicated on the notion that the wealthy town is entitled to state assistance in building their schools in the first place (as I said on my blog).
The true anticentralization position would be to question why the state taxes the citizens of the town and then send their money back to them in the first place.
Thanks heaps for your comments. I found your corresponding post on the issue - also excellent. I agree with all of your points — which do not seem to me much at variance with Greg Mankiw’s bottom line: given the Massachusetts statutes which provide state level support of public education, how does it follow that state bureaucrats are empowered to prevent citizens of a district from funding “extras” they deem important to the education of their children.
I suppose one could argue that the Wellesley citizens should pay for more than just the “extras”? Does Massachusetts law even allow a district to do that?