Monday, January 30, 2012

Homeschooling: Time to Change Political Parties?

Like most people, I am pretty discouraged by politicians generally.  Most seem pretty clueless about what regular people are going through and only interested in being re-elected.  Currently, I am a registered democrat, not because I am thrilled with them, but because they seem a little more in touch with regular people than republicans.  Not only do most republicans running for office seem bigoted against low income or minority people, I don't believe in their general philosophy that government shouldn't have a role at all.  Clearly the resources of government can, when used properly, bring equality and stability to the wide citizenry in a way that competition alone cannot.  Unfortunately, democrats take it too far by not only having government fund basic services, like education, but operate them.  While cut-throat competition is too far, the inefficiencies of government is not all that desirable either.

Then I read up on Ron Paul's views on homeschooling.  He is proposing tax credits to defray the cost of homeschooling.  It is perfect.  Government funding of education without operating it.  Parents who are the best champions of their students would be in charge without the penalty of a reduced income.  It is a real program of equality.  Low and middle income people wouldn't have to be afraid to give up an income.  While homeschool is more efficient and so it doesn't take as many hours to educate students, taking kids out of public school does mean parents are without free day care making a second income almost impossible.  The credits would fix this.  There would also be more family stability because a parent would be home to be a homemaker removing some of the stress of the over scheduling that often goes on in two income families.

Should I rush out and change parties?  Not sure, I think it was Ron Paul's son that thought civil rights went too far.  Also, most republicans don't want federal involvement in education, but leave it to the states.  Perhaps, I should lean on my state politicians for consideration of tax credits.  Mark Grisanti, my state senator whom I already strongly support, despite being a republican has gone out of his way to support equality by supporting gay marriage and funding for the NFTA (public transportation is a very important way to further equality).  He is the type of Republican that would be well worth changing parties for if it came down to it.  However, voting for Ron Paul would also sent a message to politicians about homeschooling.  If republicans in NYS took it up, they could begin to cut education costs in half since the $5000 that Ron Paul is proposing is half the per student cost in most school districts in WNY.  Time to send our politicians an e-mail!

3 comments:

  1. Would the 5,000 be a refundable tax credit, or nonrefundable? I'm wondering how it would really affect families in different income brackets. If it is nonrefundable, then it probably would not be able to allow a low income family to switch to homeschooling, would it? But if it is a tax credit for specific educational things, then low income families wouldn't necessarily be able to get it anyway, since they'd lack the money to put towards those educational extras anyway, wouldn't they?

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  2. Excellent points. When I look at the Ron Paul website, it doesn't say, but with that size credit and the mention of low and middle income families, I presumed refundable. However, he doesn't actually come out and say refundable so that would be critical information to supporting a candidate's proposal for homeschool tax credits. Of course, I agree with you about its uselessness as far as only reimbursing for certain educational items since the loss of income is far more for most people than what they spend on supplies.

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  3. More discussion at:

    http://www.time4learning.net/forum/new-york/tax-credits-9503/

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