Death and Taxes Options

[Blitz]

This is an interactive map showing where our tax money is spent and where each % goes.
I thought it was pretty cool.


http://www.thebudgetgraph.com/

[Hellfighter]

Very nice Blitz.
Interesting stats for bullets...
Israel gets alot.....
Vets don't get enough.....
Iraqi Security forces alone gets more than Afghanistan campaign /security?
I thought landmines were internationally banned/ being phased out?

With all the CIV 3 I played last week, I expected an advisor's head to pop up in the corner and tell his wise leader 'to fix things up before the people start rioting'.

[Robert]

very well done.

I'll be sharing that at work tomorrow.


Thanks

[Bargod]

WTF? The Defense departments health care plan gets 4 times the money that we spend on education? That ain't right.

[Blitz]

WTF? The Defense departments health care plan gets 4 times the money that we spend on education? That ain't right.

The Department of Educaation is not a constitutional program, I.E. it was not specifically mentioned as a power to be given to the government like Defense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States...on,_and_Welfare

I also believe that the States Taxes that are given to your local schools are NOT given in this graph only federal dollars.
When you add the 2 together you get a rather large total per student in monies spent.

[Robert]

I would like to see The Department of Education done away with.
This would be one of the numerous issues Ronald Reagan was right about, as he tried to do just that.

Everything about schools should be handled at the local or state level.
It really pisses me off every time I see the federal government try and effect policy changes via The Department of Education when
they only average 8% of the school financing. ( use to only be 4% ).

[Bargod]

I would like public schools to be of a quality level where I didn't have to send my kid to a private school to make sure he gets an education. The grade school Duncan would go to next year is I believe the second worst in Dallas and 80% of the students know English as a second language. This isn't a cut on Hispanics in the area. Hell, we moved into their neighborhood. But, if English is a second language there, how much time do you think they are going to spend on the white kid who learned how to read when he was 4 yrs old.

*edit*
Hmmm... now that I think about it, maybe we should send him there. He'd probably learn Spanish faster and he would totally tower over them. People usually think he's a "slow" 6 yr. old intsead of the smart 4 1/2 yr. old that he is (when he was 6 months old I was pushing him in a stroller and a man stopped to talk to him. When Duncan didn't answer he said something that implied he thought Duncan was retarded. I explained that Duncan was only 6 months old and the guys eyes went wide. Instead of thinking he was retarded he though he was freakishly large). With his size advantage and his intelligence he could be the class bully and the class nerd... wait... my childhood is coming back to me...
Heh... he takes after his old man.

[Genocide Junkie]

IMO it doesn't matter where you live schools are just bad. They have to teach to the lowest level in the room. Think about that. For the most part not until kids reach High School (and in many cases the last year or so of HS) they don't get a chance to take advanced classes. Most of the time even these are limited. Not that I was any sort of genius but I know I was bored senseless as my teachers tried year after year to teach Bubba what a noun was and how to conjugate a verb. We also covered Alabama history TWICE in 5 years. Like we couldn't have possibly remembered it the first time. While there were 2-3 good teachers that I can remember (only one that was what I consider GREAT) the rest were either clue less, burned out, or both. Throw on top of that the fact that kids have no discipline from home anymore and the teachers hands are tied in dishing out any of their own and it's really quite amazing that anybody learns anything....

[Hellfighter]

....
*edit*
Hmmm... now that I think about it, maybe we should send him there. He'd probably learn Spanish faster and he would totally tower over them........

Actually Bar, the real danger is very smart kids intermingled with kids not as fast learning will get very very bored very fast and lose their edge in the learning process. To keep at his advanced level, your smart kid will need to be in an education locality that is a challenging/learning stimulating enviroment to keep the knife sharp / juices flowing etc.,

[Blitz]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8040402921.html

Money has never been an issue.... Our state (Ohio) added a lottery to help fund the schools.
What the did not tell everyone, was that the school earmarked monies were removed from the general fund, were replaced by lottery profits and spent elsewhere. This left a zero sum gain to the schools.
Of course the extra money was spent to... well buy votes at least.

Now with declining population, people spending their cash on other sources of "entertainment" we are in a fiscal crisis with our schools. For 30 years the state had all his "extra" lottery money an now they are broke?

They really are not broke, rather than fix a delapidated system and find a way to educate children at a reasonable cost they hold a gun to the taxpayers and ask for money via the ballot or they will remove the sports, busing etc....

Detroit turned down an offer for a buisness man to spend 200 million of his own money to build 15 new charter schools at a total cost of 0000 dollars to the taxpayer and was shot down by the federation of teachers and the unions. Considering that the detroit school system has the worst graduation rate (25% of freshman make it thru) What is their reason for this? power, money or both?

If we as taxpayers were to even apples to apples compare the cost of education in public VS private schools and then compare the outcome we would throw away the public school system in a sec.
Well of course we could never do that because one praticular party is beholden to them no matter how badly they fail.

In another 10 t o15 years when the rest of the world is linked and totally live without schoolbooks, a computer in every home, interactive study guides... etc.. How far behind will our current broken system be?
Think about your cell phone 10 years ago.. your computer.. your dot matrix printer... and where we will be in the future.
Does anyone have faith that our government run schools will be ready to compete?