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by alasdair_
3905 days ago
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And the childless should not be forced to support education for children, and people in low crime neighborhoods should not be forced to support policing in high crime neighborhoods etc. Taxes are going to involve people that don't agree with something supporting those that do almost every time. |
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The best public schools are in jurisdictions with anomalously high property taxes. You move there when it's time for your first child to start school and you move out when your youngest graduates. The tax base is overwhelmingly middle-aged, married, educated, and willing to pay what a top-tier school system costs. In my hometown 95% of adults had at least a Bachelor's. 95% of a given freshmen class would go to college. I would guess there were approximately 0 adults between 18 and 30, and 0 households that didn't currently or formerly have kids in the schools.
People who want expensive education for their children can get it; people who don't want to support education (much) can live in an area with lower property taxes a mile or two away.
>people in low crime neighborhoods should not be forced to support policing in high crime neighborhoods
Crime is a major reason people move from the cities to the suburbs, at which point they are no longer paying for urban police departments.
Like I said, this is fundamentally unavoidable for issues like national defense and the social safety net, but services which could meaningfully be privatized (utilities, infrastructure, recreation, etc) can usually offset their costs by charging for use.