[Chris2048]

> But suppose that the increased funding would help pay for things like civics education

That why can't I just opt for that, the civics funding?

I'm not saying that only things with measurable economic benefit should be funded, I'm saying only things with measurable economic benefit OR that people want to pay for should be funded. One or the other, or both. But if neither condition is met, you shouldn't get funded.

and if your opinion is that there is a non-tangible benefit, you need to convince people of that. Our Capitalist system does acknowledge benefits that have no tangible monetary value - by allowing people to freely spend money on what they care about.

[minikites]

>Our Capitalist system does acknowledge benefits that have no tangible monetary value - by allowing people to freely spend money on what they care about.

So the most "successful" society under this reasoning is one where every parent works and childcare is done by employees instead of parents. There's no economic benefit to raising a young child, so the only other option under your axioms is "people want to pay for it".

[Chris2048]

I'm not sure how this follows from what I said which only concerns people being forced to pay for childcare for other peoples children, but if a parent cannot afford to stay at home at look after their own kids then what is the alternative? I'm also not assuming "childcare done by employees" is necessarily worse than from their parents, at least employees could be regulated.