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Re: A Modest Proposal
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David Friedman
May 14, 2012, 10:14:35 PM5/14/12
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In article
<e297edbf-cff7-40c0...@q9g2000pbv.googlegroups.com>,
"karl.j...@gmail.com" <karl.j...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So shuffle the money saved in youth expenses (like schooling) due to
> the lack of a baby boom, to retirement costs.
>
This assumes that a reduction in the number of pupils would actually
result in a reduction in the money spent. Whereby hangs a story of the
loss of innocence.
I spent a summer shortly after graduating from college, sometime around
1967, as a congressional intern. The congressman lent me, four days a
week, to the Joint Economic Committee, which lent me, all four days, to
the State and Local Finances project of the Governor's Conference aka
the State and Local Finances Project of George Washington University aka
(I don't remember how many hats the project was wearing--it was one
group of people in one building).
They were producing a "fact book" to provide the interested citizen with
the facts he would need to evaluate issues having to do with state and
local finance. I came up with a fact. It was indisputably true, since it
was a demographic fact about people already born, and it was
indisputably important, since it dealt with the single largest
expenditure of state and local governments.
The fact was that the ratio of K-12 age students to taxpayer age
students had been rising for the previous decade or two, had peaked, and
would be declining for the next decade or two, as the baby boom came out
of school and onto the job market. That meant that for the previous
period tax rates had to be rising in order to maintain constant per
pupil expenditure, but for the next period constant per pupil
expenditure implied falling tax rates.
The people running the project refused to include that fact in their
fact book. They didn't deny it was true--but the implication was to
weaken the case for increased state and local expenditure, so they
didn't want the information passed on to the voters.
The people in question were nice, intelligent, academic types. That was
my discovery that such people could be deliberately dishonest for
political reasons.
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
_Salamander_: http://tinyurl.com/6957y7e
_How to Milk an Almond,..._ http://tinyurl.com/63xg8gx
<e297edbf-cff7-40c0...@q9g2000pbv.googlegroups.com>,
"karl.j...@gmail.com" <karl.j...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So shuffle the money saved in youth expenses (like schooling) due to
> the lack of a baby boom, to retirement costs.
>
This assumes that a reduction in the number of pupils would actually
result in a reduction in the money spent. Whereby hangs a story of the
loss of innocence.
I spent a summer shortly after graduating from college, sometime around
1967, as a congressional intern. The congressman lent me, four days a
week, to the Joint Economic Committee, which lent me, all four days, to
the State and Local Finances project of the Governor's Conference aka
the State and Local Finances Project of George Washington University aka
(I don't remember how many hats the project was wearing--it was one
group of people in one building).
They were producing a "fact book" to provide the interested citizen with
the facts he would need to evaluate issues having to do with state and
local finance. I came up with a fact. It was indisputably true, since it
was a demographic fact about people already born, and it was
indisputably important, since it dealt with the single largest
expenditure of state and local governments.
The fact was that the ratio of K-12 age students to taxpayer age
students had been rising for the previous decade or two, had peaked, and
would be declining for the next decade or two, as the baby boom came out
of school and onto the job market. That meant that for the previous
period tax rates had to be rising in order to maintain constant per
pupil expenditure, but for the next period constant per pupil
expenditure implied falling tax rates.
The people running the project refused to include that fact in their
fact book. They didn't deny it was true--but the implication was to
weaken the case for increased state and local expenditure, so they
didn't want the information passed on to the voters.
The people in question were nice, intelligent, academic types. That was
my discovery that such people could be deliberately dishonest for
political reasons.
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
_Salamander_: http://tinyurl.com/6957y7e
_How to Milk an Almond,..._ http://tinyurl.com/63xg8gx
Keith F. Lynch
May 14, 2012, 10:44:44 PM5/14/12
to
David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> The people in question were nice, intelligent, academic types. That
> was my discovery that such people could be deliberately dishonest
> for political reasons.
Is it dishonest to refrain from revealing a fact?
> The people in question were nice, intelligent, academic types. That
> was my discovery that such people could be deliberately dishonest
> for political reasons.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
David Friedman
May 14, 2012, 10:53:55 PM5/14/12
to
In article <josfus$bbi$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
they were, yes.
"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> > The people in question were nice, intelligent, academic types. That
> > was my discovery that such people could be deliberately dishonest
> > for political reasons.
>
> Is it dishonest to refrain from revealing a fact?
When you are pretending to provide people with the relevant facts, as
> David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> > The people in question were nice, intelligent, academic types. That
> > was my discovery that such people could be deliberately dishonest
> > for political reasons.
>
> Is it dishonest to refrain from revealing a fact?
they were, yes.
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