Rin on the Economy......
Face it, supply side economics works. Liberals in the 80s tried to downplay the significant strides the US economy made under the Reagan Administration. Over 1.9 million jobs have been created in the last 13 months as a result of the Bush tax cuts. Everybody in America got a tax cut under Bush. Bush helped out lower income families by creating a 10% tax bracket; he did this so that low income families would not have to pay taxes on a bracket with lower-middle class families. People who make less than $25K a year don't even pay taxes!
My plan.....
Taxes should be kept low on corporations. We should encourage businesses to not only do well, but to also tell the truth. We should keep the Bush tax cuts for the higher income families and small businesses in America. We should extend tax credits for families who have kids in college.
Rin on Education......
Education in America is focused way too much on standardized testing and weeding out bad teachers. The No Child Left Behind Act is not as effective as another plan could be, but it does have its positives. Bush's plan to put expand the AP program is quite admirable and should be expanded. The problem with a typical conservative education system is there is not enough money to keep post-secondary costs down or keep extracurricular programs healthy. The problem with a typical liberal education system is that, although there is plenty of money, it is badly misused. Money that should go to academics ends up going to self-esteem programs and teachers' unions.
My plan....
The one thing I like about the No Child Left Behind plan is expanding AP. We should extend that program to both AP and IB programs. We should also provide states with funding to provide incentives for young people to become teachers: 1) Offer to free tuition for the final year of college for aspiring teachers (Texas has a program sort of like this), 2) provide a bonus that would be rewarded after the third year teaching (bonus would be around 10% of yearly salary). After five years of teaching, we should give teachers tax credits which would be more for math/science teachers. These tax credits should only be rewarded to teachers who are not in a teachers' union. The bonus should be cut in half for teachers who are in a teachers' union. We should also provide extra funding for academic competitions/clubs and extra funding to colleges to try to keep tuition rates down. You may ask, how do I plan to pay for all these programs? By getting the federal government out of our public schools for starters. We do not need any more government programs that talk about acceptance or self-esteem, that's what ad campaigns are for. We also need to stop all this across-the-board standardized testing. Let the states deal with that... the federal government should provide more funds for things like that, but not get involved in something that should be the states' decision. The federal government should give an across the board increase in funding with mandates to have schools buy new textbooks and technological equipment every 5 years. Instead of rooting out the bad teachers in the system as Bush is doing, why don't we not only ensure that all teachers will be properly prepared to teach (subject testing before they're allowed to teach a certain subject, and actually enforce it), but also provide incentives for bright young people to get involved in public education (away from the unions of course). As far as vouchers go, there should be a limited voucher system, where at most 25% of tuition could be collected by needy families (determined by a set criteria) to send their kids to private school. |
