QUESTIONS - Is “School Choice” A Form Of Theft？
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Summary
In this episode, we discuss the benefits of public school choice, property taxes, and whether or not Christians should ever own their own property. We also discuss the pros and cons of having to pay property taxes in order to pay for public school.
Transcript
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Dave Owen. He says, in Florida, we have a voucher system that allows you to take
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monies allotted to your kid and apply it to any school, should you take it. Is that
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pilfering Egypt. Got you. Yeah, so Toby Sumter, I think, has said some really good things about
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this. You're talking about school choice is what it sounds like. Arizona, I think, was the first
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state to go ahead and hop on the bandwagon of school choice. It's definitely an improvement
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from what we have, but in terms of is it, you know, is it objectively just by biblical standards?
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no um because you're still taking money from other people for your kids um so it's you know
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it'd be one thing right so it'd be one thing if it was like so i'm in the state of texas
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we pay property taxes we don't have a state tax praise god but we have property taxes they're far
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too high um i don't think we should have property taxes at all i don't think we should perpetually
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rent land from the government it's not the government's land that's ridiculous um you know
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you're always essentially you're always renting and you're never owning and and 20 years from now
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if you think well it's insignificant it's not um because basically by the time let's say you know
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your average 30-year mortgage and i think a christian should should strive as best they can
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to pay off their mortgage way faster than 30 years um but let's say it takes you 30 years to
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pay off your house well by the time you no longer have you're no longer paying the interest in the
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principal because the house is bought and paid for um by that point your property taxes will
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likely be comparable to what your mortgage was. Meaning 30 years from buying a house,
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your property taxes are one of the smallest portions of your mortgage, right? The principal
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is a big portion. The next biggest portion is probably the interest, especially right now with
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high interest rates. Then of course, you've got a little bit towards a homeowner's insurance and
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things like that. And then property taxes. Well, let's say your mortgage is $2,000 a month and
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your property taxes are, let's say it's like 400 of that $2,000. 30 years from now, when there's
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no more principal and the house is paid off, your property taxes will easily be 2,000. My point is
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you will monthly be paying just as much as you were when the house wasn't even paid off, once
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it actually is paid off. So you're always renting. It's still worth, I'm not saying so therefore just
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rent and don't try to own property it's still worth owning property because you have a you have
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an appreciating asset and you're not just building someone else's wealth but you're building yours
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because that house can be sold if you're renting and you live there for 30 years and you move
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you don't have a dime to show for it whereas if you own the property you can at least sell that
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property eventually and and have an accruing you know appreciating asset and build your wealth
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All that being said, the point is, in Texas, we don't have a state tax.
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In my area, it's about 2 point, on average, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8 percent, all the way up to like
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the low threes, 3.2, 3.3, depending it's county by, it's not even county by county, it's like
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It's even more particular than just a zip code.
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I can be in the same zip code and in one neighborhood, part of it has to do with timing
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of development. If it's an older neighborhood, over time, the property taxes go down. If it's
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a newer neighborhood, they usually have higher property taxes, kind of like an HOA, which is
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another theft in my opinion. But all that being said, in Texas, on average, half of your property
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taxes go towards the public school. So if you're wondering, what do my property taxes go towards?
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the property taxes, I don't feel like I should even have to pay. Well, half of them go towards,
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if you're a Christian, the public school that you're not going to use.
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Now, here's the deal though. I pay probably, I don't know, give or take, this is a ballpark
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average, but probably close to, maybe a little under, but close to 10 grand in a year in property
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taxes for the home that my family lives in and that we own. Not we own in the sense, we currently
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have a mortgage, but that we're working towards owning. We're not renting. $10,000 a year in
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property taxes. About half of that goes towards public schools, which means I pay about $5,000
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to the public school system. So $5,000 goes towards education. If the government,
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if the policy of Texas was, you don't have to give a dime towards a public school unless you're using
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it um and you now um it's not that we're going to give you money right the government doesn't have
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any money for the record when they say we're going to give you money what they mean is we're
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going to let you keep your money or we're going to give you somebody else's money but but rest
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assured one thing's for certain the government doesn't have money they don't have money even
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when they print more money it causes inflation which is stealing everybody else's money inflation
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is theft as ronald reagan once said so the government does not have money because it doesn't
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do anything the government does not produce or create anything anything so all the government
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does is it's just it's supposed to get bad guys punish bad guys and praise the good that the
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social good the public good our government does way more than that we have a blow to government
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and so essentially what happens is that um they're taking your money and they're taking people who
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don't have kids apart from the argument of whether or not you know you should have kids that the
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point is people who don't even have children who have never used the public school system
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they're having to pay towards the public school people who are retired the kids have already gone
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through school they're you know people who are 85 years old paying towards public school what
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should happen what would be fair is nobody pays for public school and whatever amount you are
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paying towards public school you just get to keep those taxes and then you can just personally use
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that so in my case i'd have five thousand dollars to go towards my kids education now i currently
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have four children, and Lord willing, we may have some more. But with four children, it's going to
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cost more than $5,000 a year for their education, if we're going to put them in a private Christian
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school. And so, all that being said, it's not going to cover the bill. What school choice, I
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think, is essentially trying to do is, it depends on which state, but from what I've heard, again,
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this is ballpark in some of the things that I've heard, and I may not be remembering exactly
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correctly, but I think it's like six, $7,000 per kid and everybody gets it, right? So for school
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choice, instead of it going to, you know, covering the cost of your kid, what it would cost for your
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kid to go, you know, through their K through 12 education in the public school system, it's,
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you're going to get, you know, seven grand per kid annually each year to pick whatever school
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you want. You can put them in the public school and then the money goes towards that, or you can
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put them in a private school. But the thing is, that family, let's say they have four kids like
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I do, and let's say that what they're paying in terms of their taxes that go towards education,
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they're paying, like me, about $5,000. But if they have four kids, they're getting $28,000.
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So the question is, where is the extra $23,000, right? So if they have four kids and getting
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$7,000 each year, a pop for each of their kids, that's $28,000, but they're only paying $5,000
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in taxes towards education, but they're getting $28,000 back. $28,000 minus $5,000 is $23,000.
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Where does that $23,000 come from? And the answer is your neighbor. Stealing. The government takes
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it from somebody else who earned it, who worked for it, and gives it to you, right? 1% of our
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population pays over 50 percent well over 50 percent of taxes um that's wrong you might say
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well they can afford it they're rich that's envy you need to repent of that it doesn't matter
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it doesn't matter if they can afford it what matters is what's just um yeah taxing you know
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taxing just for the record you know so what's my my philosophy on taxation i think there should be
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a straight sales tax, not no income tax. And certainly not different brackets to where if
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you work harder, you get penalized even more. That's unjust. I don't think there should be any
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income tax and definitely not a state tax and no property taxes. Or I'm sorry, there should be a
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state tax. But there should be a federal tax. I think it should be minimal. And then each state
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could have a larger tax, but all of it would be through sales tax. So every time you purchase
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something, you buy something, I would say, you know, again, this is ballpark, but it would have
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to be much higher than, you know, 8%, 10%, 12%, what we currently have, because there'd be no
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other form of taxation, but it'd be well worth it. We'd win in the long run. But this is going
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to sound high, but just imagine you have no income tax, you have no social security, you have no
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property tax, you have nothing else. This is your only tax. It'd probably be about a 20% to 30%
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tax that you would pay on each purchase. Every time you buy something, you go grocery shopping,
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If you buy $200 of groceries, you end up paying $260, $250, $260, 50 to 60 bucks in taxes.
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And then with that, I would say that out of this 30% tax, about 10 of it should go to the federal
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government, a national tax, and 20% of it, so two-thirds of it would go to your state.
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And those are your taxes. And that's what you're paying. And if you're rich, here's the thing,
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You could be a billionaire, but if you're a billionaire and you don't live like a billionaire,
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you're content, which a lot of billionaires don't, you're content to live in a modest house
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and drive a modest car and live a modest life, then you're going to pay the same taxes as I do
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because you're buying in terms of your purchasing habits. It's a sales tax. You're buying the same
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amount of things. You're not being taxed off of your earning. You're not getting penalized
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progressively penalized for your earning capability. It's your spending. Anyone who spends
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has to pay the straight across the board sales tax all over the nation. That would be the way
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to do it. And if you did that, you'd have, trust me, you'd have a lot more money than you currently
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do because you're being stolen from all the time by the civil government. And then you'd be able
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to use all that extra money to figure out what you're going to do to pay for your kids education
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you'd be okay as it stands what you're suggesting you're not suggesting it but what you're asking
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about Dave Owen is school choice I do think school choice is a step in the right direction
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but it's the same basic principle right now what we do is we steal from people
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to pay for failing public schools school choice what you're proposing or what you're asking about
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but then letting them choose which school to put them in.
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So currently, we're going to steal from everyone.
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in our failed system, the public school. School choice, as an alternative, is saying we're going
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to keep the theft going. We're going to continue stealing and progressively stealing, especially
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from the rich. Progressively more, the harder you work, the more you earn, the more you're stolen
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from by Uncle Sam. But at least with the money we're stealing, we will let you have some of that
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stolen money to put your kid in a good school of your choice instead of a bad school should
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christians use school choice if it's in your state and you have the option um yeah i think you should
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um but is it uh is it just is it the ultimate solution no what we need to do is we just we
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need to eventually work towards the state uh to stop stealing to stop stealing and i would say
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you know what to be fair i think it would be commendable i'd have to think through this a
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little bit more to give a solid definitive answer but i'd say that i you may even be morally bound
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to this but at least i'm not ready to say that yet i just need to give it more thought but at least
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commendable i think commendable in the sight of god um if you said with that school choice if you
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said all right how much was i paying in taxes how much did i pay right so it's like i got four kids
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and I'm getting $28,000 a year for school choice.
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