The NXR Podcast - QUESTIONS - Is “School Choice” A Form Of Theft？

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00:00:42.460 Dave Owen. He says, in Florida, we have a voucher system that allows you to take

00:00:47.880 monies allotted to your kid and apply it to any school, should you take it. Is that

00:00:56.000 pilfering Egypt. Got you. Yeah, so Toby Sumter, I think, has said some really good things about 0.96

00:01:03.940 this. You're talking about school choice is what it sounds like. Arizona, I think, was the first

00:01:08.580 state to go ahead and hop on the bandwagon of school choice. It's definitely an improvement

00:01:14.320 from what we have, but in terms of is it, you know, is it objectively just by biblical standards?

00:01:21.180 no um because you're still taking money from other people for your kids um so it's you know

00:01:28.480 it'd be one thing right so it'd be one thing if it was like so i'm in the state of texas

00:01:32.880 we pay property taxes we don't have a state tax praise god but we have property taxes they're far

00:01:37.740 too high um i don't think we should have property taxes at all i don't think we should perpetually

00:01:42.840 rent land from the government it's not the government's land that's ridiculous um you know

00:01:47.740 you're always essentially you're always renting and you're never owning and and 20 years from now

00:01:52.180 if you think well it's insignificant it's not um because basically by the time let's say you know

00:01:56.860 your average 30-year mortgage and i think a christian should should strive as best they can

00:02:00.620 to pay off their mortgage way faster than 30 years um but let's say it takes you 30 years to

00:02:06.360 pay off your house well by the time you no longer have you're no longer paying the interest in the

00:02:10.320 principal because the house is bought and paid for um by that point your property taxes will

00:02:16.960 likely be comparable to what your mortgage was. Meaning 30 years from buying a house,

00:02:24.960 your property taxes are one of the smallest portions of your mortgage, right? The principal

00:02:29.780 is a big portion. The next biggest portion is probably the interest, especially right now with

00:02:34.880 high interest rates. Then of course, you've got a little bit towards a homeowner's insurance and

00:02:40.300 things like that. And then property taxes. Well, let's say your mortgage is $2,000 a month and

00:02:45.680 your property taxes are, let's say it's like 400 of that $2,000. 30 years from now, when there's

00:02:53.880 no more principal and the house is paid off, your property taxes will easily be 2,000. My point is

00:02:59.300 you will monthly be paying just as much as you were when the house wasn't even paid off, once

00:03:05.660 it actually is paid off. So you're always renting. It's still worth, I'm not saying so therefore just

00:03:11.820 rent and don't try to own property it's still worth owning property because you have a you have

00:03:15.960 an appreciating asset and you're not just building someone else's wealth but you're building yours

00:03:20.300 because that house can be sold if you're renting and you live there for 30 years and you move

00:03:25.040 you don't have a dime to show for it whereas if you own the property you can at least sell that

00:03:29.660 property eventually and and have an accruing you know appreciating asset and build your wealth

00:03:36.160 All that being said, the point is, in Texas, we don't have a state tax.

00:03:40.920 The property taxes that we pay are high.

00:03:43.720 In my area, it's about 2 point, on average, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8 percent, all the way up to like

00:03:50.620 the low threes, 3.2, 3.3, depending it's county by, it's not even county by county, it's like

00:03:57.360 neighborhood by neighborhood.

00:03:59.260 It's even more particular than just a zip code.

00:04:01.340 I can be in the same zip code and in one neighborhood, part of it has to do with timing

00:04:07.300 of development. If it's an older neighborhood, over time, the property taxes go down. If it's

00:04:11.760 a newer neighborhood, they usually have higher property taxes, kind of like an HOA, which is

00:04:16.420 another theft in my opinion. But all that being said, in Texas, on average, half of your property

00:04:23.260 taxes go towards the public school. So if you're wondering, what do my property taxes go towards?

00:04:27.380 the property taxes, I don't feel like I should even have to pay. Well, half of them go towards,

00:04:31.480 if you're a Christian, the public school that you're not going to use. 0.93

00:04:35.060 Now, here's the deal though. I pay probably, I don't know, give or take, this is a ballpark

00:04:42.780 average, but probably close to, maybe a little under, but close to 10 grand in a year in property

00:04:48.720 taxes for the home that my family lives in and that we own. Not we own in the sense, we currently

00:04:56.980 have a mortgage, but that we're working towards owning. We're not renting. $10,000 a year in

00:05:03.800 property taxes. About half of that goes towards public schools, which means I pay about $5,000

00:05:08.880 to the public school system. So $5,000 goes towards education. If the government,

00:05:17.100 if the policy of Texas was, you don't have to give a dime towards a public school unless you're using

00:05:23.060 it um and you now um it's not that we're going to give you money right the government doesn't have

00:05:29.080 any money for the record when they say we're going to give you money what they mean is we're

00:05:31.860 going to let you keep your money or we're going to give you somebody else's money but but rest

00:05:36.260 assured one thing's for certain the government doesn't have money they don't have money even

00:05:40.540 when they print more money it causes inflation which is stealing everybody else's money inflation

00:05:45.940 is theft as ronald reagan once said so the government does not have money because it doesn't

00:05:51.180 do anything the government does not produce or create anything anything so all the government

00:05:58.200 does is it's just it's supposed to get bad guys punish bad guys and praise the good that the

00:06:04.260 social good the public good our government does way more than that we have a blow to government

00:06:09.020 and so essentially what happens is that um they're taking your money and they're taking people who

00:06:15.100 don't have kids apart from the argument of whether or not you know you should have kids that the

00:06:19.560 point is people who don't even have children who have never used the public school system

00:06:22.340 they're having to pay towards the public school people who are retired the kids have already gone

00:06:26.840 through school they're you know people who are 85 years old paying towards public school what

00:06:31.160 should happen what would be fair is nobody pays for public school and whatever amount you are

00:06:35.920 paying towards public school you just get to keep those taxes and then you can just personally use

00:06:41.360 that so in my case i'd have five thousand dollars to go towards my kids education now i currently

00:06:46.720 have four children, and Lord willing, we may have some more. But with four children, it's going to

00:06:51.640 cost more than $5,000 a year for their education, if we're going to put them in a private Christian

00:06:57.060 school. And so, all that being said, it's not going to cover the bill. What school choice, I

00:07:04.180 think, is essentially trying to do is, it depends on which state, but from what I've heard, again,

00:07:08.840 this is ballpark in some of the things that I've heard, and I may not be remembering exactly

00:07:12.420 correctly, but I think it's like six, $7,000 per kid and everybody gets it, right? So for school

00:07:22.180 choice, instead of it going to, you know, covering the cost of your kid, what it would cost for your

00:07:27.040 kid to go, you know, through their K through 12 education in the public school system, it's,

00:07:31.760 you're going to get, you know, seven grand per kid annually each year to pick whatever school

00:07:37.260 you want. You can put them in the public school and then the money goes towards that, or you can

00:07:40.780 put them in a private school. But the thing is, that family, let's say they have four kids like

00:07:45.440 I do, and let's say that what they're paying in terms of their taxes that go towards education,

00:07:53.220 they're paying, like me, about $5,000. But if they have four kids, they're getting $28,000.

00:07:59.680 So the question is, where is the extra $23,000, right? So if they have four kids and getting

00:08:06.220 $7,000 each year, a pop for each of their kids, that's $28,000, but they're only paying $5,000

00:08:12.200 in taxes towards education, but they're getting $28,000 back. $28,000 minus $5,000 is $23,000.

00:08:18.580 Where does that $23,000 come from? And the answer is your neighbor. Stealing. The government takes

00:08:26.760 it from somebody else who earned it, who worked for it, and gives it to you, right? 1% of our

00:08:32.660 population pays over 50 percent well over 50 percent of taxes um that's wrong you might say

00:08:41.400 well they can afford it they're rich that's envy you need to repent of that it doesn't matter

00:08:46.540 it doesn't matter if they can afford it what matters is what's just um yeah taxing you know

00:08:54.340 taxing just for the record you know so what's my my philosophy on taxation i think there should be

00:09:00.500 a straight sales tax, not no income tax. And certainly not different brackets to where if

00:09:07.400 you work harder, you get penalized even more. That's unjust. I don't think there should be any

00:09:12.240 income tax and definitely not a state tax and no property taxes. Or I'm sorry, there should be a

00:09:18.060 state tax. But there should be a federal tax. I think it should be minimal. And then each state

00:09:22.300 could have a larger tax, but all of it would be through sales tax. So every time you purchase

00:09:26.800 something, you buy something, I would say, you know, again, this is ballpark, but it would have

00:09:31.840 to be much higher than, you know, 8%, 10%, 12%, what we currently have, because there'd be no

00:09:36.360 other form of taxation, but it'd be well worth it. We'd win in the long run. But this is going

00:09:40.980 to sound high, but just imagine you have no income tax, you have no social security, you have no

00:09:44.800 property tax, you have nothing else. This is your only tax. It'd probably be about a 20% to 30%

00:09:50.140 tax that you would pay on each purchase. Every time you buy something, you go grocery shopping,

00:09:55.660 If you buy $200 of groceries, you end up paying $260, $250, $260, 50 to 60 bucks in taxes.

00:10:04.440 And then with that, I would say that out of this 30% tax, about 10 of it should go to the federal

00:10:09.840 government, a national tax, and 20% of it, so two-thirds of it would go to your state.

00:10:16.360 And those are your taxes. And that's what you're paying. And if you're rich, here's the thing,

00:10:22.200 You could be a billionaire, but if you're a billionaire and you don't live like a billionaire,

00:10:27.660 you're content, which a lot of billionaires don't, you're content to live in a modest house

00:10:32.160 and drive a modest car and live a modest life, then you're going to pay the same taxes as I do

00:10:38.800 because you're buying in terms of your purchasing habits. It's a sales tax. You're buying the same

00:10:44.700 amount of things. You're not being taxed off of your earning. You're not getting penalized

00:10:51.780 progressively penalized for your earning capability. It's your spending. Anyone who spends

00:10:59.560 has to pay the straight across the board sales tax all over the nation. That would be the way

00:11:06.180 to do it. And if you did that, you'd have, trust me, you'd have a lot more money than you currently

00:11:11.300 do because you're being stolen from all the time by the civil government. And then you'd be able

00:11:17.640 to use all that extra money to figure out what you're going to do to pay for your kids education

00:11:22.860 you'd be okay as it stands what you're suggesting you're not suggesting it but what you're asking

00:11:27.880 about Dave Owen is school choice I do think school choice is a step in the right direction

00:11:33.220 but it's the same basic principle right now what we do is we steal from people

00:11:37.400 to pay for failing public schools school choice what you're proposing or what you're asking about

00:11:44.800 is stealing from people,

00:11:47.300 but then letting them choose which school to put them in.

00:11:50.400 So currently, we're going to steal from everyone.

00:11:54.560 The government is going to,

00:11:55.540 it's civil theft across the board.

00:11:57.060 We're going to steal from everyone,

00:11:58.320 and especially the rich.

00:11:59.620 We're going to progressively steal more.

00:12:01.760 The more successful you are,

00:12:03.420 the harder you work, the more that you earn,

00:12:05.300 we're going to steal even more from you.

00:12:07.960 And then we're going to, with all this theft,

00:12:10.460 the money that we stole,

00:12:11.480 we're going to force you to put your kids

00:12:13.600 in our failed system, the public school. School choice, as an alternative, is saying we're going

00:12:20.000 to keep the theft going. We're going to continue stealing and progressively stealing, especially

00:12:26.260 from the rich. Progressively more, the harder you work, the more you earn, the more you're stolen

00:12:31.960 from by Uncle Sam. But at least with the money we're stealing, we will let you have some of that

00:12:39.420 stolen money to put your kid in a good school of your choice instead of a bad school should

00:12:44.760 christians use school choice if it's in your state and you have the option um yeah i think you should

00:12:50.580 um but is it uh is it just is it the ultimate solution no what we need to do is we just we

00:12:59.620 need to eventually work towards the state uh to stop stealing to stop stealing and i would say

00:13:07.360 you know what to be fair i think it would be commendable i'd have to think through this a

00:13:11.100 little bit more to give a solid definitive answer but i'd say that i you may even be morally bound

00:13:16.560 to this but at least i'm not ready to say that yet i just need to give it more thought but at least

00:13:21.480 commendable i think commendable in the sight of god um if you said with that school choice if you

00:13:27.600 said all right how much was i paying in taxes how much did i pay right so it's like i got four kids

00:13:33.740 and I'm getting $28,000 a year for school choice.

00:13:36.980 How much did I pay for taxes?

00:13:38.540 Five?

00:13:39.420 Okay, I'll use five of that 28

00:13:41.380 towards the school of my choice.

00:13:43.840 But the rest of the money

00:13:45.360 that I'm getting for school choice,

00:13:47.580 I'm not going to use that

00:13:50.700 because that money was taken from someone else

00:13:53.360 by the government.

00:13:54.600 And I don't want to tell the government

00:13:55.960 that it's okay to take my neighbor's money

00:13:58.960 because I love my neighbor.

00:14:00.880 Thanks so much for listening.

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The NXR Podcast - March 18, 2023

QUESTIONS - Is “School Choice” A Form Of Theft？

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