I paid the same 7% of my taxes (per CA budget) on prisons as you or anybody else. Since I never advocated *only* paying for “my” share of a service (be that education, prisons, police & fire, etc.) asserting that anybody said or implied that “it’s OK to contribute $0″ is a strawman.

I would certainly be fine with requiring convicted-of-a-crime prisoners to pay as much as possible toward their incarceration–hasn’t somebody passed a law requiring that by now? If not I should write to my state representatives.

As another non-education fee example, Fremont instituted a fee for alarm permits. I’m not sure what now justifies that since they won’t send a car to a house if a burglar alarm goes off and somebody calls it in unless it’s “verified.” Other cities instead charge a fee for responding to an alarm (at least if it’s a false alarm) so that the folks wasting the police’s time pay while not penalizing people for legitimate alarms. And some people pay a private security company to send somebody since the police won’t come. I’m still waiting for the “alarm response parcel tax” ballot measure so we can all equally & fairly share the expense for this additional service from the publicly-funded police.

The thing I find hysterical about this conversation is that nowhere did I say that I or anybody else should pay less in taxes or not heavily fund education (40%+ of the CA budget). All I did was suggest that if we’re underfunding education, a fair way to raise some additional revenue (< 2% in my example) would be to *start* with some direct fees to those benefiting, including myself. But wow, we can't have that–public funding of something must be unlimited!

If Fremont citizens don't provide that 2/3 majority for the parcel tax in November, you'll call them "selfish" but I contend that the selfishness started here. I was thinking that I'd probably vote for the education parcel tax in Nov. but now I'm seriously reconsidering. If I have to pick between the two extremes — "you're selfish if you won't pay the full bill for somebody else's service [or, more accurately, only 90-98% of a service]" vs. "you're selfish if you expect everybody *else* to pay for *all* of *your* service" — I guess I'll take the first.

In the case of prisons, police, fire, etc. it’s a bit more nebulous since the benefit is usually less direct and more to the society at large. We could go with a more direct system (e.g. there are places in the country where residents of an area are directly accessed for “their” police and fire support; some parents pay for private schools) but I wasn’t advocating that here. If somebody proposed requiring parents to pay a fee if their minor children are in prison I would probably be OK with that.

The thing I find hysterical about this conversation is that nowhere did I say that I or anybody else should pay less in taxes or not heavily fund education (52% of the CA budget). All I did was suggest that *if* we’re underfunding in an area (e.g. education), a fair way to raise some additional revenue (< 2% in my example) would be to *start* with some direct fees to those benefiting, including myself. But wow, we can't have that! If Fremont citizens don't provide that 2/3 majority for the parcel tax in November, you'll call them "selfish" but I see that the selfishness started here.

As another non-education fee-based example, Fremont created a fee for alarm permits. I'm not sure what justifies that since they still won't send a car to a house if a burglar alarm goes off unless it's "verified.". Other cities instead charge a fee for responding to an alarm (at least if it's a false alarm) so that the folks wasting the police's time pay while not penalizing legitimate alarms. I'm still waiting for the ballot measure for a "alarm response" parcel tax to show up in our city so we can all equally & fairly share the expense.

But if you had two children in prison, should you pay more than somebody with only one child in prison?

Of course, it doesn’t (and won’t) work that way. Most of us are not in prison, but prisons are paid for by all of us. And I’m pretty sure we don’t expect prisoners to pay $100/year toward their incarceration.

However, you make the point I was making–if I had another kid, my taxes wouldn’t increase (heck, with another deduction they’d probably go down) to cover him even though my “share” of education expenses has doubled. Now you can continue with your tax methodology–raise broad-base taxes in an effort to suck up funds from the general population. Or you could send *me* a bill (e.g. bill, deduction change, income tax increase) for $8600 to cover the additional kid. Personally I’d be fine with that (if I had the additional kid). I wonder what others would do if they “knew the cost” before they had kids.

The funny thing about your $300K example–if I didn’t earn that (to pay enough taxes for my theoretical two kids) I’m sponging off society. If I did earn that, I’d be expected to pay more to cover others as “my fair share to society” regardless of how many kids I had. Seems to lack any concept of personal responsibility and accountability.

And I’m not “targeting education”–that was title of the article that started this thread which lead me to assert that someone should pay something *directly* (comically little @ $100 as an example, generating plenty of flak) for a service (education) used by a household. And it’s the one that’s currently on the November ballot in Fremont as a parcel tax although other areas are using other taxes (e.g. utility) targeted at other services (e.g. police, fire) in the same way.

Calculating off the top of my head, any family who has two children in public school at $8600 a pop should be paying the state 17,200 per year in taxes to fund their share of education costs alone. With deductions on the average Bay Area home (30k in interest and tax per year), we’re talking $210,000 per year to cover the cost to educate their own kids.

Add in the cost for roads, parks, libraries, public safety and you should be earning over $300,000 to cover your burden.

So, rescue – did you earn 300,000 this year? No? Better start writing some thank you cards to those who’ve been supporting you with government cheese.

Isn’t that why we have public schools? Paid for by the public?

It’s also why we have public roads, police departments, etc.

Still, the public doesn’t pay the full cost of public education. Families of students already “donate” money and supplies (and time) to fill the gap. It’s easily more than $100.

You’re arguing that if somebody owns a house that has appreciated they should be willing to pay more. Even if when they bought it the schools weren’t good but are now. But apparently if or when it depreciates they shouldn’t be allowed to pay less. In fact we should tack on a parcel tax that has no relationship to the value of the property because “somebody” needs to pay for better schools, and we can’t possibly ask those attending the schools to pony up first.

Yes, I did know the costs when I bought my home. That’s one of the upsides of Prop-13 — property taxes don’t go up at the whim of a politician or because somebody thinks that a homeowner is a piggy bank and something needs more funding. So if “knowing the cost” is your acceptable criteria, you’re apparently fine with your $7K vs. your baby-boomer neighbor’s $1800. I’m not demanding a decrease, or increase, in what I pay now.

On the issue of property taxes, I don’t like them at all. There’s often little or no correlation between the “value” of a property and its taxes vs. the ability of a person to pay (“little old retired lady”; two people who bought identical homes at different times for different amounts). If it were up to me we’d do away with this asset tax and raise income taxes (including a local piece that can’t be touched by the state or Feds) to balance out the revenue and no longer have to worry about the non-correlation.

As for contributing to my child’s school, I kick in *way* more than $100 with direct contributions (via direct appeals/requests as well as observed needs) as well as my time. If a family can’t afford added costs, there are many volunteer opportunities. However, the 80-20 rule applies there as well.

Even if the parcel tax passes, Fremont will be spending less per pupil than the state average, thanks to the funding formula that was worked out after Prop 13.

Like Marty says, we are already making “voluntary” donations of more than $100 per student per year, without them the schools wouldn’t have paper or work-books or sheet music… the list goes on.

You can’t have a successful city with underfunded schools.