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The post Bloated Bureaucracy and Failing Kids The Case for School Choice with Christopher Talgo appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A similar initiative in Florida, the Hope Scholarship program, supports bullied students with vouchers and could serve up to 5,800 students. Education Savings Accounts provide an opportunity to give families educational options for a myriad of reasons, bullying included. As Show Me Institute writers have argued, all students should be able to choose an education option where they learn best, and Missouri should pursue ESAs to do just that.

The post Education Savings Accounts Can Help Bullied Children appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Patrick Gibbons, public affairs manager for Step Up for Students – Florida’s only tax credit scholarship organization – has a great critique of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s tirade against Missouri Sen. Maria Cappelle-Nadal (D-Dist. 14).

He wrote:

The newspaper editors declared Sen. Chappelle-Nadal to be “clueless on the value of public schools.” They expounded on that value by discussing the ways public schools benefit the general public, including increasing home values, greater economic development, higher incomes and more. Naturally, an educated population improves the greater public good.

But those public benefits don’t magically disappear if more kids are educated at private schools using publicly funded vouchers (or even privately funded tax-credit scholarships). The benefit ensues WHEN students are educated, NOT because of WHERE they are educated.

If privately funded vouchers improve educational options for children (and the vast majority of research says they do), then society is better for it. Society is worse off if we eliminate options for students struggling in schools simply because newspaper editors and politicians are concerned about the geography of where the education occurs.

Gibbons is absolutely correct. The goal of public education is advanced when students receive a quality education, not when public schools educate more students. This goal can be advanced by providing students with opportunities to attend quality schools, regardless of who operates the school.

Joy Pullman, of the Heartland Institute, joins Gibbons in criticizing the editorial board. To read her piece, click here.

The post Post Dispatch’s Criticism Of Sen. Chappelle-Nadal Misses the Mark appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The post Let the Race Begin appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Star story quotes a couple of statists wgo think that the cigarette tax hike is a win-win-win situation because it will provide more kids with government health insurance, encourage adults to quit smoking, and prevent future children from taking up smoking in the first place. I think it is more of a lose-lose situation, because it expands the welfare state while targeting a certain group of people (smokers) to fund the political goals of those who salivate at the idea of getting young children on the dole early, so they can spend the rest of their lives thinking it is perfectly fine and normal to be dependent on the government. From the story:

But raising taxes unfairly penalizes low-income people, who are more likely to smoke, said John Nothdurft of the Heartland Institute, a conservative Chicago think tank.

“You’re making the bottom portion of society, who can least afford to pay taxes, pay more taxes,” he said. “They’re going to subsidize middle-class families getting SCHIP.”

To think that welfare used to just be for the poor. Now, it’s for everyone!

The post Tobacco Tales From Both Sides of the State appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

SCHIP, created in 1997, is the biggest public health insurance program since the creation of Medicaid and is targeted to insure children that come from households that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to afford private health insurance.

A 61-cent tax increase on cigarettes, cigars, rolling papers, chewing tobacco and related products is supposed to fund the expansion of the program. This may not be a reliable funding source, however. Since 1964, the number of adult smokers in the United States has decreased by approximately 50 percent. A Kansas City Community Health Assessment released in 2006 reported that overall tobacco use in Missouri, for all ages, is expected to continue this decline. The same report noted, “Studies have shown that a 10% increase in the price of cigarettes reduces smoking by 7% for youth and consumption by 4% in adults.” This impact could be magnified after the passage of a tax increase as large as the current bill proposes.

It is possible that legislators have overlooked the number of smokers who may quit or find other ways of avoiding the tax — by purchasing cigarettes online, for example. An even greater cause for concern is the fact that in some cases (such as in Kansas), Medicaid covers the cost of tobacco counseling for quitters. Congress may be counting on revenues that have the possibility of turning into additional expenses. In addition, a Heartland Institute letter to Congress voices concern about the increased financial pressure that such a tax increase would bring for small businesses, “which often lean on tobacco sales to stay in business.”

Steve Voeller of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club joins other economic groups in his concern that an expansionary program is being funded by a declining source of tax revenue. Regardless of one’s level of support for increased government funding of health care coverage for uninsured children, long-term sustainability of the program should come into consideration.

The post Why the SCHIP Might Go Down appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

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