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Termyn8or -> RE: Vested interest in your country (8/24/2008 2:19:34 PM)
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I would support some form of that, to pay for education. The problem is we do things all wrong here.
Everybody wants to think military, but that is something that requires you to move away from home, at the very least for basic training. This doesn't work for everybody. It wouldn't work for me for two reasons. First of all I detest using the word Sir, I use it very rarely. That kind of discipline just would never work for me. Second, I quit school at 16 to go to work. My Father hails this as some sort of selfless act to help the family, which it did, but in reality I hated school. This was mainly because of the rules and control, the discipline. My Parents were divorced and Dad had to leave the state for a while.
Mom though a graduate of a good parochial school, did not have alot of earning power. We were just about dirt poor, actually lucky to have a COLOR TV. Never took public assistance. Dad did pay off the furniture and appliances after the divorce, but at the time there was no child support coming. When Judge Judy gets on someone's case about "Those kids need to eat NOW !", I understand exactly what she means. I made almost as much as Mom, and gave her half my takehome pay, which left me plenty of money for gas and whatever.
If I had been conscripted into military service that income would not have been there. That is not the answer for everybody. There are plenty of other things that need to be done.
If you enlist in the military today, they give you college money and all that, but only if you get out alive, plus what good is college money if you have PTSD and radiation sickness from DU weapons ? It's a good thing if you get out alive and healthy, but war has become a much dirtier environment than it used to be. Usually in the old days if you came back without too many holes in you, you would be fine. Can't count on that anymore.
There are many other things that need to be done. Since Mom is over 65 now the city will send people out free of charge to mow her grass or shovel her snow. What are we paying these guys ? With benefits and retirement it can get expensive, and they are doing a job that any kid could do almost. On the clock, they should be doing something more useful.
Of course this all comes from taxes, mainly property taxes, as does a good part of the funding for primary education. This system is far from perfect to say the least. People without kids are financing something they are not using. Then when it comes to secondary education People need grants and student loans, maybe even to mortgage the family home.
Let's say we don't rock the boat too much, because as we know it is about to sink if we don't do something. Let's say we have a public works program, and for certain things public employees normally do, students rack up hours and that is applied to tuition.
That would not be mandatory volunteerism. Let's say if they accumulated a thousand hours a year, the remainder of their tuition would go into an extremely low interest loan. They could start in high school.
I can't sit here right now and figure out the whole plan, that would take some time. Put it this way, if they bring back the draft, draftees still get the college money and whatever other benefits volutary enlistees get, do they not ?
I would advocate some sort of compensated public service for everybody, without putting them on a payroll and all this crap. What I would not support is something that requires one to move away from home. The situation today with both Parents working usually, sometimes the eldest sibling drives the younger ones to school, whatever, and help out in other ways. It is not always a job.
Some of them do have the time to rack up the hours, others would have to do the service on Saturdays or whatever. I don't think it would even have to be mandatory, I think good Parents would say "Boy, you got a chance to work and do something good and contribute to your education, if you don't take it, when you get older, welcome to the exciting field of landscaping". Although some landscapers make good money, they are the ones with the flair for it, the rest are relegated to cutting grass.
Let's say at 1,000 hours service you get five grand for college and one point off the interest on student loans. At banker's hours that's roughly half a year's work. Doesn't matter if you take more than a year to do it, just that you do it.
That plan is something that just came off the top of my head, many things need to be thought out. Making it mandatory, or witholding diplomas if they haven't reached the minimum, I don't want to make that call. If I were charged with the duty to make such a plan work, I would probably need some help, like an accountant or something, and I would seek ALOT of public opinion.
Operating on the tightrope of this economy, it would not be the easiest thing in the world. I would not want to put public workers out, but if they are getting a bunch of overtime shoveling snow or mowing grass for little old Ladies, at time and a half, the costs would be nil if that was eliminated. Just think of that, guy makes $15 an hour his overtime is $22.50. He his driving a huge gas guzzling truck with a bunch of lawnmowers and who knows what else on it. From who knows how far ? How many hours we pay for him to sit in a traffic jam when there is a student down the street who would do it for ten bucks ? Not to mention that the little old Lady has a perfectly operational lawnmower in the garage.
There are so many possibilities it is almost mind boggling, but the world does not operate that way. So much is wasted and squandered.
Here's another idea, they ride "shotgun" in a one Man cop car. They observe and take notes, like on a DUI bust. They can then go to court instead of the cop. They never get out of the car during a bust, they just observe and take notes. That one might not be workable, but maybe.........
Helping out at a fire station, a homeless shelter, a public hospital. The possibilities are endless if you think about it the right way. Different jobs could even have different ratings, like 1.3, 1.5 and so forth which would mean for ten hours of satisfactory service you would get credit for thirteen or fifteen hours. This would be reserved for jobs that are nasty, difficult or require some skill.
A situation like that might impel some to learn, to get a higher rated mode of service. I see it as a win win, if implemented properly. Don't trust the government to do it, the first thing they would do is throw four or five million of our money to fund a think tank to study the idea and then screw it up in the end.
Let military service be an option, but the rest is pretty much civilians. Let the civilians handle it. The local agencies pay five buck per credit hour into the fund, this is where the money comes from when it is time to belly up with the tuition. Any company, agency, anybody can apply for the help, and they get it cheap at five bucks an hour, unless the job category is higher than that. Students gain real life experience and new skills. Even if they need a job to pay for books etc., no matter what, this takes a burden off the family.
And then, the whole thing will probably result, demographically, in more educated people per capita. Actually then it is a win win win.
It would be nice if there were people who could implement such a plan, but we sure as hell don't want the government in control of it.
T
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