Hal and Roy have it right. I especially like Roy’s mention of the idea of school taxes being assessed per student, rather than based solely on residence within a jurisdiction. This is a fine idea no matter who has the authority to levy the tax, though surely we understand that a school board or the like with the autonomous power to tax (elected or not!) will result in additional taxes being sucked out of private hands, and funneled into the public sector. Money is fungible, and successful bureaucrats are, by nature, successful opportunists. They will find reasons not to reduce any tax already in place. Consider the fate of “temporary” taxes, and thus of “temporary-tax payers” here and in other states. They are very, very “sticky” in terms of policy and revenue collection.
The current gimme-more system in public education of course stands all decent economics on its head, since the low/no- performance providers are the ones most highly rewarded. As Roy suggests, this is a telling hallmark of all good socialist/political enterprises.
