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Kids from rich families are more likely to succeed?

Economic Disparity = Education Inequality?

  • Yes

    Votes: 31 83.8%

  • No

    Votes: 6 16.2%
  • Total voters
    37
SouthernDemocrat said:
That may have a slight impact, but the fact is wealthy kids are going to go to the best schools, have all sorts of connections and in many cases benefit from nepotism. That is just the way it is.
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I agree that there are advantages that are going to be there and you named a few. So lets not compound it by giving extra breaks to inheritance that we do NOT extend to income from wages.
 
Cephus said:
And that does what, exactly, for the poor? Or are you just out to punish the wealthy?
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The irony is that any the proposal does not count inherited assets as income since they aren't "cash in pocket" and it would have to wait until it is sold--if ever.
 
Cephus said:
And that does what, exactly, for the poor? Or are you just out to punish the wealthy?
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It treats the income of the middle class and the poor the same as the inheritance income from the wealthy and that sort of equal treatment is what we all should be supporting as part of the American Way. We could always take that extra income when the adjustment is made and use it to pay down that pesky debt.
 
AliHajiSheik said:
The irony is that any the proposal does not count inherited assets as income since they aren't "cash in pocket" and it would have to wait until it is sold--if ever.
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So if I go on a game show and win prizes like cars and vacations worth $65,000.00 - I don't pay any tax on it unless I sell it?
 
haymarket said:
It treats the income of the middle class and the poor the same as the inheritance income from the wealthy and that sort of equal treatment is what we all should be supporting as part of the American Way. We could always take that extra income when the adjustment is made and use it to pay down that pesky debt.
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Any inheritance in the middle class is treated the same way as any inheritance in the upper class. The size of the inheritance is irrelevant.
 
haymarket said:
So if I go on a game show and win prizes like cars and vacations worth $65,000.00 - I don't pay any tax on it unless I sell it?
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Winning things is not the same as inheriting things, where taxes were already paid when initially purchased.
 
Cephus said:
Any inheritance in the middle class is treated the same way as any inheritance in the upper class. The size of the inheritance is irrelevant.
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So lets treat everyone the same and simply remove the protected amounts and simply consult the tax tables accordingly.

The reality is that middle class people are not protecting ten million dollars in inheritance as the wealthy are.
 
Cephus said:
Winning things is not the same as inheriting things, where taxes were already paid when initially purchased.
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The person getting the inheritance is no different than the game show winner as they have paid NO TAXES on the value that they get.

Which is why I said that all money - and in this case it would be items worth money - should be considered as income.
 
haymarket said:
So if I go on a game show and win prizes like cars and vacations worth $65,000.00 - I don't pay any tax on it unless I sell it?
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Your scenario, you explain how it would work. As I read your proposal, you would tax poor people because that is money that goes in their pocket.
 
haymarket said:
The person getting the inheritance is no different than the game show winner as they have paid NO TAXES on the value that they get.

Which is why I said that all money - and in this case it would be items worth money - should be considered as income.
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Actually, taxes have to be paid on most won property over a certain value. If you win the lottery, you pay taxes on your winning. That's why so many people immediately sell their game show winnings in order to pay the taxes on it.
 
AliHajiSheik said:
Your scenario, you explain how it would work. As I read your proposal, you would tax poor people because that is money that goes in their pocket.
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Money or value in monetary terms.
 
Cephus said:
Actually, taxes have to be paid on most won property over a certain value. If you win the lottery, you pay taxes on your winning. That's why so many people immediately sell their game show winnings in order to pay the taxes on it.
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Yes - so we tax some postal worker when he wins $55 K on a game show but allow the rich to shelter 10 million in inheritance?

Where is the justice in that?
 
haymarket said:
Yes - so we tax some postal worker when he wins $55 K on a game show but allow the rich to shelter 10 million in inheritance?

Where is the justice in that?
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Because that $10 million has already been taxed. You only have to pay taxes once. If the postal worker left the $55k to his children, they wouldn't have to pay taxes on it again either.
 
haymarket said:
Money or value in monetary terms.
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Ok, that is different. If the asset is taxed at an amount that is more than the person could afford, do you propose any other alternative to an immediate sale of the asset?

So you are saying that the poor are taxed on any money earned or did you fail to address that point?
 
justabubba said:
actually, one of the more wonderful things about growing up in America is that one does not have to be affluent to receive an excellent education
kids raised in poverty can and do receive good educations in public schools
and by their efforts receive scholarships to attend public and private universities
and those who do not achieve academically at that level, there are loans which are available to them to attend those same institutions of higher learning
and to those who achieve even less academically, they have the opportunity to attend tech schools, again with costs borne by the state and thru government provided loans
all the student in the USA must do is achieve adequately enough in high school to be found academically eligible to attend one of those places of higher learning. the money is there for them to attend if they can meet the academic requirements

and despite that, many do not. the vast proportion of those who do not come from impoverished conditions. where education is not instilled as the path to economic success. because the parents are too stupid themselves to convey that reality to their kids

there are things that government does wrong, such as gerrymandering the attendance areas so that the affluent kids go to the good schools and the poor kids are forced to attend the weak schools. school administrations that do not know to let the teachers teach. but there is no valid excuse for a kid who knows they need to and who also wants to go to college not to do so. first, they must be able to dream it. but if they do, and they work towards that dream, they can get a good education
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Unless you are at the absolute top of your class or do something amazing in school, you don't simply get scholarships. Most scholarships have to be applied for, as do most schools. It costs money to apply for scholarships, money that not every family has. Mine didn't. And I did not have counselors that gave me any kind of good information about when to apply, how to apply, or even how to find scholarships or people that might be willing to help cover the cost of applying for scholarships for those like me in poverty. One of the girls I went to school with received over $1M in scholarships, including a free ride to Harvard or one of those major schools. That was wonderful for her, but when the rest of the students in the school are not getting any such opportunities because they simply don't know about them or have the same resources to pursue such opportunities, then it is not so easy.

Plus, sometimes the information that is given is wrong. Such as when a counselor tells you that you shouldn't worry about applying for scholarships until your senior year, then during your senior year you are told you should have applied during your junior year. And families with two or more incomes that are still struggling to make it (my family now has technically 5 income sources from two people and we still are working on trying to get our savings up, have only one vehicle and live in an apartment).
 
TSAE said:
Studies have shown that children coming from families of the top 10% of income generally had better test scores than children from the the lower 90% of income. Not only do they generally have better test scores, but also are much more likely to get into an elite college. For decades, parents from higher income families spend an exponential amount of money on learning expense for their children. These numbers are only increasing, possibly giving children from lower income families a massive disadvantage.

So my questions to you guys--the Debate Politics community--are:

Could the possible increase in educational inequality of children of different social classes be due to the wide economic disparity that we have today between the rich and the poor?

Do you think there should be more elite educational programs for children of the lower class?

Also, what other factors could possibly be involved?

Growing wealth gap may threaten education


Some Other Good Reads:
Money Makes A Difference, Even In Kindergarten
Inequality among students rises - Business - The Boston Globe
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/e...grows-between-rich-and-poor-studies-show.html
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You are missing the forest for the trees (as so many who harp on inequality do).

People who make better choices do better. Better choices in life including education, jobs, staying out of jail, etc.

This is directly tied to improved outcomes (which is where you are incorrectly looking at things).

If you were really interested in improving things-you'd advocate for marriage-single marriage is the biggest predictor of poverty and poverty leads to diminished outcomes. Poverty leads to less parenting time, less academic performance, etc and in that leads to diminished outcomes.

Instead, you seek to target those who are doing what they SHOULD be doing, this is merely a consequence of that.
 
US Conservative said:
You are missing the forest for the trees (as so many who harp on inequality do).

People who make better choices do better. Better choices in life including education, jobs, staying out of jail, etc.

This is directly tied to improved outcomes (which is where you are incorrectly looking at things).

If you were really interested in improving things-you'd advocate for marriage-single marriage is the biggest predictor of poverty and poverty leads to diminished outcomes. Poverty leads to less parenting time, less academic performance, etc and in that leads to diminished outcomes.

Instead, you seek to target those who are doing what they SHOULD be doing, this is merely a consequence of that.
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No. You're missing the point. Some people have better choices from the start than other people do, so they are guaranteed to make a better choice from the beginning. If your choices are work your ass off for 20 years til you can get enough money to go to college then work more or simply have some crappy job, vs. get sent to Harvard or UCLA by mommy and daddy, where you can do the bare minimum work and still gain connections to get a good job or invest in stocks and other such money making adventures, to live off of, then that is a completely different set of choices available to people.
 
roguenuke said:
No. You're missing the point. Some people have better choices from the start than other people do, so they are guaranteed to make a better choice from the beginning. If your choices are work your ass off for 20 years til you can get enough money to go to college then work more or simply have some crappy job, vs. get sent to Harvard or UCLA by mommy and daddy, where you can do the bare minimum work and still gain connections to get a good job or invest in stocks and other such money making adventures, to live off of, then that is a completely different set of choices available to people.
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Using the ultra wealthy who can buy their way into (or out of) anything is not useful as a point of comparison, because the percentage of people with that much wealth and power is very very small, thus yet are exceptional cases, not representative ones. The more insightful comparison is between the average high functioning middle class family and the average lower class low functioning family. The differences in behaviors, family norms, routines, etc. between the two reveals why this is sometimes intergenerational and lasts for many generations. Giving poor families more money or excusing them from paying for things does not address the fact that their family dynamics ingrain dysfunction into the children, who will repeat the patterns later. And yes, obviously this puts them at a profound disadvantage, but there's no way to stamp that out with welfare programs. Changing ingrained learned dysfunction has to come at least partly from within them somehow. Society can offer some forms of help but there is a fine line between help and enabling, and our society is too far across that line toward the enabling side, in my opinion.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Using the ultra wealthy who can buy their way into (or out of) anything is not useful as a point of comparison, because the percentage of people with that much wealth and power is very very small, thus yet are exceptional cases, not representative ones. The more insightful comparison is between the average high functioning middle class family and the average lower class low functioning family. The differences in behaviors, family norms, routines, etc. between the two reveals why this is sometimes intergenerational and lasts for many generations. Giving poor families more money or excusing them from paying for things does not address the fact that their family dynamics ingrain dysfunction into the children, who will repeat the patterns later. And yes, obviously this puts them at a profound disadvantage, but there's no way to stamp that out with welfare programs. Changing ingrained learned dysfunction has to come at least partly from within them somehow. Society can offer some forms of help but there is a fine line between help and enabling, and our society is too far across that line toward the enabling side, in my opinion.
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It isn't just the uberwealthy though. If your family has enough to pay for your college, that means that you have an advantage over anybody whose family doesn't simply from the fact that someone who doesn't is going to have to work harder than you, and likely start their lives with more debt than you based solely on where they started from.
 
roguenuke said:
It isn't just the uberwealthy though. If your family has enough to pay for your college, that means that you have an advantage over anybody whose family doesn't simply from the fact that someone who doesn't is going to have to work harder than you, and likely start their lives with more debt than you based solely on where they started from.
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Well of course. Some of those issues are due to the rising cost of higher education. In this dawn of the age of the Internet, complete with streaming video and information accessible from everywhere, we need to be finding ways to make higher education less expensive. But that's another discussion.

It's true that unless or until that happens, parents wanting to be able to provide the advantage to their children of having no debt after college need to save somewhere in the neighborhood of $40,000 per child. For a family with two children, that's about $4500 a year for 18 years. That's a lot of money to save, but that's the deal. Or here's another idea. When the children move out because they've gone to college, sell the house and downsize, taking the proceeds and apply it toward your children's education.
 
roguenuke said:
No. You're missing the point. Some people have better choices from the start than other people do, so they are guaranteed to make a better choice from the beginning.
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First of all there aren't any guarantees in life.

Secondly, inequality exists EVERYWHERE, its a BASELINE and always has been, even in communist nations. You aren't going to solve things by tearing down those who are better off, you are fundamentally approaching this incorrectly. Life is unfair-thats reality. Any failure to recognize this and move on is yours (and marxisms) alone.
 
US Conservative said:
First of all there aren't any guarantees in life.

Secondly, inequality exists EVERYWHERE, its a BASELINE and always has been, even in communist nations. You aren't going to solve things by tearing down those who are better off, you are fundamentally approaching this incorrectly. Life is unfair-thats reality. Any failure to recognize this and move on is yours (and marxisms) alone.
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No, we should be working to make it more fair, not simply "accepting" it. I'm not even saying that people should have the same outcome in life, but they should have many of the same options available to them so that they have a chance to succeed.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Well of course. Some of those issues are due to the rising cost of higher education. In this dawn of the age of the Internet, complete with streaming video and information accessible from everywhere, we need to be finding ways to make higher education less expensive. But that's another discussion.

It's true that unless or until that happens, parents wanting to be able to provide the advantage to their children of having no debt after college need to save somewhere in the neighborhood of $40,000 per child. For a family with two children, that's about $4500 a year for 18 years. That's a lot of money to save, but that's the deal. Or here's another idea. When the children move out because they've gone to college, sell the house and downsize, taking the proceeds and apply it toward your children's education.
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Not everyone has their own house. Most poor people rent. Kind of hard to sell what you don't own.
 
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