Hammer wrote:

earljr wrote:

Hammer wrote:

earljr wrote:

Hammer wrote:

Also, for those of you middle-classers like me; if the voucher system is passed, it will cost you. Taxes will be raised. On a $200,000 house, your property taxes will increase $100/year, every year, for at least the next 20 years. And of course that goes up if you have a nicer house than me.


Of course even the anti voucher people will admit that you totally made this up. There is no property tax increase even possible as a result of vouchers. Vouchers are not funded by property taxes. Please post your sources.

As for this inane letter, I know a truck load of people who will be able afford private school with the help of vouchers. None of them rich. Some poor. I personally home school, so we are not eligible for vouchers even if we wanted to go to private school. However, we could easily afford private school at American Heritage with vouchers. We could not possibly afford it without the vouchers. You guys are liars and despise the poor as much as you despise the rich.


It's from a blog about the Wisconsin try at vouchers. They say it didn't work. Competition didn't fix the schools. And property taxes constantly increased to pay for it. Source is againstutahvouchers.blogspot.com


There is no proposal to raise property taxes by $100 on a $200k house to pay for vouchers. Vouchers are paid for out of the state's general fund. This is not funded by property taxes. Therefore this is a complete fabrication intended to trick foolish people.

However, there is a $1,700 property tax on a $350k house to pay for schools in the A.S.D. This is a $400 increase over last year. The school district will be happy to increase that even further at any opportunity. And you will suddenly be in favor of higher taxes.

Your claim about Wisconsin is also a fabrication.


Well who's fabricating it then smart guy? Just where should I go to get information?


Or maybe this:
http://www.schoolchoiceinfo.org/topics/item.cfm?id=96

BTW, Pitt, just how do you suppose 155000 students will be convinced to switch under this voucher program? The Legislature's own analysis is estimating less than 2500 switchers during the first year. The simple truth is that there is not enough demand, and the voucher is not near enough incentive, to convince anywhere near enough students to switch just for the program to break even once it is fully implemented.
On the one hand, you say this bill will suck the life blood out of the public schools and on the other hand you say that it will have little impact because very few people will take advantage of it. You guys really need to make up your minds.
Well, here's the not so scary truth about that number. We will have an average of about 1 million tax paying households to pay that $3.1 billion bill. That's only $3100 per household. Spread that out over the 20 year life of a school bond and it's only an average increase of $155/year. Spread it out over the 50 year life of a school and it's only $62/year. Furthermore, this doesn't include increases in corporate property tax revenue, so the actual amount will be even less.

You guys whine that $429M (over 13 years) will be lost to the schools (a figure that is hard to reconcile when you say that very few people will take advantage of this) yet you don't even bat an eye at $3.1B lost to the the people who have to pay taxes. Oh, and corporate taxes? Who do you think ultimately pays those taxes.

It is economically irresponsible to not start thinking and trying new ways to pay for education.

Elder J. Golden Pittakos wrote:

BTW, Pitt, just how do you suppose 155000 students will be convinced to switch under this voucher program? The Legislature's own analysis is estimating less than 2500 switchers during the first year. The simple truth is that there is not enough demand, and the voucher is not near enough incentive, to convince anywhere near enough students to switch just for the program to break even once it is fully implemented.
On the one hand, you say this bill will suck the life blood out of the public schools and on the other hand you say that it will have little impact because very few people will take advantage of it. You guys really need to make up your minds.

No, you need to understand what we are saying. Relatively little students will switch because of this bill, but that doesn't mean very few people will "take advantage of it." Once the bill is fully implemented, all those private school students who would never have gone to public schools anyway will be taking advantage of the taxpayer subsidy for their private education. These students won't save us a dime.

Well, here's the not so scary truth about that number. We will have an average of about 1 million tax paying households to pay that $3.1 billion bill. That's only $3100 per household. Spread that out over the 20 year life of a school bond and it's only an average increase of $155/year. Spread it out over the 50 year life of a school and it's only $62/year. Furthermore, this doesn't include increases in corporate property tax revenue, so the actual amount will be even less.

You guys whine that $429M (over 13 years) will be lost to the schools (a figure that is hard to reconcile when you say that very few people will take advantage of this) yet you don't even bat an eye at $3.1B lost to the the people who have to pay taxes. Oh, and corporate taxes? Who do you think ultimately pays those taxes.

It is economically irresponsible to not start thinking and trying new ways to pay for education.

Again, no one ever said very few will take advantage of the vouchers. It's a matter of who is taking advantage of the vouchers. The State Office of the Legislative Fiscal Analyst is estimating that once the program is fully implemented, a total of 25964 vouchers will be used but only 2546 of those will be students who would have gone to public schools without the voucher, or "switchers".

source:
http://taxcompanypb.googlepages.com/LegislativeFiscalAnalystsReport.pdf

The $429 million is the cost to provide vouchers to all who will use them, not just the switchers. Are you aware that over the 13 year implementation period an entire new grade of private school students becomes fully eligible to receive vouchers? Most of these students would never go to public schools, even without the vouchers. Paying an average of $2000 to these students is only a net cost to State taxpayers. There are no savings associated with those students.

The $3.1 billion is not "lost" to the taxpayers of Utah. It is one of the costs of providing an education available to all of our children. There is no nightmare tax increase on the horizon Pitt. We've had higher student/taxpayer ratios in the past than we will over the next 10 years and somehow we were able to provide the infrastructure for them to go to school just fine. This is just one more in the long list of fiscal red herrings thrown out by voucher supporters because they know this program is a loser for Utah taxpayers. They're trying their best to pull the wool over our eyes. Luckily, there are plenty of us out here who can see right through their BS.

Elder J. Golden Pittakos wrote:

BTW, Pitt, just how do you suppose 155000 students will be convinced to switch under this voucher program? The Legislature's own analysis is estimating less than 2500 switchers during the first year. The simple truth is that there is not enough demand, and the voucher is not near enough incentive, to convince anywhere near enough students to switch just for the program to break even once it is fully implemented.
On the one hand, you say this bill will suck the life blood out of the public schools and on the other hand you say that it will have little impact because very few people will take advantage of it. You guys really need to make up your minds.
Well, here's the not so scary truth about that number. We will have an average of about 1 million tax paying households to pay that $3.1 billion bill. That's only $3100 per household. Spread that out over the 20 year life of a school bond and it's only an average increase of $155/year. Spread it out over the 50 year life of a school and it's only $62/year. Furthermore, this doesn't include increases in corporate property tax revenue, so the actual amount will be even less.

You guys whine that $429M (over 13 years) will be lost to the schools (a figure that is hard to reconcile when you say that very few people will take advantage of this) yet you don't even bat an eye at $3.1B lost to the the people who have to pay taxes. Oh, and corporate taxes? Who do you think ultimately pays those taxes.

It is economically irresponsible to not start thinking and trying new ways to pay for education.


Dadophone clearly stated the #'s of "switchers" related to those already planning to private schools and using the voucher and provided the fiscal analyst's numbers.

How about an actual statement?
http://www.schools.utah.gov/law/leg2007/FiscalNoteInput/HB174_VoucherAmendments.pdf
This is part of another link that dadophone has used, the fiscal analysis of HB 174 that also passes if the referendum passes, which estimates only 3 students will switch just because of vouchers the 2nd year of the program. The price help is only enough for a select few of the population. On pg. 1, part D: Impact in future years?, the analyst says that unless something else happens to make private school more attractive, that "the voucher will become essentially a subsidy for students who would have attended private school in any case."

It's from the horse's mouth... That subsidy is wrong financially and morally.

unaffiliated_person wrote:

leftintheuc wrote:

And this is the sole reason why anyone who has ever spun pro-voucher ideology as 'school choice' is being disingenuous. Most families, like mine for instance, don't have a choice. Debate over vouchers, please. Debate is good, necessary. But don't make it sound as if the private school choice never existed before, and now it does, and the anti-voucher people want to rob you of that. If you are wealthy, the choice has always been there; if you're not, it still won't be.


Private schools don't cost as much as I thought. With a voucher, there are many more people who could afford to go:

http://www.stjosephutah.com/Tuition_Policy_&_Fee_Schedule%5B1%5D.pdf
http://www.sllhs.org/Registration/07-08/Application-DISTANCELEARNING2007-08.pdf


Here is a pricy one:
http://www.waterfordschool.org/admissions/tuition.htm


Feel free to check them out:
http://www.onlineutah.com/privateschools.shtml

With a 2000 voucher, it would cost about 2-3000 dollars out of pocket to attend a private school with many of their tuition rates.


Have people called you on this? You are one of the disingenuous ones. You post a school that cost 50 bucks shy of $5000 dollars. Not to mention books, and tons of other fees these days sadly. What poor person can afford that easily? None that i know of. The second link is distance learning. That is not a real school.

earljr wrote:

Hammer wrote:

Also, for those of you middle-classers like me; if the voucher system is passed, it will cost you. Taxes will be raised. On a $200,000 house, your property taxes will increase $100/year, every year, for at least the next 20 years. And of course that goes up if you have a nicer house than me.


Of course even the anti voucher people will admit that you totally made this up. There is no property tax increase even possible as a result of vouchers. Vouchers are not funded by property taxes. Please post your sources.

As for this inane letter, I know a truck load of people who will be able afford private school with the help of vouchers. None of them rich. Some poor. I personally home school, so we are not eligible for vouchers even if we wanted to go to private school. However, we could easily afford private school at American Heritage with vouchers. We could not possibly afford it without the vouchers. You guys are liars and despise the poor as much as you despise the rich.


Where are they going to get the money to pay for this? This is what I do know, some years close to 70% of my property tax goes to the school district. So if they need more money, a good chance I will have to pay for it in property tax, and then if not property tax, then it will come from my state income tax. I don't like that.