Matt Miller: Nixon’s the One — to Imitate on Education
[Matt Miller, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, is the author of the forthcoming book “The Tyranny of Dead Ideas.”]
... In the early 19th century, the property tax was considered the fairest way to pay for schooling. Property was the main form of wealth, and rich and poor people didn’t live in separate taxing communities. The wealthy paid more than the middle class and the poor paid nothing, yet all enjoyed access to the same public schools.
Since World War II, however, we have segregated ourselves into a multitude of tiny tax enclaves. The last important official to look hard at the consequences was Richard Nixon. His commission on school finance, headed by the chairman of Procter & Gamble, issued a report in 1972 that urged states to equalize financing disparities, and proposed spending a little federal cash to help.
Nixon’s commissioner of education said publicly that the federal government should pay 25 percent to 30 percent of the cost of public education. His domestic policy staff considered a new national tax, with the proceeds distributed to states that drastically reduced state and local property taxes while closing the financing gaps among their school districts.
In the end, of course, Nixon found he had bigger problems to deal with. But he left a blueprint for Mr. Obama to follow. The federal government contributed just $45 billion of the $488 billion spent on primary and secondary schools in 2004 and 2005 (the most recent data available). That’s just nine cents of the nation’s education dollar.
Going to 25 percent to 30 percent of the overall tab by using a Nixonian revenue-sharing plan would lift the federal contribution by $80 billion to $100 billion a year, and replace an equivalent amount of state and local taxes. A little more federal money might be needed to sweeten the pot, round up the votes and give a boost to the poorest schools....
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... In the early 19th century, the property tax was considered the fairest way to pay for schooling. Property was the main form of wealth, and rich and poor people didn’t live in separate taxing communities. The wealthy paid more than the middle class and the poor paid nothing, yet all enjoyed access to the same public schools.
Since World War II, however, we have segregated ourselves into a multitude of tiny tax enclaves. The last important official to look hard at the consequences was Richard Nixon. His commission on school finance, headed by the chairman of Procter & Gamble, issued a report in 1972 that urged states to equalize financing disparities, and proposed spending a little federal cash to help.
Nixon’s commissioner of education said publicly that the federal government should pay 25 percent to 30 percent of the cost of public education. His domestic policy staff considered a new national tax, with the proceeds distributed to states that drastically reduced state and local property taxes while closing the financing gaps among their school districts.
In the end, of course, Nixon found he had bigger problems to deal with. But he left a blueprint for Mr. Obama to follow. The federal government contributed just $45 billion of the $488 billion spent on primary and secondary schools in 2004 and 2005 (the most recent data available). That’s just nine cents of the nation’s education dollar.
Going to 25 percent to 30 percent of the overall tab by using a Nixonian revenue-sharing plan would lift the federal contribution by $80 billion to $100 billion a year, and replace an equivalent amount of state and local taxes. A little more federal money might be needed to sweeten the pot, round up the votes and give a boost to the poorest schools....