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Point 1, only 20% of their budget is state funding. That is still any state funding, true, but I feel like sometimes people act like they're entirely state funded and that's really seriously not the case.
Point 2, I think it's reasonable for the government to subsidize education without dictating what the education entails. You can trust the market to efficiently decide what type of education takes place between students and teachers, while also pumping money into the education sector because you think the economy benefits from more education happening overall.
Point 3, I don't want to pay for many aspects of our military, police, and prison systems, to name just a few. 'I shouldn't have to pay for things I dislike' has never been a cogent argument against government spending; it's a democracy, you can vote for what you want but everyone has to pay for everything that ends up in the budget. You don't get a line-item veto unless I do too, and if everyone gets one then we end up with no government at all, society collapses, and we get invaded by China or w/e.
To echo FC below, it does indeed feel like lots of people wanted this during the Obama years, when the War on Terror was in its twilight years and "our military budget is obscenely, unnecessarily huge and prevents us from having good healthcare" was a talking point on Tumblr. Lots of people would probably still want this now, even!
And in fairness, why shouldn't they? I figure the easy counterargument is that that's what our politicians are for; that we elect representatives and such precisely so that the demos can evolve its power to people who will handle the responsibility and hard work of haggling and negotiating. In practice, this doesn't satisfy the demos enough, for reasons.
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20% is easily the difference between "this is a successful and growing venture" and "we need to do mass layoffs or risk being shut down". I also pointed out in my comment that they can do what they want with student/donor money, so obviously I know there are other funding sources. And if I am wrong and the budget from the state is so small and not worth mentioning, then certainly they won't make a big fuss if they lose that funding. But I think we both know that a very large fuss would be made.
Do you want a functioning market, or do you want state funding? The more state funding the worse the market.
And I can want my tax dollars to not be spent for bad reasons. Two different professors at GMU have written books about the subject of rotten academia.
I specifically said "Cut all state funding" and "Republicans [should] wash their hands of the university system". I suppose my last line could be interpreted as wanting a line item veto, and I'm not opposed to that. But its not really the point I was making in this comment. As long as we don't get a line item veto I think its reasonable to say "I hate this thing" as a reason why that thing should receive 0 funding. In fact, if there was line item vetoing by individuals my comment would be dumb and pointless and you could just respond "if you don't like it then just line item veto it, and the rest of us can continue to fund it as we like".
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Counting federal student loans? Where's the other 80% of their budget coming from, specifically?
...And then if the teachers defect and focus on indoctrinating instead of actually teaching workable skills, then the argument will be that we need to increase funding to get the economic benefits that aren't actually materializing. I would argue that this has already happened.
"I shouldn't have to pay for partisan political activity" is distinct from "I shouldn't have to pay for things I don't like." I do welcome your commitment to police reform, though.
...You phrase this as though it isn't a clear preference for a growing portion of society, and one of the more likely destinations given our current trajectory.
The culture war is not going away. The grievances continue to accumulate. By this time next year, America will enjoy significantly less social cohesion than it has now, and sooner or soonest, the spark shower onto the mound of oily rags that is our society is going to catch.
On this note, if you didn't see, they just got handed a full $1.2B that was laundered through the label of a "loan".
EDIT: Forgot link.
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