From: bfish@sequent.com (Brett Fishburne)
Subject: Re: why progressive tax rates (was Re: Clinton's
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems Inc.
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 14:52:41 GMT

In article <1992Aug19.224214.19889@midway.uchicago.edu> sug6@usite-next.uchicago.edu (Patrick Sugent) writes:
>In article <1992Aug19.182455.27303@sequent.com> bfish@sequent.com (Brett Fishburne) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug19.153541.25676@midway.uchicago.edu> sug6@usite-next.uchicago.edu (Patrick Sugent) writes:
>>>In article <Bt8GIq.99E@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>>I beg your pardon?  It sounds to me like the 80s are exactly the reason that
>>we have 25-30% of the populace unable to read in some states.  Where the heck
>>is the "education" president?
[ Lots of stuff deleted ]
>
> Also, we
>did see large increases in funding to education in the 80s, so maybe
>it wasn't terribly clear until very recently that more funding would not
>be sufficient to solve the problem and that we really needed
>more fundamental reform.   What do you think?

I wish I had statistics, but my impression is that funding is rather recent
(last 2-3 years, not really in the '80s).  Additionally, as was pointed out
to me by Alan Carroll the education funding remains less than 3% of the 
budget.  Furthermore, most of the education funding comes from the states.

Beyond that general analysis, I have recently become aware of reductions in
the Head Start program and the Pell Grant program supported by the "education"
president, George Bush.

>  I would like to point out (once again) Mr. Bush's America 2000 plan.
>He hasn't pushed it hard enough for my taste, but _I_ consider it
>a positive fundamental change in our education system.  (You may not,
>but remember Mr. Clinton supported the general idea until the teachers'
>unions slapped his wrist.)

I was not aware of Mr. Clinton's support for America 2000.  I am aware that
he was at the Education Summit and supported the goals resulting from that
summit.  According to Clinton, "...while there are some impressive sayings 
in the President's "America 2000" proposal...the heart of the Bush education 
plan is to tinker around the edges, to build 535 new public schools, one for 
every congressman and senator. That's how that number was decided." (5/14/92)

>  Well, glad to see I have some support on the education issue!  I'll
>leave it to you to decide about who has better education plans.  Certainly,
>Clinton's rhetoric has been solid in this regard, however his backing down
>from the teachers' unions has left me less than certain that he will do
>little more than the status quo.

Take a look at the status quo:

Federal budget declined by 50% in the 80's, percentage of local school budgets
coming from federal funds declined "dramatically," Head Start only serving 36%
of those eligible, bilingual education bill cut 47%, worker training budget
down 26%, and vetoed a bill to allow interest on college loans an income tax
deduction. (all excerpted from Clinton's speech before Los Angles College on
5/14/92)

>When you have 20 million new jobs (or so)
>you have a lot of new entrants.

Then why is it harder then ever for college graduates to get a job?  What is
happening is that people are taking pay cuts or getting laid off and haveing
to take lower paying "new" jobs.  Right?

>  Remember, I am talking about the 80s expansion in this case.  I tell you
>what, if you are interested I will type in part of an article from
>_The Economist_ in this regard.  It is pretty good.

Please do!  I'm very interested (believe me, I would like to be wrong, but I
just don't see the job market getting better).

>  Also remember, we went from having 97.6 million employed Americans to 
>117.7 million employed Americans.  (From 1980 to 1990.)  That was a 20%
>increase when there was only a 10% growth in population.  That is
>about 20 million new entrants.

Maybe I don't follow here.  What was the population (From 1980 to 1990)?
Say the number is 130 million, just for argument.  10% growth implies that
there will be 13 million more, of which a large percentage will be babies.
Say that percent is 50%.  That means 6.5 million immigrants which would
fill about half of the new jobs.  Say another couple of million are just 
coming of age, etc.  That still doesn't work out to 20 million new entrants.
What's more, how many of those jobs were taken by green card holders?

>  What you say about "20/20" and "60 minutes" may be true, but I have
>seen little evidence that this happened on a wide scale. If you have
>a more complete analysis, I'd love to see it.

Sorry, I don't.  I'm not willing to believe that it accounts for all of the
"new" entrants, but I'll bet that it is a non-trivial percentage.  That is
going to be really hard to quantify, so I'll drop it as an argument.

[ Reference to increasing employment figures ]

>but basically what it [a graph] shows is that the
>number of employees on nonfarm payrolls peeked in about mid 1990.
>It then dropped steadily until April of 1991 and then has started
>to slowly rise since about April of 1992.  

Aren't unemployment figures also on the rise?  Doesn't this suggest that new
openings can't keep up?

>The rise in unemployment 
>has been because there have been more people entering (or re-entering)
>the work force rather than because of any fall in employment.

Unemployment figures don't count people who never had jobs (right?).  The only
count people who have lost their jobs (in the last year or so) and are 
actively seeking new employment.  As a result, I don't think rises in 
unemployment figures can be accounted for by new entrants.

This is a productive discussion and I think it may hit on some core issues  for
the upcoming election.

-- Brett
bfish@sequent.com
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.abortion,alt.politics.bush