Utah puts more money into public schools than most other states, still spending per student is the lowest in the country. Utah has a comparatively high tax obligation, with 28.8 percent of the state and local tax dollars being spent on education. Funding education in Utah is especially difficult because of the large number of school children.
A recent study shows that Western states fall behind Eastern states in education spending. In the East, per student spending is more than double what it is in the West.
US Representatives Chris Cannon and Rob Bishop argue that the decline in per-pupil spending is directly related to untaxed federal lands. They propose to tax the Federal Government's vast landholdings across 12 Western states which include: Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, California, Alaska, Arizona and New Mexico. The quantity of land that is Federally owned for National Parks, national Monuments, National Forests, National Wildlife Refuges, and BLM lands in these states range from 29 to 81 percent of the state's land. No Eastern state has more than 14 percent of its lands federally owned.
These national Parks, national Monuments etc. have been designated for the enjoyment of all people. I believe those same people should be responsible for their proportionate share of the property taxes to fund the schools.
2 comments:
Taking back some of the Federally owned land could also be another proposal that the the states maybe could seek. What I mean is the idea of leasing some of this land back to the Federal government. The leases would be paid for by all U.S. citizens, so as to not just tax those of us living in the West.
This is typical: 1) we need more tax revenue, and 2) let's tax someone who is not us (at least superficially).
Also, how can "Utah puts more money into public schools than most other states, still spending per student is the lowest in the country". Does that fact make sense?
More broadly, do you know of any other business that we measure by the size of its inputs rather than its outputs? That's what the funding is, an input. I'd say that if we're looking at anything other than the quality of graduates then there's already a problem.
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