Laws requiring the purchase of a good/service

[drewtam]

Time to stir the pot...

Imagine a State (not the Federal, but STATE) creating a voucher system so that all children are required to attend K-12; but the tax voucher allows flexibility to attend a state/local school, private school, or even reimburse much of home-schooling.

From my perspective, this is the same as being taxed and required to buy a certain good or service.

How is this fundamentally different than a STATE (not the FEDERAL, but STATE) requiring the purchase of health insurance?


It is abundantly obvious to me that Federal rights and powers are much different than State rights and powers. So I want to avoid the federalism issue of either federal mandated schooling or federal mandated health insurance. I want to ignore the federalism difference, because there is no question in my mind about that. The Federal ought not to have those powers at all.

So...
How is school mandates (especially in a voucher systems) fundamentally different than a STATE requiring the purchase of health insurance?

[Boomhauer]

From my perspective, this is the same as being taxed and required to buy a certain good or service.

I agree. So don't require one to attend K-12 school and stop taxing for it. If you want to homeschool, that's on you. If you want to send your kids to it, require it to be paid for. You can either pay cash up front or take out private loans. Mechanisms will need to be in place to prevent prices climbing to a stratospheric rate like colleges have.

Time to break the public school monopoly.

[MechAg94]

Yeah, if eveyone paid for it, the support would drop off for increases in school funding when they already spend $10K or more per student. 

How would support for armed security at schools change if the parents had to pay for it?

[roo_ster]

Time to break the public school monopoly.

This.

[drewtam]

This.

Voucher for private schools/home school. The question still stands.

[zahc]

I agree. So don't require one to attend K-12 school and stop taxing for it.

/thread

[Perd Hapley]

Perplexing OP is perplexing. What, now?

[drewtam]

Perplexing OP is perplexing. What, now?

What's perplexing?

I'm thinking through why someone (myself included) would support the legitimacy of mandatory K-12 education under a voucher system, but would turn around and argue the state cannot legitimately require purchasing other kinds of goods and services like health insurance, car insurance, a firearm, brussel sprouts, etc.


As I talk through it, one difference is that even an abjectly poor family could pay nearly no taxes, yet still use a voucher to get a decent education. It is the education that is mandatory, not the tax. Whereas mandating buying a good or service becomes a capitation tax. I suppose an income/property/sales tax and voucher system to buy the theoretically mandated item would fix that one kind of complaint - "no capitation taxes".

[birdman]

Simple.  It is unconstitutional for the FEDERAL government to do EITHER.

[brimic]

I'm thinking through why someone (myself included) would support the legitimacy of mandatory K-12 education under a voucher system, but would turn around and argue the state cannot legitimately require purchasing other kinds of goods and services like health insurance, car insurance, a firearm, brussel sprouts, etc.

Ayup. That's exactly what Justice Roberts argued.
Public schooling is funded by the government's power to tax.
Roberts argued that Obamacare is the same.

Personally, I'm not big on vouchers myself for many reasons:
1. It gets allows .gov to stick its big dirty foot in the door of your favorite private school.
2. Its targeted towards poor populations- why does a segment of a population who pays little to no property tax need to be supported even more by those that do?