I would be shocked if on balance, education revenue collection is regressive. Several reasons:

* In my state (Georgia), and I assume others, education is mostly funded through the State general fund, which is itself funded by an income tax.

* In my state, and I assume others, the impact of state funding is that there is some level of equalization that takes place whereby wealthier population centers (like Atlanta) are subsidizing poorer districts.

* In my jurisdiction, and I assume others, there is a meaningful fixed homestead exemption for your personal residence. This has the impact of lowering your effective property tax rate as the absolute value of your property gets nearer to the homestead exemption.

* Poorer districts draw on Federal funding at a substantially higher percentage of their overall funding than do wealthier ones due to the nature of these Federal programs.

* The poor benefit relatively more from a higher level of education than the wealthy because they are less likely to be able to supplement their children's education with additional resources (time & money). They are also in greater need of before/after school programs and the like.

So I do not believe that the poor are being asked to subsidize the rich when we increase resources for public education. On balance, the poor are getting the better end of that exchange.

I can't comment on the veracity of this claim but I can point out that at no point did I state or imply I hate teachers.

lol "dig deep". didnt oklahoma completely slash corporate tax rates and taxes on billion dollar oil companies?

how about they just shake out their pocket change so that teachers can exist above the poverty line?

The GPT here was cut to 2% (National average is closer to 10%) and only for the first couple years. After that there is no tax on producing wells. Additionally oil companies here pay no property tax on mineral interests which is the norm in this country. They did raise the GPT here slightly lately but still have the lowest tax rates on oil companies by a lot in the entire country.

It's corporate welfare at it's finest. The people paying the price are the rest of us who have subpar schools, crumbling infrastraucture and large reductions in state services as a result. All so Harold Hamm and his buddies can get just a little richer. That is what thenewsavman is arguing for. Corporate welfare over children's education. It/He is pure evil.

My guess is that thenewsavman is one of these GOPers making middle class money who seems himself as one of the "haves" rather than the "have not" that he actually is. That is the trick they have been playing for a long time. Convincing idiots like him to think that policy designed to enrich the billionaire class is actually going to benefit middle class people like him. The fact he is so deluded he is here proactively arguing this stuff is sad and truly sickening.

rofl another absurd goalpost shift in the midst of more terrible posting

I am from GA; this is unequivocally false.

First state income tax is only about 45% of state revenue; and the state spends roughly 50% of revenue on education. So at best you are looking at state income tax funding ~23% of the education budget.

Lastly the state income tax is highly regressive. The top state income tax bracket of 6% is reached at an income of $7000.00

Haven't read the rest of your post. Don't have time atm.

You quoted a guy saying the only people who pay property taxes are the ones who own property, and accuse me of terrible posting. lol.

We both know you won't call him out, because he's on your team, but just want to point out your intellectual dishonesty.

Let's just say you are right and the rest is collected through property taxes. IT STILL ISN'T REGRESSIVE YOU MORON. So even if you are right you are still wrong.

Please educate us. Who is paying people's property taxes if not the people who own the property. I pay 100% of the property tax on my house. If there is some program I am missing out on where I can get a homeless guy to pay it I am going to be pissed.

ETA-I also pay 100% of the property tax on the office I own for my business. I am going to be so pissed when he tells me that the property owner doesn't have to pay this and the poors really pay it.

ETA2-I am guessing he is talking about people who rent being the real people who pay this expense. I guess I don't see how that is any different from say increasing the property owner's income tax (that he pays on the rental income which we would all agree is progressive) functionally works the same as having his property tax increased for the person renting. All taxes get passed on to some extent so by this logic no tax is progressive.

Yep. You bait and switch in basically every argument you make ITT. Your posting is awful and deserves to be called out far more than anyone else's.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I've read and been told that GA's education lottery is actually used to supplement education funding and has been largely a success, is this true? (Contrast with FL who established the lottery nominally to increase education funding but then started cutting existing funding levels once lottery proceeds started rolling in.)

If you rent, you pay property tax. DUCY?

Do you pay income tax for the property holder as well on the rental income? By this logic increasing taxes on the rich is actually regressive as well as they will have to increase their rental rates to include the increase on the tax on their rental rates. Shouldn't tax the rich oil guys or oil companies either because that will make gasoline prices go up which affects the poor. I guess all tax is regressive so we should just throw our hands up stop increasing tax on people who can afford it and let the teachers live at the poverty line no big deal.

I also addressed this exact point a few posts up but you really got me good.

Not sure if serious or if this was an impersonation of how thenewsavman might have responded?

Even if true, I'm not sure "success" would be the right word for it, given that the lottery is a very regressive tax. And if people were truly getting a good education, lottery sales would be much lower.

ppl like you dont deal in facts and evidence. thats why you make posts full of blatant lies and propaganda.

You are making a rather critical error in reasoning here. Saying that the state spends roughly 50% of its revenue on education is not the equivalent of saying that education derives roughly 50% of its revenue from the state. Please consider this point before posting further.

On the contrary, the vast majority of K-12 funding in the state of Georgia comes from the state revenue fund, and the biggest bucket of revenue is state income tax.

To clarify, are you standing by your earlier statement that the biggest bucket of education funding in Georgia (or elsewhere) comes from property taxes?

Regarding the state income tax being "highly regressive" -- it is a relatively flat income tax with your standard assortment of deductions, exemptions, and credits. So by definition it is a marginally progressive form of taxation. Where does "highly regressive" come from?

He heard a liberal use the phrase once and decided to mimic it in an effort to score points.

The net funding from the GA Lottery goes to fund the Hope scholarship (a merit based college scholarship) and GA Pre-K. It does not fund K-12.

Apologies for going a bit off the rails to everyone except who it was aimed at. The bottom line is this subject really pisses me off and exposes the deplorables for what they are which is some combination of evil and willfully ignorant. I have no kids and don't plan to have any but a bad public education system negatively affects everyone whether you use it or not. To me I don't understand how anyone could see it any other way. When we have entire state school systems that have had their budgets cut for years to the point where the kids don't have books or access to basic school supplies all so that the rich can get richer there is something seriously wrong with our system. And isn't that a microcosm of the bigger problem that is going on in America right now? The level of evil that you have to be to defend choices like that concern me a lot.

I agree with those that say it is purposeful. People like thenewsavman are literally threatened by education because their entire existences are built on lies , igonorance and intolerance. Education strives to correct those issues. It strives to teach people to think critically. By continuing to destroy the system they can keep pumping out new thenewsavmans who blindly listen to Rush/Hannity for their education and think the dishonest sound bytes and regurgitated gotchas that they say to liberals as a reflex are actually intelligent. The scary thing about the right wing of our country is that they don't want to change, they don't want to reflect on their views, they dont want to refine their views and they certainly don't ever want to come to terms that they are wrong. So they continue to build up these insane arguments and constructs to insulate themselves from those possibilities. It is anti-intellectualism at its worst and frankly education is the only thing that keeps this cycle from repeating.

Well said.

As mentioned before, I teach HS math and have done that for nine years.

Agree in theory, but this is hard to do in practice. On one hand, your achievements do impact your salary. Most teachers are paid according to a matrix. One side your years teaching and the other is your education level (BA --> Masters --> PhD). Additionally, most places will give you additional money for being Nationally Board Certified (my district offers a $5000 annual bonus for 10 years for this).

That said, it's very difficult to quantify what makes a teacher an effective teacher. Test scores don't really tell the story. There is more of an art than a science to evaluating excellent to poor teachers.

Basically - I understand why the salary system is set up the way it is and I don't have a great answer to how else to compensate teachers in a way that is more free market. As someone ITT mentioned - some schools (or school districts) offer better packages than others and that draws higher quality candidates.

- Teachers who actually make the median salary for a teacher (~$60k + a pension) for working ~10 months per year are being paid relatively well compared to the average person.

- They are probably being underpaid relative to the importance of the job.

- They are not working 65 hr weeks lol come on.

- Teachers that are working in these states and getting paid ~$40k and even less, on the other hand, are not being paid well at all.

- No teacher anywhere should feel that they have to come out of pocket for supplies. I realize this is common and it is absurd.

Meh, this is true of a huge number of private sector jobs and they pretty much all manage to do a better job of incentivizing performance than any government job does.

No they don't.

I'll get back to you on GA; Reading specifically about OK finances (I was able to find good info there) property taxes are a lower portion of the education fund than I previously thought. Maybe local ad valorem taxes have funded a decreasing percentage over time, maybe OK isn't representative of the rest of the US, or maybe I just flat out had general structure of education funding wrong in my mind.

At any rate local ad valorem taxes are ~27% of the education fund and vehicle tag taxes (another ad valorem tax, although it's in the state bucket) are an additional ~5%; so not quite 1/3 of the education budget is funded through property taxes. A large amount but not as much as I previously thought.

In OK Federal dollars are another ~13% and the balance of ~60% is from the state level. 83% of state revenue is sourced from Sales and Gross Receipts taxes and Income taxes, with moderately more revenue from the former which is extremely regressive; The top bracket in the income tax is 8700.00 dollars which I would argue is regressive insofar as it places a much greater hardship the lesser the income due to the decreasing marginal utility of money, but I'll concede calling state income tax a flat tax is a more accurate, if imo flawed, descriptor.

Having said that my overall point stands:In OK, with 87% percent of school funding coming from the state and local level, whose tax systems are largely regressive, before people accept it as axiomatic that teachers are underpaid and therefore must receive a raise I'd implore you to think about where that money comes from.

Highest on those that can afford it the least. Cite.

Since we are talking about Oklahoma, we don't have to implore anyone about about "where that money comes from". The legislature is eliminating a capital gains tax exemption and increasing taxes on oil & gas companies.

But the poor do appreciate your concern.