Nanny Nanny Kishkes
A reader writes:
I always find it somewhat hypocritical when Chareidi apologists�talk critically about the �nanny state� when so much Cholov Yisroel milk is paid for with WIC…
Silly ad hominem swipe. When and how did I become a “Chareidi apologist”? I guess I’m honored on the one hand – since one man’s apologist is another’s philosopher, thinker, spokesman, representative, whatever – but flummoxed on the other, because I don’t represent anyone’s POV but my own.
Anyway, my thoughts on the subject are that there is way too much reliance on government dollars in some Charedi communities. I also think that the gov’t should stop treating our kids’ education as less valuable than anyone else’s and that parents should have complete and unfettered school choice and tuition tax credits.
This is an argument based on principles and I haven’t done the math, but I think we’d come out pretty well.
Yes we’d come out great in education, and we deserve better. But is raising a generation used to using OPM for living expenses and rent right? Are you advocating grabbing $’s here because we don’t get $’s there?
Whoa! How on earth did you leap-a to that conclusion? (sorry, couldn’t resist). I said the EXACT OPPOSITE.
I said that we should STOP relying on OPM and start relying on our own. I also said that it’s about time the government stopped taking so much of our money.
Get it? I’m AGAINST the big-government nanny state. I believe wherever possible (and it is not always possible) people should get to keep the money they earn rather than have government redistribute the wealth.
Lowering taxes, tuition tax credits and school choice is about getting to keep our money rather than have the govt pry it out of our hands and turn it into OPM. That is consistent with the idea that we should be less reliant on OPM.